diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16643-0.txt | 10210 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16643-0.zip | bin | 0 -> 227124 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16643-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 317800 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16643-h/16643-h.htm | 10725 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16643-h/images/image_01.jpg | bin | 0 -> 18051 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16643-h/images/image_02.jpg | bin | 0 -> 33513 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/16643-8.txt | 10231 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/16643-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 227248 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/16643.txt | 10231 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/16643.zip | bin | 0 -> 227158 bytes |
13 files changed, 41413 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16643-0.txt b/16643-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2d92a67 --- /dev/null +++ b/16643-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10210 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Essays + +Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson + +Editor: Edna H. L. Turpin + +Release Date: September 4, 2005 [eBook #16643] +[Most recently updated: April 29, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Curtis A. Weyant, Sankar Viswanathan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS *** + + + + + ESSAYS + + BY + + RALPH WALDO EMERSON + + + + + Merrill's English Texts + + SELECTED AND EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION + AND NOTES, BY EDNA H.L. TURPIN, AUTHOR + OF "STORIES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY," + "CLASSIC FABLES," "FAMOUS PAINTERS," ETC. + + + + NEW YORK + + CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. + + 1907 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + LIFE OF EMERSON + CRITICAL OPINIONS + CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PRINCIPAL WORKS + +THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR + +COMPENSATION + +SELF RELIANCE + +FRIENDSHIP + +HEROISM + +MANNERS + +GIFTS + +NATURE + +SHAKESPEARE; OR, THE POET + +PRUDENCE + +CIRCLES + +NOTES + + + + +PUBLISHERS' NOTE + +Merrill's English Texts + + +This series of books will include in complete editions those +masterpieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the use +of schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes will be +chosen for their special qualifications in connection with the texts +to be issued under their individual supervision, but familiarity with +the practical needs of the classroom, no less than sound scholarship, +will characterize the editing of every book in the series. + +In connection with each text, a critical and historical introduction, +including a sketch of the life of the author and his relation to the +thought of his time, critical opinions of the work in question chosen +from the great body of English criticism, and, where possible, a +portrait of the author, will be given. Ample explanatory notes of such +passages in the text as call for special attention will be supplied, +but irrelevant annotation and explanations of the obvious will be +rigidly excluded. + +CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. + + + + +LIFE OF EMERSON + + +Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, May 25, 1803. He was descended +from a long line of New England ministers, men of refinement and +education. As a school-boy he was quiet and retiring, reading a great +deal, but not paying much attention to his lessons. He entered Harvard +at the early age of fourteen, but never attained a high rank there, +although he took a prize for an essay on Socrates, and was made class +poet after several others had declined. Next to his reserve and the +faultless propriety of his conduct, his contemporaries at college +seemed most impressed by the great maturity of his mind. Emerson +appears never to have been really a boy. He was always serene and +thoughtful, impressing all who knew him with that spirituality which +was his most distinguishing characteristic. + +After graduating from college he taught school for a time, and then +entered the Harvard Divinity School under Dr. Channing, the great +Unitarian preacher. Although he was not strong enough to attend all +the lectures of the divinity course, the college authorities deemed +the name Emerson sufficient passport to the ministry. He was +accordingly "approbated to preach" by the Middlesex Association of +Ministers on October 10, 1826. As a preacher, Emerson was interesting, +though not particularly original. His talent seems to have been in +giving new meaning to the old truths of religion. One of his hearers +has said: "In looking back on his preaching I find he has impressed +truths to which I always assented in such a manner as to make them +appear new, like a clearer revelation." Although his sermons were +always couched in scriptural language, they were touched with the +light of that genius which avoids the conventional and commonplace. In +his other pastoral duties Emerson was not quite so successful. It is +characteristic of his deep humanity and his dislike for all fuss and +commonplace that he appeared to least advantage at a funeral. A +connoisseur in such matters, an old sexton, once remarked that on such +occasions "he did not appear at ease at all. To tell the truth, in my +opinion, that young man was not born to be a minister." + +Emerson did not long remain a minister. In 1832 he preached a sermon +in which he announced certain views in regard to the communion service +which were disapproved by a large part of his congregation. He found +it impossible to continue preaching, and, with the most friendly +feelings on both sides, he parted from his congregation. + +A few months later (1833) he went to Europe for a short year of +travel. While abroad, he visited Walter Savage Landor, Coleridge and +Wordsworth, and Thomas Carlyle. This visit to Carlyle was to both men +a most interesting experience. They parted feeling that they had much +intellectually in common. This belief fostered a sympathy which, by +the time they had discovered how different they really were, had grown +so strong a habit that they always kept up their intimacy. This year +of travel opened Emerson's eyes to many things of which he had +previously been ignorant; he had profited by detachment from the +concerns of a limited community and an isolated church. + +After his return he began to find his true field of activity in the +lecture-hall, and delivered a number of addresses in Boston and its +vicinity. While thus coming before the open public on the lecture +platform, he was all the time preparing the treatise which was to +embody all the quintessential elements of his philosophical doctrine. +This was the essay _Nature_, which was published in 1836. By its +conception of external Nature as an incarnation of the Divine Mind it +struck the fundamental principle of Emerson's religious belief. The +essay had a very small circulation at first, though later it became +widely known. + +In the winter of 1836 Emerson followed up his discourse on Nature by a +course of twelve lectures on the "Philosophy of History," a +considerable portion of which eventually became embodied in his +essays. The next year (1837) was the year of the delivery of the _Man +Thinking, or the American Scholar_ address before the Phi Beta Kappa +Society at Cambridge. + +This society, composed of the first twenty-five men in each class +graduating from college, has annual meetings which have called forth +the best efforts of many distinguished scholars and thinkers. +Emerson's address was listened to with the most profound interest. It +declared a sort of intellectual independence for America. Henceforth +we were to be emancipated from clogging foreign influences, and a +national literature was to expand under the fostering care of the +Republic. + +These two discourses, _Nature_ and _The American Scholar_, strike the +keynote of Emerson's philosophical, poetical, and moral teachings. In +fact he had, as every great teacher has, only a limited number of +principles and theories to teach. These principles of life can all be +enumerated in twenty words--self-reliance, culture, intellectual and +moral independence, the divinity of nature and man, the necessity of +labor, and high ideals. + +Emerson spent the latter part of his life in lecturing and in literary +work. His son, Dr. Edward Emerson, gave an interesting account of how +these lectures were constructed. "All through his life he kept a +journal. This book, he said, was his 'Savings Bank.' The thoughts thus +received and garnered in his journals were indexed, and a great many +of them appeared in his published works. They were religiously set +down just as they came, in no order except chronological, but later +they were grouped, enlarged or pruned, illustrated, worked into a +lecture or discourse, and, after having in this capacity undergone +repeated testing and rearranging, were finally carefully sifted and +more rigidly pruned, and were printed as essays." + +Besides his essays and lectures Emerson left some poetry in which is +embodied those thoughts which were to him too deep for prose +expression. Oliver Wendell Holmes in speaking of this says: "Emerson +wrote occasionally in verse from his school-days until he had reached +the age which used to be known as the grand climacteric, +sixty-three.... His poems are not and hardly can become popular; they +are not meant to be liked by the many, but to be dearly loved and +cherished by the few.... His occasional lawlessness in technical +construction, his somewhat fantastic expressions, his enigmatic +obscurities hardly detract from the pleasant surprise his verses so +often bring with them.... The poetic license which we allow in the +verse of Emerson is more than excused by the noble spirit which makes +us forget its occasional blemishes, sometimes to be pleased with them +as characteristic of the writer." + +Emerson was always a striking figure in the intellectual life of +America. His discourses were above all things inspiring. Through them +many were induced to strive for a higher self-culture. His influence +can be discerned in all the literary movements of the time. He was the +central figure of the so-called transcendental school which was so +prominent fifty years ago, although he always rather held aloof from +any enthusiastic participation in the movement. + +Emerson lived a quiet life in Concord, Massachusetts. "He was a +first-rate neighbor and one who always kept his fences up." He +traveled extensively on his lecturing tours, even going as far as +England. In _English Traits_ he has recorded his impressions of what +he saw of English life and manners. + +Oliver Wendell Holmes has described him in this wise: "His personal +appearance was that of the typical New Englander of college-bred +ancestry. Tall, spare, slender, with sloping shoulders, slightly +stooping in his later years, with light hair and eyes, the scholar's +complexion, the prominent, somewhat arched nose which belongs to many +of the New England sub-species, thin lips, suggestive of delicacy, but +having nothing like primness, still less of the rigidity which is +often noticeable in the generation succeeding next to that of the men +in their shirt-sleeves, he would have been noticed anywhere as one +evidently a scholarly thinker astray from the alcove or the study, +which were his natural habitats. His voice was very sweet, and +penetrating without any loudness or mark of effort. His enunciation +was beautifully clear, but he often hesitated as if waiting for the +right word to present itself. His manner was very quiet, his smile was +pleasant, but he did not like explosive laughter any better than +Hawthorne did. None who met him can fail to recall that serene and +kindly presence, in which there was mingled a certain spiritual +remoteness with the most benignant human welcome to all who were +privileged to enjoy his companionship." + +Emerson died April 27, 1882, after a few days' illness from pneumonia. +Dr. Garnett in his excellent biography says: "Seldom had 'the reaper +whose name is Death' gathered such illustrious harvest as between +December 1880 and April 1882. In the first month of this period George +Eliot passed away, in the ensuing February Carlyle followed; in April +Lord Beaconsfield died, deplored by his party, nor unregretted by his +country; in February of the following year Longfellow was carried to +the tomb; in April Rossetti was laid to rest by the sea, and the +pavement of Westminster Abbey was disturbed to receive the dust of +Darwin. And now Emerson lay down in death beside the painter of man +and the searcher of nature, the English-Oriental statesman, the poet +of the plain man and the poet of the artist, and the prophet whose +name is indissolubly linked with his own. All these men passed into +eternity laden with the spoils of Time, but of none of them could it +be said, as of Emerson, that the most shining intellectual glory and +the most potent intellectual force of a continent had departed along +with him." + + + + +CRITICAL OPINIONS OF EMERSON AND HIS WRITINGS. + + +Matthew Arnold, in an address on Emerson delivered in Boston, gave +an excellent estimate of the rank we should accord to him in the great +hierarchy of letters. Some, perhaps, will think that Arnold was +unappreciative and cold, but dispassionate readers will be inclined to +agree with his judgment of our great American. + +After a review of the poetical works of Emerson the English critic +draws his conclusions as follows: + +"I do not then place Emerson among the great poets. But I go farther, +and say that I do not place him among the great writers, the great men +of letters. Who are the great men of letters? They are men like +Cicero, Plato, Bacon, Pascal, Swift, Voltaire--writers with, in the +first place, a genius and instinct for style.... Brilliant and +powerful passages in a man's writings do not prove his possession of +it. Emerson has passages of noble and pathetic eloquence; he has +passages of shrewd and felicitous wit; he has crisp epigram; he has +passages of exquisitely touched observation of nature. Yet he is not a +great writer.... Carlyle formulates perfectly the defects of his +friend's poetic and literary productions when he says: 'For me it is +too ethereal, speculative, theoretic; I will have all things condense +themselves, take shape and body, if they are to have my sympathy.' ... + +".... Not with the Miltons and Grays, not with the Platos and Spinozas, +not with the Swifts and Voltaires, not with the Montaignes and +Addisons, can we rank Emerson. No man could see this clearer than +Emerson himself. 'Alas, my friend,' he writes in reply to Carlyle, who +had exhorted him to creative work,--'Alas, my friend, I can do no such +gay thing as you say. I do not belong to the poets, but only to a low +department of literature,--the reporters; suburban men.' He deprecated +his friend's praise; praise 'generous to a fault' he calls it; praise +'generous to the shaming of me,--cold, fastidious, ebbing person that +I am.'" + +After all this unfavorable criticism Arnold begins to praise. Quoting +passages from the Essays, he adds: + +"This is tonic indeed! And let no one object that it is too general; +that more practical, positive direction is what we want.... Yes, +truly, his insight is admirable; his truth is precious. Yet the secret +of his effect is not even in these; it is in his temper. It is in the +hopeful, serene, beautiful temper wherewith these, in Emerson, are +indissolubly united; in which they work and have their being.... One +can scarcely overrate the importance of holding fast to happiness and +hope. It gives to Emerson's work an invaluable virtue. As Wordsworth's +poetry is, in my judgment, the most important done in verse, in our +language, during the present century, so Emerson's Essays are, I +think, the most important work done in prose.... But by his conviction +that in the life of the spirit is happiness, and by his hope that this +life of the spirit will come more and more to be sanely understood, +and to prevail, and to work for happiness,--by this conviction and +hope Emerson was great, and he will surely prove in the end to have +been right in them.... You cannot prize him too much, nor heed him too +diligently." + +Herman Grimm, a German critic of great influence in his own country, +did much to obtain a hearing for Emerson's works in Germany. At first +the Germans could not understand the unusual English, the unaccustomed +turns of phrase which are so characteristic of Emerson's style. + +"Macaulay gives them no difficulty; even Carlyle is comprehended. But +in Emerson's writings the broad turnpike is suddenly changed into a +hazardous sandy foot-path. His thoughts and his style are American. He +is not writing for Berlin, but for the people of Massachusetts.... It +is an art to rise above what we have been taught.... All great men are +seen to possess this freedom. They derive their standard from their +own natures, and their observations on life are so natural and +spontaneous that it would seem as if the most illiterate person with a +scrap of common-sense would have made the same.... We become wiser +with them, and know not how the difficult appears easy and the +involved plain. + +"Emerson possesses this noble manner of communicating himself. He +inspires me with courage and confidence. He has read and seen but +conceals the labor. I meet in his works plenty of familiar facts, but +he does not employ them to figure up anew the old worn-out problems: +each stands on a new spot and serves for new combinations. From +everything he sees the direct line issuing which connects it with the +focus of life.... + +".... Emerson's theory is that of the 'sovereignty of the individual.' +To discover what a young man is good for, and to equip him for the +path he is to strike out in life, regardless of any other +consideration, is the great duty to which he calls attention. He makes +men self-reliant. He reveals to the eyes of the idealist the +magnificent results of practical activity, and unfolds before the +realist the grandeur of the ideal world of thought. No man is to allow +himself, through prejudice, to make a mistake in choosing the task to +which he will devote his life. Emerson's essays are, as it were, +printed sermons--all having this same text.... The wealth and harmony +of his language overpowered and entranced me anew. But even now I +cannot say wherein the secret of his influence lies. What he has +written is like life itself--the unbroken thread ever lengthened +through the addition of the small events which make up each day's +experience." + +Froude in his famous "Life of Carlyle" gives an interesting description +of Emerson's visit to the Carlyles in Scotland: + +"The Carlyles were sitting alone at dinner on a Sunday afternoon at +the end of August when a Dumfries carriage drove to the door, and +there stepped out of it a young American then unknown to fame, but +whose influence in his own country equals that of Carlyle in ours, and +whose name stands connected with his wherever the English language is +spoken. Emerson, the younger of the two, had just broken his Unitarian +fetters, and was looking out around him like a young eagle longing for +light. He had read Carlyle's articles and had discerned with the +instinct of genius that here was a voice speaking real and fiery +convictions, and no longer echoes and conventionalisms. He had come to +Europe to study its social and spiritual phenomena; and to the young +Emerson as to the old Goethe, the most important of them appeared to +be Carlyle.... The acquaintance then begun to their mutual pleasure +ripened into a deep friendship, which has remained unclouded in spite +of wide divergences of opinion throughout their working lives." + +Carlyle wrote to his mother after Emerson had left: + +"Our third happiness was the arrival of a certain young unknown friend +named Emerson, from Boston, in the United States, who turned aside so +far from his British, French, and Italian travels to see me here! He +had an introduction from Mill and a Frenchman (Baron d'Eichthal's +nephew) whom John knew at Rome. Of course, we could do no other than +welcome him; the rather as he seemed to be one of the most lovable +creatures in himself we had ever looked on. He stayed till next day +with us, and talked and heard to his heart's content, and left us all +really sad to part with him." + +In 1841 Carlyle wrote to John Sterling a few words apropos of the +recent publication of Emerson's essays in England: + +"I love Emerson's book, not for its detached opinions, not even for +the scheme of the general world he has framed for himself, or any +eminence of talent he has expressed that with, but simply because it +is his own book; because there is a tone of veracity, an unmistakable +air of its being _his_, and a real utterance of a human soul, not a +mere echo of such. I consider it, in that sense, highly remarkable, +rare, very rare, in these days of ours. Ach Gott! It is frightful to +live among echoes. The few that read the book, I imagine, will get +benefit of it. To America, I sometimes say that Emerson, such as he +is, seems to me like a kind of New Era." + +John Morley, the acute English critic, has made an analytic study of +Emerson's style, which may reconcile the reader to some of its +exasperating peculiarities. + +"One of the traits that every critic notes in Emerson's writing is +that it is so abrupt, so sudden in its transitions, so discontinuous, +so inconsecutive. Dislike of a sentence that drags made him +unconscious of the quality that French critics name _coulant_. +Everything is thrown in just as it comes, and sometimes the pell-mell +is enough to persuade us that Pope did not exaggerate when he said +that no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer as the +power of rejecting his own thoughts.... Apart from his difficult +staccato, Emerson is not free from secondary faults. He uses words +that are not only odd, but vicious in construction; he is sometimes +oblique and he is often clumsy; and there is a visible feeling after +epigrams that do not always come. When people say that Emerson's style +must be good and admirable because it fits his thought, they forget +that though it is well that a robe should fit, there is still +something to be said about its cut and fashion.... Yet, as happens to +all fine minds, there came to Emerson ways of expression deeply marked +with character. On every page there is set the strong stamp of +sincerity, and the attraction of a certain artlessness; the most +awkward sentence rings true; and there is often a pure and simple note +that touches us more than if it were the perfection of elaborated +melody. The uncouth procession of the periods discloses the travail of +the thought, and that, too, is a kind of eloquence. An honest reader +easily forgives the rude jolt or unexpected start when it shows a +thinker faithfully working his way along arduous and unworn tracks. +Even at the roughest, Emerson often interjects a delightful cadence. +As he says of Landor, his sentences are cubes which will stand firm, +place them how or where you will. He criticised Swedenborg for being +superfluously explanatory, and having an exaggerated feeling of the +ignorance of men. 'Men take truths of this nature,' said Emerson, +'very fast;' and his own style does no doubt very boldly take this +capacity for granted in us. In 'choice and pith of diction,' again, of +which Mr. Lowell speaks, he hits the mark with a felicity that is +almost his own in this generation. He is terse, concentrated, and free +from the important blunder of mistaking intellectual dawdling for +meditation. Nor in fine does his abruptness ever impede a true +urbanity. The accent is homely and the apparel plain, but his bearing +has a friendliness, a courtesy, a hospitable humanity, which goes +nearer to our hearts than either literary decoration or rhetorical +unction. That modest and lenient fellow-feeling which gave such charm +to his companionship breathes in his gravest writing, and prevents us +from finding any page of it cold or hard or dry." + +E.P. Whipple, the well-known American critic, wrote soon after Emerson's +death: + +"But 'sweetness and light' are precious and inspiring only so far as +they express the essential sweetness of the disposition of the +thinker, and the essential illuminating power of his intelligence. +Emerson's greatness came from his character. Sweetness and light +streamed from him because they were _in_ him. In everything he +thought, wrote, and did, we feel the presence of a personality as +vigorous and brave as it was sweet, and the particular radical thought +he at any time expressed derived its power to animate and illuminate +other minds from the might of the manhood, which was felt to be within +and behind it. To 'sweetness and light' he therefore added the prime +quality of fearless manliness. + +"If the force of Emerson's character was thus inextricably blended +with the force of all his faculties of intellect and imagination, and +the refinement of all his sentiments, we have still to account for the +peculiarities of his genius, and to answer the question, why do we +instinctively apply the epithet 'Emersonian' to every characteristic +passage in his writings? We are told that he was the last in a long +line of clergymen, his ancestors, and that the modern doctrine of +heredity accounts for the impressive emphasis he laid on the moral +sentiment; but that does not solve the puzzle why he unmistakably +differed in his nature and genius from all other Emersons. An +imaginary genealogical chart of descent connecting him with Confucius +or Gautama would be more satisfactory. + +"What distinguishes _the_ Emerson was his exceptional genius and +character, that something in him which separated him from all other +Emersons, as it separated him from all other eminent men of letters, +and impressed every intelligent reader with the feeling that he was +not only 'original but aboriginal.' Some traits of his mind and +character may be traced back to his ancestors, but what doctrine of +heredity can give us the genesis of his genius? Indeed, the safest +course to pursue is to quote his own words, and despairingly confess +that it is the nature of genius 'to spring, like the rainbow daughter +of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse all +history.'" + + + + +CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF EMERSON'S PRINCIPAL WORKS. + + +Nature 1836 +Essays (First Series) 1841 +Essays (Second Series) 1844 +Poems 1847 +Miscellanies 1849 +Representative Men 1850 +English Traits 1856 +Conduct of Life 1860 +Society and Solitude 1870 +Correspondence of Thomas +Carlyle and R.W. Emerson 1883 + + + + +THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. + + This address was delivered at Cambridge in 1837, before the + Harvard Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, a college + fraternity composed of the first twenty-five men in each + graduating class. The society has annual meetings, which + have been the occasion for addresses from the most + distinguished scholars and thinkers of the day. + + +MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN, + +I greet you on the recommencement of our literary year. Our +anniversary is one of hope, and, perhaps, not enough of labor. We do +not meet for games of strength[1] or skill, for the recitation of +histories, tragedies, and odes, like the ancient Greeks; for +parliaments of love and poesy, like the Troubadours;[2] nor for the +advancement of science, like our co-temporaries in the British and +European capitals. Thus far, our holiday has been simply a friendly +sign of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy +to give to letters any more. As such it is precious as the sign of an +indestructible instinct. Perhaps the time is already come when it +ought to be, and will be, something else; when the sluggard intellect +of this continent will look from under its iron lids and fill the +postponed expectation of the world with something better than the +exertions of mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, our long +apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The +millions that around us are rushing into life cannot always be fed on +the sere remains of foreign harvests.[3] Events, actions arise that +must be sung, that will sing themselves. Who can doubt that poetry +will revive and lead in a new age, as the star in the constellation +Harp, which now flames in our zenith, astronomers announce, shall one +day be the pole-star[4] for a thousand years? + +In the light of this hope I accept the topic which not only usage but +the nature of our association seem to prescribe to this day,--the +AMERICAN SCHOLAR. Year by year we come up hither to read one +more chapter of his biography. Let us inquire what new lights, new +events, and more days have thrown on his character, his duties, and +his hopes. + +It is one of those fables which out of an unknown antiquity convey an +unlooked-for wisdom, that the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into +men, that he might be more helpful to himself; just as the hand was +divided into fingers, the better to answer its end.[5] + +The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is +One Man,--present to all particular men only partially, or through one +faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole +man. Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is +all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and +soldier. In the _divided_ or social state these functions are parceled +out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint[6] of the joint +work, whilst each other performs his. The fable implies that the +individual, to possess himself, must sometimes return from his own +labor to embrace all the other laborers. But, unfortunately, this +original unit, this fountain of power, has been so distributed to +multitudes, has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out, that it +is spilled into drops, and cannot be gathered. The state of society is +one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk and +strut about so many walking monsters,--a good finger, a neck, a +stomach, an elbow, but never a man. + +Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, +who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered +by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel +and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead +of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth +to his work, but is ridden[7] by the routine of his craft, and the +soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the attorney a +statute-book; the mechanic a machine; the sailor a rope of the ship. + +In this distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated +intellect. In the right state he is _Man Thinking_. In the degenerate +state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, +or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking. + +In this view of him, as Man Thinking, the whole theory of his office +is contained. Him Nature solicits with all her placid, all her +monitory pictures.[8] Him the past instructs. Him the future invites. +Is not indeed every man a student, and do not all things exist for the +student's behoof? And, finally, is not the true scholar the only true +master? But as the old oracle said, "All things have two handles: +Beware of the wrong one."[9] In life, too often, the scholar errs with +mankind and forfeits his privilege. Let us see him in his school, and +consider him in reference to the main influences he receives. + + * * * * * + +I. The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon +the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun;[10] and, after sunset, +Night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. Every +day, men and women, conversing, beholding and beholden.[11] The scholar +must needs stand wistful and admiring before this great spectacle. He +must settle its value in his mind. What is nature to him? There is never +a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of +this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.[12] +Therein it resembles his own spirit, whose beginning, whose ending, he +never can find,--so entire, so boundless. Far too as her splendors +shine, system on system shooting like rays, upward, downward, without +center, without circumference,--in the mass and in the particle, Nature +hastens to render account of herself to the mind. Classification begins. +To the young mind everything is individual, stands by itself. By and by +it finds how to join two things and see in them one nature; then three, +then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying +instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, +discovering roots running under ground whereby contrary and remote +things cohere and flower out from one stem. It presently learns that +since the dawn of history there has been a constant accumulation and +classifying of facts. But what is classification but the perceiving that +these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law which +is also a law of the human mind? The astronomer discovers that geometry, +a pure abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of planetary +motion. The chemist finds proportions and intelligible method throughout +matter; and science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in +the most remote parts. The ambitious soul sits down before each +refractory fact; one after another reduces all strange constitutions, +all new powers, to their class and their law, and goes on forever to +animate the last fiber of organization, the outskirts of nature, by +insight. + +Thus to him, to this school-boy under the bending dome of day, is +suggested that he and it proceed from one Root; one is leaf and one is +flower; relation, sympathy, stirring in every vein. And what is that +root? Is not that the soul of his soul?--A thought too bold?--A dream +too wild? Yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of +more earthly natures,--when he has learned to worship the soul, and to +see that the natural philosophy that now is, is only the first +gropings of its gigantic hand,--he shall look forward to an +ever-expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator.[13] He shall see +that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for +part. One is seal and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his +own mind. Its laws are the laws of his own mind. Nature then becomes +to him the measure of his attainments. So much of nature as he is +ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he not yet possess. And, in +fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself,"[14] and the modern precept, +"Study nature," become at last one maxim. + + * * * * * + +II. The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar is the +mind of the Past,--in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of +institutions, that mind is inscribed. Books are the best type of the +influence of the past, and perhaps we shall get at the truth,--learn +the amount of this influence more conveniently,--by considering their +value alone. + +The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received +into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new +arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again. It came into him +life; it went out from him truth. It came to him short-lived actions; +it went out from him immortal thoughts. It came to him business; it +went from him poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It +can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now +inspires.[15] Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which +it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing. + +Or, I might say, it depends on how far the process had gone, of +transmuting life into truth. In proportion to the completeness of the +distillation, so will the purity and imperishableness of the product +be. But none is quite perfect. As no air-pump can by any means make a +perfect vacuum,[16] so neither can any artist entirely exclude the +conventional, the local, the perishable from his book, or write a book +of pure thought, that shall be as efficient, in all respects, to a +remote posterity, as to contemporaries, or rather to the second age. +Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each +generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will +not fit this. + +Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacredness which attaches to +the act of creation, the act of thought, is instantly transferred to +the record. The poet chanting was felt to be a divine man. Henceforth +the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit. +Henceforward it is settled the book is perfect; as love of the hero +corrupts into worship of his statue. Instantly the book becomes +noxious.[17] The guide is a tyrant. We sought a brother, and lo, a +governor. The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, always +slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, +having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry if +it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by +thinkers, not by Man Thinking, by men of talent, that is, who start +wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of +principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their +duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke,[18] which +Bacon,[19] have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were +only young men in libraries when they wrote these books. + +Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence the +book-learned class, who value books, as such; not as related to nature +and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate[20] +with the world and soul. Hence the restorers of readings,[21] the +emendators,[22] the bibliomaniacs[23] of all degrees. This is bad; +this is worse than it seems. + +Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What +is the right use? What is the one end which all means go to effect? +They are for nothing but to inspire.[24] I had better never see a book +than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and +made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world of +value is the active soul,--the soul, free, sovereign, active. This +every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although +in almost all men obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees +absolute truth and utters truth, or creates. In this action it is +genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound +estate of every man.[25] In its essence it is progressive. The book, +the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with +some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they,--let us hold by +this. They pin me down.[26] They look backward and not forward. But +genius always looks forward. The eyes of man are set in his forehead, +not in his hindhead. Man hopes. Genius creates. To create,--to +create,--is the proof of a divine presence. Whatever talents may be, +if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not +his;[27]--cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are +creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative words; +manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or +authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good +and fair. + +On the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it receive +always from another mind its truth, though it were in torrents of +light, without periods of solitude, inquest, and self-recovery; and a +fatal disservice[28] is done. Genius is always sufficiently the enemy +of genius by over-influence.[29] The literature of every nation bear +me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakespearized now for two +hundred years.[30] + +Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly +subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. +Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, +the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of +their readings.[31] But when the intervals of darkness come, as come +they must,--when the soul seeth not, when the sun is hid and the stars +withdraw their shining,--we repair to the lamps which were kindled by +their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn +is.[32] We hear, that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, "A +fig-tree, looking on a fig-tree, becometh fruitful." + +It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the +best books. They impress us ever with the conviction that one nature +wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great +English poets, of Chaucer,[33] of Marvell,[34] of Dryden,[35] with the +most modern joy,--with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part +caused by the abstraction of all _time_ from their verses. There is +some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived +in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which +lies close to my own soul, that which I also had well-nigh thought and +said. But for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical +doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should suppose some +pre-established harmony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and +some preparation of stores for their future wants, like the fact +observed in insects, who lay up food before death for the young grub +they shall never see. + +I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration of +instincts, to underrate the Book. We all know that as the human body +can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the +broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge. And +great and heroic men have existed who had almost no other information +than by the printed page. I only would say that it needs a strong head +to bear that diet. One must be an inventor to read well. As the +proverb says, "He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies must +carry out the wealth of the Indies." There is then creative reading as +well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and +invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with +manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense +of our author is as broad as the world. We then see, what is always +true, that as the seer's hour of vision is short and rare among heavy +days and months, so is its record, perchance, the least part of his +volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato[36] or Shakespeare, +only that least part,--only the authentic utterances of the +oracle;--all the rest he rejects, were it never so many times Plato's +and Shakespeare's. + +Of course there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise +man. History and exact science he must learn by laborious reading. +Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office,--to teach +elements. But they can only highly serve us when they aim not to +drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various +genius to their hospitable halls, and by the concentrated fires set +the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are natures +in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns[37] and +pecuniary foundations,[38] though of towns of gold, can never +countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit.[39] Forget this, +and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, +whilst they grow richer every year. + + * * * * * + +III. There goes in the world a notion that the scholar should be a +recluse, a valetudinarian,[40]--as unfit for any handiwork or public +labor as a penknife for an axe. The so-called "practical men" sneer at +speculative men, as if, because they speculate or _see_, they could do +nothing. I have heard it said that the clergy--who are always, more +universally than any other class, the scholars of their day--are +addressed as women; that the rough, spontaneous conversation of men +they do not hear, but only a mincing[41] and diluted speech. They are +often virtually disfranchised; and indeed there are advocates for +their celibacy. As far as this is true of the studious classes, it is +not just and wise. Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is +essential. Without it he is not yet man. Without it thought can never +ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of +beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, but +there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. The preamble[42] of +thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious +to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. +Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not. + +The world--this shadow of the soul, or _other me_, lies wide around. +Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me +acquainted with myself. I launch eagerly into this resounding tumult. +I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to +suffer and to work, taught by an instinct that so shall the dumb +abyss[43] be vocal with speech. I pierce its order; I dissipate its +fear;[44] I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So +much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness +have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my +dominion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his +nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is +pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, +want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar +grudges every opportunity of action passed by, as a loss of power. + +It is the raw material out of which the intellect molds her splendid +products. A strange process too, this by which experience is converted +into thought, as a mulberry-leaf is converted into satin.[45] The +manufacture goes forward at all hours. + +The actions and events of our childhood and youth are now matters of +calmest observation. They lie like fair pictures in the air. Not so +with our recent actions,--with the business which we now have in hand. +On this we are quite unable to speculate. Our affections as yet +circulate through it. We no more feel or know it than we feel the +feet, or the hand, or the brain of our body. The new deed is yet a +part of life,--remains for a time immersed in our unconscious life. In +some contemplative hour it detaches itself from the life like a ripe +fruit,[46] to become a thought of the mind. Instantly it is raised, +transfigured; the corruptible has put on incorruption.[47] Henceforth +it is an object of beauty, however base its origin and neighborhood. +Observe, too, the impossibility of antedating this act. In its grub +state it cannot fly, it cannot shine, it is a dull grub. But suddenly, +without observation, the selfsame thing unfurls beautiful wings, and +is an angel of wisdom. So is there no fact, no event, in our private +history, which shall not, sooner or later, lose its adhesive, inert +form, and astonish us by soaring from our body into the empyrean.[48] +Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the fear of boys, and dogs, +and ferules,[49] the love of little maids and berries, and many +another fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already; friend +and relative, profession and party, town and country, nation and +world, must also soar and sing.[50] + +Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions has +the richest return of wisdom. I will not shut myself out of this globe +of action, and transplant an oak into a flower-pot, there to hunger +and pine; nor trust the revenue of some single faculty, and exhaust +one vein of thought, much like those Savoyards,[51] who, getting their +livelihood by carving shepherds, shepherdesses, and smoking Dutchmen, +for all Europe, went out one day to the mountain to find stock, and +discovered that they had whittled up the last of their pine-trees. +Authors we have, in numbers, who have written out their vein, and who, +moved by a commendable prudence, sail for Greece or Palestine, follow +the trapper into the prairie, or ramble round Algiers, to replenish +their merchantable stock. + +If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would be covetous of +action. Life is our dictionary.[52] Years are well spent in country +labors; in town; in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank +intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one +end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate +and embody our perceptions. I learn immediately from any speaker how +much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his +speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and +copestones for the masonry of to-day. This is the way to learn +grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and +the work-yard made. + +But the final value of action, like that of books, and better than +books, is that it is a resource. That great principle of Undulation in +nature, that shows itself in the inspiring and expiring of the breath; +in desire and satiety; in the ebb and flow of the sea; in day and night; +in heat and cold; and, as yet more deeply ingrained in every atom and +every fluid, is known to us under the name of Polarity,--these "fits of +easy transmission and reflection," as Newton[53] called them, are the +law of nature because they are the law of spirit. + +The mind now thinks, now acts, and each fit reproduces the other. When +the artist has exhausted his materials, when the fancy no longer +paints, when thoughts are no longer apprehended and books are a +weariness,--he has always the resource _to live_. Character is higher +than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary. +The stream retreats to its source. A great soul will be strong to +live, as well as strong to think. Does he lack organ or medium to +impart his truth? He can still fall back on this elemental force of +living them. This is a total act. Thinking is a partial act. Let the +grandeur of justice shine in his affairs. Let the beauty of affection +cheer his lowly roof. Those "far from fame," who dwell and act with +him, will feel the force of his constitution in the doings and +passages of the day better than it can be measured by any public and +designed display. Time shall teach him that the scholar loses no hour +which the man lives. Herein he unfolds the sacred germ of his +instinct, screened from influence. What is lost in seemliness is +gained in strength. Not out of those on whom systems of education have +exhausted their culture comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or +to build the new, but out of unhandselled[54] savage nature; out of +terrible Druids[55] and Berserkers[56] come at last Alfred[57] and +Shakespeare. I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be +said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is +virtue yet in the hoe and the spade,[58] for learned as well as for +unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are +invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall +not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the +popular judgments and modes of action. + + * * * * * + +I have now spoken of the education of the scholar by nature, by books, +and by action. It remains to say somewhat of his duties. + +They are such as become Man Thinking. They may all be comprised in +self-trust. The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to +guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, +unhonored, and unpaid task of observation. Flamsteed[59] and +Herschel,[60] in their glazed observatories, may catalogue the stars +with the praise of all men, and, the results being splendid and +useful, honor is sure. But he, in his private observatory, cataloguing +obscure and nebulous[61] stars of the human mind, which as yet no man +has thought of as such,--watching days and months sometimes for a few +facts; correcting still his old records,--must relinquish display and +immediate fame. In the long period of his preparation he must betray +often an ignorance and shiftlessness in popular arts, incurring the +disdain of the able who shoulder him aside. Long he must stammer in +his speech; often forego the living for the dead. Worse yet, he must +accept--how often!--poverty and solitude. For the ease and pleasure of +treading the old road, accepting the fashions, the education, the +religion of society, he takes the cross of making his own, and, of +course, the self-accusation, the faint heart, the frequent uncertainty +and loss of time, which are the nettles and tangling vines in the way +of the self-relying and self-directed; and the state of virtual +hostility in which he seems to stand to society, and especially to +educated society. For all this loss and scorn, what offset? He is to +find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. +He is one who raises himself from private considerations and breathes +and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world's eye. +He is the world's heart. He is to resist the vulgar prosperity that +retrogrades ever to barbarism, by preserving and communicating heroic +sentiments, noble biographies, melodious verse, and the conclusions of +history. Whatsoever oracles the human heart, in all emergencies, in +all solemn hours, has uttered as its commentary on the world of +actions,--these he shall receive and impart. And whatsoever new +verdict Reason from her inviolable seat pronounces on the passing men +and events of to-day,--this he shall hear and promulgate. + +These being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in +himself, and to defer never to the popular cry. He and he only knows +the world. The world of any moment is the merest appearance. Some +great decorum, some fetich[62] of a government, some ephemeral trade, +or war, or man, is cried up[63] by half mankind and cried down by the +other half, as if all depended on this particular up or down. The odds +are that the whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the +scholar has lost in listening to the controversy. Let him not quit his +belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable[64] +of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In silence, in +steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add +observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach, +and bide his own time,--happy enough if he can satisfy himself alone +that this day he has seen something truly. Success treads on every +right step. For the instinct is sure that prompts him to tell his +brother what he thinks. He then learns that in going down into the +secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all +minds. He learns that he who has mastered any law in his private +thoughts is master to that extent of all men whose language he speaks, +and of all into whose language his own can be translated. The poet, in +utter solitude remembering his spontaneous thoughts and recording +them, is found to have recorded that which men in cities vast find +true for them also. The orator distrusts at first the fitness of his +frank confessions, his want of knowledge of the persons he addresses, +until he finds that he is the complement[65] of his hearers;--that +they drink his words because he fulfills for them their own nature; +the deeper he dives into his privatest, secretest presentiment, to his +wonder he finds this is the most acceptable, most public and +universally true. The people delight in it; the better part of every +man feels--This is my music; this is myself. + +In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the +scholar be,--free and brave. Free even to the definition of freedom, +"without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own +constitution." Brave; for fear is a thing which a scholar by his very +function puts behind him. Fear always springs from ignorance. It is a +shame to him if his tranquility, amid dangerous times, arise from the +presumption that like children and women his is a protected class; or +if he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from +politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the +flowering bushes, peeping into microscopes, and turning rhymes, as a +boy whistles to keep his courage up. So is the danger a danger still; +so is the fear worse. Manlike let him turn and face it. Let him look +into its eye and search its nature, inspect its origin,--see the +whelping of this lion,--which lies no great way back; he will then +find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent; he +will have made his hands meet on the other side, and can henceforth +defy it and pass on superior. The world is his who can see through its +pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown +error you behold is there only by sufferance,--by your sufferance. See +it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow. + +Yes, we are the cowed,--we the trustless. It is a mischievous notion +that we are come late into nature; that the world was finished a long +time ago. As the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of God, so +it is ever to so much of his attributes as we bring to it. To +ignorance and sin it is flint. They adapt themselves to it as they +may; but in proportion as a man has any thing in him divine, the +firmament flows before him and takes his signet[66] and form. Not he +is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind. +They are the kings of the world who give the color of their present +thought to all nature and all art, and persuade men, by the cheerful +serenity of their carrying the matter, that this thing which they do +is the apple which the ages have desired to pluck, now at last ripe, +and inviting nations to the harvest. The great man makes the great +thing. Wherever Macdonald[67] sits, there is the head of the table. +Linnæus[68] makes botany the most alluring of studies, and wins it +from the farmer and the herb-woman: Davy,[69] chemistry; and +Cuvier,[70] fossils. The day is always his who works in it with +serenity and great aims. The unstable estimates of men crowd to him +whose mind is filled with a truth, as the heaped waves of the Atlantic +follow the moon.[71] + +For this self-trust, the reason is deeper than can be fathomed,--darker +than can be enlightened. I might not carry with me the feeling of my +audience in stating my own belief. But I have already shown the ground +of my hope, in adverting to the doctrine that man is one. I believe man +has been wronged; he has wronged himself. He has almost lost the light +that can lead him back to his prerogatives. Men are become of no +account. Men in history, men in the world of to-day, are bugs, are +spawn, and are called "the mass" and "the herd." In a century, in a +millennium, one or two men;[72] that is to say, one or two +approximations to the right state of every man. All the rest behold in +the hero or the poet their own green and crude being,--ripened; yes, and +are content to be less, so _that_ may attain to its full stature. What a +testimony, full of grandeur, full of pity, is borne to the demands of +his own nature, by the poor clansman, the poor partisan, who rejoices in +the glory of his chief! The poor and the low find some amends to their +immense moral capacity, for their acquiescence in a political and social +inferiority.[73] They are content to be brushed like flies from the path +of a great person, so that justice shall be done by him to that common +nature which it is the dearest desire of all to see enlarged and +glorified. They sun themselves in the great man's light, and feel it to +be their own element. They cast the dignity of man from their downtrod +selves upon the shoulders of a hero, and will perish to add one drop of +blood to make that great heart beat, those giant sinews combat and +conquer. He lives for us, and we live in him. + +Men such as they[74] are very naturally seek money or power; and power +because it is as good as money,--the "spoils," so called, "of office." +And why not? For they aspire to the highest, and this, in their +sleep-walking, they dream is highest. Wake them and they shall quit +the false good and leap to the true, and leave governments to clerks +and desks. This revolution is to be wrought by the gradual +domestication of the idea of Culture. The main enterprise of the world +for splendor, for extent, is the upbuilding of a man. Here are the +materials strewn along the ground. The private life of one man shall +be a more illustrious monarchy, more formidable to its enemy, more +sweet and serene in its influence to its friend, than any kingdom in +history. For a man, rightly viewed, comprehendeth[75] the particular +natures of all men. Each philosopher, each bard, each actor has only +done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself. The +books which once we valued more than the apple of the eye, we have +quite exhausted. What is that but saying that we have come up with the +point of view which the universal mind took through the eyes of one +scribe; we have been that man, and have passed on. First, one, then +another, we drain all cisterns, and waxing greater by all these +supplies, we crave a better and a more abundant food. The man has +never lived that can feed us ever. The human mind cannot be enshrined +in a person who shall set a barrier on any one side to this unbounded, +unboundable empire. It is one central fire, which, flaming now out of +the lips of Etna, lightens the capes of Sicily, and now out of the +throat of Vesuvius, illuminates the towers and vineyards of Naples. It +is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which +animates all men. + + * * * * * + +But I have dwelt perhaps tediously upon this abstraction of the +Scholar. I ought not to delay longer to add what I have to say of +nearer reference to the time and to this country. + +Historically, there is thought to be a difference in the ideas which +predominate over successive epochs, and there are data for marking the +genius of the Classic, of the Romantic, and now of the Reflective or +Philosophical age.[76] With the views I have intimated of the oneness +or the identity of the mind through all individuals, I do not much +dwell on these differences. In fact, I believe each individual passes +through all three. The boy is a Greek; the youth, romantic; the +adult, reflective. I deny not, however, that a revolution in the +leading idea may be distinctly enough traced. + +Our age is bewailed as the age of Introversion.[77] Must that needs be +evil? We, it seems, are critical. We are embarrassed with second +thoughts.[78] We cannot enjoy anything for hankering to know whereof +the pleasure consists. We are lined with eyes. We see with our feet. +The time is infected with Hamlet's unhappiness,-- + + "Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."[79] + +Is it so bad then? Sight is the last thing to be pitied. Would we be +blind? Do we fear lest we should outsee nature and God, and drink +truth dry? I look upon the discontent of the literary class as a mere +announcement of the fact that they find themselves not in the state of +mind of their fathers, and regret the coming state as untried; as a +boy dreads the water before he has learned that he can swim. If there +is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of +Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side and admit of +being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and +by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by +the rich possibilities of the new era? This time, like all times, is a +very good one, if we but know what to do with it. + +I read with some joy of the auspicious signs of the coming days, as +they glimmer already through poetry and art, through philosophy and +science, through church and state. + +One of these signs is the fact that the same movement[80] which +effected the elevation of what was called the lowest class in the +state assumed in literature a very marked and as benign an aspect. +Instead of the sublime and beautiful, the near, the low, the common, +was explored and poetized. That which had been negligently trodden +under foot by those who were harnessing and provisioning themselves +for long journeys into far countries, is suddenly found to be richer +than all foreign parts. The literature of the poor, the feelings of +the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household +life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a +sign--is it not?--of new vigor when the extremities are made active, +when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet. I ask not +for the great, the remote, the romantic; what is doing in Italy or +Arabia; what is Greek art, or Provençal minstrelsy; I embrace the +common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. Give +me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future +worlds. What would we really know the meaning of? The meal in the +firkin; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street; the news of the +boat; the glance of the eye; the form and the gait of the body;--show +me the ultimate reason of these matters; show me the sublime presence +of the highest spiritual cause lurking, as always it does lurk, in +these suburbs and extremities of nature; let me see every trifle +bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal +law;[81] and the shop, the plow, and the ledger referred to the like +cause by which light undulates and poets sing;--and the world lies no +longer a dull miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and order: +there is no trifle, there is no puzzle, but one design unites and +animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench. + +This idea has inspired the genius of Goldsmith,[82] Burns,[83] +Cowper,[84] and, in a newer time, of Goethe,[85] Wordsworth,[86] and +Carlyle.[87] This idea they have differently followed and with various +success. In contrast with their writing, the style of Pope,[88] of +Johnson,[89] of Gibbon,[90] looks cold and pedantic. This writing is +blood-warm. Man is surprised to find that things near are not less +beautiful and wondrous than things remote. The near explains the far. +The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature. This +perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries. +Goethe, in this very thing the most modern of the moderns, has shown +us, as none ever did, the genius of the ancients. + +There is one man of genius who has done much for this philosophy of +life, whose literary value has never yet been rightly estimated:--I +mean Emanuel Swedenborg.[91] The most imaginative of men, yet writing +with the precision of a mathematician, he endeavored to engraft a +purely philosophical Ethics on the popular Christianity of his time. +Such an attempt of course must have difficulty which no genius could +surmount. But he saw and showed the connexion between nature and the +affections of the soul. He pierced the emblematic or spiritual +character of the visible, audible, tangible world. Especially did his +shade-loving muse hover over and interpret the lower parts of nature; +he showed the mysterious bond that allies moral evil to the foul +material forms, and has given in epical parables a theory of insanity, +of beasts, of unclean and fearful things. + +Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political +movement, is the new importance given to the single person. Everything +that tends to insulate the individual--to surround him with barriers +of natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his, and +man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign +state--tends to true union as well as greatness. "I learned," said the +melancholy Pestalozzi,[92] "that no man in God's wide earth is either +willing or able to help any other man." Help must come from the bosom +alone. The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the +ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes +of the future. He must be an university of knowledges. If there be one +lesson more than another that should pierce his ear, it is--The world +is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and +you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers +the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all; it is for you to dare +all. Mr. President and Gentlemen, this confidence in the unsearched +might of man belongs, by all motives, by all prophecy, by all +preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the +courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already +suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice +make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, +indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of +this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is +no work for any one but the decorous and the complaisant. Young men of +the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the +mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth +below not in unison with these, but are hindered from action by the +disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and +turn drudges, or die of disgust, some of them suicides. What is the +remedy? They did not yet see, and thousands of young men as hopeful +now crowding to the barriers for the career do not yet see, that if +the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there +abide, the huge world will come round to him. Patience,--patience; +with the shades of all the good and great for company; and for solace +the perspective of your own infinite life; and for work the study and +the communication of principles, the making those instincts prevalent, +the conversion of the world. Is it not the chief disgrace in the +world, not to be an unit; not to be reckoned one character; not to +yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, but to +be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand, of the +party, the section, to which we belong; and our opinion predicted +geographically, as the north, or the south? Not so, brothers and +friends,--please God, ours shall not be so. We will walk on our own +feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. +Then shall man be no longer a name for pity, for doubt, and for +sensual indulgence. The dread of man and the love of man shall be a +wall of defense and a wreath of joy around all. A nation of men will +for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by +the Divine Soul which also inspires all men. + + + + +COMPENSATION.[93] + + The wings of Time are black and white, + Pied with morning and with night. + Mountain tall and ocean deep + Trembling balance duly keep. + In changing moon, in tidal wave, + Glows the feud of Want and Have. + Gauge of more and less through space + Electric star and pencil plays. + The lonely Earth amid the balls + That hurry through the eternal halls, + A makeweight flying to the void, + Supplemental asteroid, + Or compensatory spark, + Shoots across the neutral Dark. + + Man's the elm, and Wealth the vine, + Stanch and strong the tendrils twine; + Through the frail ringlets thee deceive, + None from its stock that vine can reave. + Fear not, then, thou child infirm, + There's no god dare wrong a worm. + Laurel crowns cleave to deserts, + And power to him who power exerts; + Hast not thy share? On winged feet, + Lo! it rushes thee to meet; + And all that Nature made thy own, + Floating in air or pent in stone, + Will rive the hills and swim the sea, + And, like thy shadow, follow thee. + + +Ever since I was a boy, I have wished to write a discourse on +Compensation: for it seemed to me when very young, that on this +subject life was ahead of theology, and the people knew more than the +preachers taught. The documents,[94] too, from which the doctrine is +to be drawn, charmed my fancy by their endless variety, and lay always +before me, even in sleep; for they are the tools in our hands, the +bread in our basket, the transactions of the street, the farm, and the +dwelling-house, greetings, relations, debts and credits, the influence +of character, the nature and endowment of all men. It seemed to me, +also, that in it might be shown men a ray of divinity, the present +action of the soul of this world, clean from all vestige of tradition, +and so the heart of man might be bathed by an inundation of eternal +love, conversing with that which he knows was always and always must +be, because it really is now. It appeared, moreover, that if this +doctrine could be stated in terms with any resemblance to those bright +intuitions in which this truth is sometimes revealed to us, it would +be a star in many dark hours and crooked passages in our journey that +would not suffer us to lose our way. + +I was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon at church. +The preacher, a man esteemed for his orthodoxy, unfolded in the +ordinary manner the doctrine of the Last Judgment. He assumed that +judgment is not executed in this world; that the wicked are +successful; that the good are miserable;[95] and then urged from +reason and from Scripture a compensation to be made to both parties in +the next life. No offense appeared to be taken by the congregation at +this doctrine. As far as I could observe, when the meeting broke up, +they separated without remark on the sermon. + +Yet what was the import of this teaching? What did the preacher mean +by saying that the good are miserable in the present life? Was it that +houses and lands, offices, wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had by +unprincipled men, whilst the saints are poor and despised; and that a +compensation is to be made to these last hereafter, by giving them the +like gratifications another day,--bank stock and doubloons,[96] +venison and champagne? This must be the compensation intended; for +what else? Is it that they are to have leave to pray and praise? to +love and serve men? Why, that they can do now. The legitimate +inference the disciple would draw was: "We are to have _such_ a good +time as the sinners have now"; or, to push it to its extreme import: +"You sin now; we shall sin by and by; we would sin now, if we could; +not being successful, we expect our revenue to-morrow." + +The fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad are successful; +that justice is not done now. The blindness of the preacher consisted +in deferring to the base estimate of the market of what constitutes a +manly success, instead of confronting and convicting the world from +the truth; announcing the presence of the soul; the omnipotence of the +will: and so establishing the standard of good and ill, of success and +falsehood. + +I find a similar base tone in the popular religious works of the day, +and the same doctrines assumed by the literary men when occasionally +they treat the related topics. I think that our popular theology has +gained in decorum, and not in principle, over the superstitions it has +displaced. But men are better than this theology. Their daily life +gives it the lie. Every ingenuous and aspiring soul leaves the +doctrine behind him in his own experience; and all men feel sometimes +the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate. For men are wiser than +they know. That which they hear in schools and pulpits without +afterthought, if said in conversation, would probably be questioned in +silence. If a man dogmatize in a mixed company on Providence and the +divine laws, he is answered by a silence which conveys well enough to +an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer, but his incapacity to +make his own statement. + +I shall attempt in this and the following chapter to record some facts +that indicate the path of the law of Compensation; happy beyond my +expectation, if I shall truly draw the smallest arc of this circle. + +POLARITY,[97] or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; +in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; +in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and +animals; in the equation of quantity and quality in the fluids of the +animal body; in the systole and diastole[98] of the heart; in the +undulations of fluids, and of sound; in the centrifugal and centripetal +gravity; in electricity, galvanism, and chemical affinity. Superinduce +magnetism at one end of a needle; the opposite magnetism takes place at +the other end. If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here, +you must condense there. An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that +each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole; as, +spirit, matter; man, woman; odd, even; subjective, objective; in, out; +upper, under; motion, rest; yea, nay. + +Whilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its parts. The +entire system of things gets represented in every particle. There is +somewhat that resembles the ebb and flow of the sea, day and night, +man and woman, in a single needle of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in +each individual of every animal tribe. The reaction, so grand in the +elements, is repeated within these small boundaries. For example, in +the animal kingdom the physiologist has observed that no creatures +are favorites, but a certain compensation balances every gift and +every defect. A surplusage given to one part is paid out of a +reduction from another part of the same creature. If the head and neck +are enlarged, the trunk and extremities are cut short. + +The theory of the mechanic forces is another example. What we gain in +power is lost in time; and the converse. The periodic or compensating +errors of the planets is another instance. The influences of climate +and soil in political history is another. The cold climate +invigorates. The barren soil does not breed fevers, crocodiles, +tigers, or scorpions. + +The same dualism underlies the nature and condition of man. Every +excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its +sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of +pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for +its moderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain +of folly. For everything you have missed, you have gained something +else; and for everything you gain, you lose something. If riches +increase, they are increased[99] that use them. If the gatherer +gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his +chest, swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies +and exceptions. The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level +from their loftiest tossing, than the varieties of condition tend to +equalize themselves. There is always some leveling circumstance that +puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, +substantially on the same ground with all others. Is a man too strong +and fierce for society, and by temper and position a bad citizen,--a +morose ruffian, with a dash of the pirate in him;--nature sends him a +troop of pretty sons and daughters, who are getting along in the +dame's classes at the village school, and love and fear for them +smooths his grim scowl to courtesy. Thus she contrives to +intenerate[100] the granite and felspar, takes the boar out and puts +the lamb in, and keeps her balance true. + +The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President +has paid dear for his White House.[101] It has commonly cost him all +his peace, and the best of his many attributes. To preserve for a +short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is +content to eat dust[102] before the real masters who stand erect +behind the throne. Or, do men desire the more substantial and +permanent grandeur of genius? Neither has this an immunity. He who by +force of will or of thought, is great, and overlooks[103] thousands, +has the charges of that eminence. With every influx of light comes new +danger. Has he light? he must bear witness to the light, and always +outrun that sympathy which gives him such keen satisfaction, by his +fidelity to new revelations of the incessant soul. He must hate father +and mother, wife and child. Has he all that the world loves and +admires and covets?--he must cast behind him their admiration, and +afflict them by faithfulness to his truth, and become a by-word and a +hissing. + +This law writes the laws of cities and nations. It is in vain to build +or plot or combine against it. Things refuse to be mismanaged long. +_Res nolunt diu male administrari._[104] Though no checks to a new +evil appear, the checks exist, and will appear. If the government is +cruel, the governor's life is not safe. If you tax too high, the +revenue will yield nothing. If you make the criminal code sanguinary, +juries will not convict. If the law is too mild, private vengeance +comes in. If the government is a terrific democracy, the pressure is +resisted by an overcharge of energy in the citizen, and life glows +with a fiercer flame. The true life and satisfactions of man seem to +elude the utmost rigors or felicities of condition, and to establish +themselves with great indifferency under all varieties of +circumstances. Under all governments the influence of character +remains the same,--in Turkey and in New England about alike. Under the +primeval despots of Egypt, history honestly confesses that man must +have been as free as culture could make him. + +These appearances indicate the fact that the universe is represented +in every one of its particles. Everything in nature contains all the +powers of nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff; as the +naturalist sees one type under every metamorphosis, and regards a +horse as a running man, a fish as a swimming man, a bird as a flying +man, a tree as a rooted man. Each new form repeats not only the main +character of the type, but part for part all the details, all the +aims, furtherances, hindrances, energies, and whole system of every +other. Every occupation, trade, art, transaction, is a compend of the +world and a correlative of every other. Each one is an entire emblem +of human life; of its good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its +course and its end. And each one must somehow accommodate the whole +man, and recite all his destiny. + +The world globes itself in a drop of dew.[105] The microscope cannot +find the animalcule which is less perfect for being little.[106] Eyes, +ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of +reproduction that take hold on eternity,--all find room to consist in +the small creature. So do we put our life into every act. The true +doctrine of omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in +every moss and cobweb.[107] The value of the universe contrives to +throw itself into every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; +if the affinity, so the repulsion; if the force, so the limitation. + +Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That soul, which +within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its +inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength. "It +is in the world, and the world was made by it." Justice is not +postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. +[Greek: Hoi kyboi Dios aei eupiptousi],[108]--the dice of God are +always loaded. The world looks like a multiplication table, or a +mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. +Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still +returns to you. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every +virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty. What +we call retribution is the universal necessity by which the whole +appears wherever a part appears. If you see smoke, there must be fire. +If you see a hand or limb, you know that the trunk to which it belongs +is there behind. + +Every act rewards itself, or, in other words, integrates itself, in a +twofold manner; first, in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly, +in the circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance +the retribution. The causal retribution is in the thing, and is seen +by the soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the +understanding; it is inseparable from the thing, but is often spread +over a long time, and so does not become distinct until after many +years. The specific stripes may follow late after the offense, but +they follow because they accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out +of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the +flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and +ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms +in the cause, the end preëxists in the means, the fruit in the seed. + +Whilst thus the world will be whole, and refuses to be disparted, we +seek to act partially, to sunder, to appropriate; for example,--to +gratify the senses, we sever the pleasure of the senses from the needs +of the character. The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to +the solution of one problem,--how to detach the sensual sweet, the +sensual strong, the sensual bright, etc., from the moral sweet, the +moral deep, the moral fair; that is, again, to contrive to cut clean +off this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a +_one end_, without an _other end_. The soul says, Eat; the body would +feast. The soul says, The man and woman shall be one flesh and one +soul; the body would join the flesh only. The soul says, Have dominion +over all things to the ends of virtue; the body would have the power +over things to its own ends. + +The soul strives amain[109] to live and work through all things. It +would be the only fact. All things shall be added unto it,--power, +pleasure, knowledge, beauty. The particular man aims to be somebody; +to set up for himself; to truck and higgle for a private good; and, in +particulars, to ride, that he may ride; to dress, that he may be +dressed; to eat, that he may eat; and to govern, that he may be seen. +Men seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and +fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of +nature,--the sweet, without the other side,--the bitter. + +This dividing and detaching is steadily counteracted. Up to this day, +it must be owned, no projector has had the smallest success. The +parted water reunites behind our hand. Pleasure is taken out of +pleasant things, profit out of profitable things, power out of strong +things, as soon as we seek to separate them from the whole. We can no +more have things and get the sensual good, by itself, than we can get +an inside that shall have no outside, or a light without a shadow. +"Drive out nature with a fork, she comes running back."[110] + +Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the unwise seek +to dodge, which one and another brags that he does not know; that they +do not touch him;--but the brag is on his lips, the conditions are in +his soul. If he escapes them in one part, they attack him in another +more vital part. If he has escaped them in form, and in the +appearance, it is because he has resisted his life, and fled from +himself, and the retribution is so much death. So signal is the +failure of all attempts to make this separation of the good from the +tax, that the experiment would not be tried,--since to try it is to be +mad,--but for the circumstance, that when the disease began in the +will, of rebellion and separation, the intellect is at once infected, +so that the man ceases to see God whole in each object, but is able to +see the sensual allurement of an object, and not see the sensual hurt; +he sees the mermaid's head, but not the dragon's tail; and thinks he +can cut off that which he would have, from that which he would not +have. "How secret art thou who dwellest in the highest heavens in +silence, O thou only great God, sprinkling with an unwearied +Providence certain penal blindnesses upon such as have unbridled +desires!"[111] + +The human soul is true to these facts in the painting of fable, of +history, of law, of proverbs, of conversation. It finds a tongue in +literature unawares. Thus the Greeks called Jupiter,[112] Supreme +Mind; but having traditionally ascribed to him many base actions, they +involuntarily made amends to reason, by tying up the hands[113] of so +bad a god. He is made as helpless as a king of England.[114] +Prometheus[115] knows one secret which Jove must bargain for; +Minerva,[116] another. He cannot get his own thunders; Minerva keeps +the key of them. + + "Of all the gods, I only know the keys + That ope the solid doors within whose vaults + His thunders sleep." + +A plain confession of the in-working of the All, and of its moral aim. +The Indian mythology ends in the same ethics; and it would seem +impossible for any fable to be invented to get any currency which was +not moral. Aurora[117] forgot to ask youth for her lover, and though +Tithonus is immortal, he is old, Achilles[118] is not quite +invulnerable; the sacred waters did not wash the heel by which Thetis +held him. Siegfried,[119] in the Niebelungen, is not quite immortal, +for a leaf fell on his back whilst he was bathing in the dragon's +blood, and that spot which it covered is mortal. And so it must be. +There is a crack in everything God has made. It would seem, there is +always this vindictive circumstance stealing in at unawares, even into +the wild poesy in which the human fancy attempted to make bold +holiday, and to shake itself free of the old laws,--this back-stroke, +this kick of the gun, certifying that the law is fatal; that in nature +nothing can be given, all things are sold. + +This is that ancient doctrine of Nemesis,[120] who keeps watch in the +universe, and lets no offense go unchastised. The Furies,[121] they +said, are attendants on justice, and if the sun in heaven should +transgress his path, they would punish him. The poets related that +stone walls, and iron swords, and leathern thongs had an occult +sympathy with the wrongs of their owners; that the belt which Ajax +gave Hector[122] dragged the Trojan hero over the field at the wheels +of the car of Achilles, and the sword which Hector gave Ajax was that +on whose point Ajax fell. They recorded, that when the Thasians[123] +erected a statue to Theagenes, a victor in the games, one of his +rivals went to it by night, and endeavored to throw it down by +repeated blows, until at last he moved it from its pedestal, and was +crushed to death beneath its fall. + +This voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It came from thought +above the will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer, +which has nothing private in it;[124] that which he does not know, +that which flowed out of his constitution, and not from his too +active invention; that which in the study of a single artist you might +not easily find, but in the study of many, you would abstract as the +spirit of them all. Phidias it is not, but the work of man in that +early Hellenic[125] world, that I would know. The name and +circumstance of Phidias, however convenient for history, embarrass +when we come to the highest criticism. We are to see that which man +was tending to do in a given period, and was hindered, or, if you +will, modified in doing, by the interfering volitions of Phidias, of +Dante, of Shakespeare, the organ whereby man at the moment wrought. + +Still more striking is the expression of this fact in the proverbs of +all nations, which are always the literature of reason, or the +statements of an absolute truth, without qualification. Proverbs, like +the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. +That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow +the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in +proverbs without contradiction. And this law of laws which the pulpit, +the senate, and the college deny, is hourly preached in all markets +and workshops by flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as +omnipresent as that of birds and flies. + +All things are double, one against another.--Tit for tat;[126] an eye +for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure; +love for love.--Give and it shall be given you.--- He that watereth +shall be watered himself.--What will you have? quoth God; pay for it +and take it.--Nothing venture, nothing have.--Thou shalt be paid +exactly for what thou hast done, no more, no less.--Who doth not work +shall not eat.--Harm watch, harm catch.--Curses always recoil on the +head of him who imprecates them.--If you put a chain around the neck +of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.--Bad counsel +confounds the adviser.--The Devil is an ass. + +It is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our action is +overmastered and characterized above our will by the law of nature. We +aim at a petty end quite aside from the public good, but our act +arranges itself by irresistible magnetism in a line with the poles of +the world. + +A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will, or against +his will, he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every +word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a thread-ball +thrown at a mark, but the other end remains in the thrower's bag. Or, +rather, it is a harpoon hurled at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a +coil of cord in the boat, and if the harpoon is not good, or not well +thrown, it will go nigh to cut the steersman in twain, or to sink the +boat. + +You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. "No man had ever a point +of pride that was not injurious to him," said Burke.[127] The +exclusive in fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself +from enjoyment in the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in +religion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself, in +striving to shut out others. Treat men as pawns[128] and ninepins, and +you shall suffer as well as they. If you leave out their heart, you +shall lose your own. The senses would make things of all persons; of +women, of children, of the poor. The vulgar proverb, "I will get it +from his purse or get it from his skin," is sound philosophy. + +All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are +speedily punished. They are punished by fear. Whilst I stand in simple +relations to my fellow-man, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We +meet as water meets water, or as two currents of air mix, with perfect +diffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as there is any +departure from simplicity, and attempt at halfness, or good for me +that is not good for him, my neighbor feels the wrong; he shrinks from +me as far as I have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek mine; +there is war between us; there is hate in him and fear in me. + +All the old abuses in society, universal and particular, all unjust +accumulations of property and power, are avenged in the same manner. +Fear is an instructor of great sagacity, and the herald of all +revolutions. One thing he teaches, that there is rottenness where he +appears. He is a carrion crow, and though you see not well what he +hovers for, there is death somewhere. Our property is timid, our laws +are timid, our cultivated classes are timid. Fear for ages has boded +and mowed and gibbered over government and property. That obscene[129] +bird is not there for nothing. He indicates great wrongs which must be +revised. + +Of the like nature is that expectation of change which instantly +follows the suspension of our voluntary activity. The terror of +cloudless noon, the emerald of Polycrates,[130] the awe of prosperity, +the instinct which leads every generous soul to impose on itself tasks +of a noble asceticism and vicarious virtue, are the tremblings of the +balance of justice through the heart and mind of man. + +Experienced men of the world know very well that it is best to pay +scot and lot[131] as they go along, and that a man often pays dear for +a small frugality. The borrower runs in his own debt. Has a man gained +anything who has received a hundred favors and rendered none? Has he +gained by borrowing, through indolence or cunning, his neighbor's +wares, or horses, or money? There arises on the deed the instant +acknowledgment of benefit on the one part, and of debt on the other; +that is, of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in +the memory of himself and his neighbor; and every new transaction +alters, according to its nature, their relation to each other. He may +soon come to see that he had better have broken his own bones than to +have ridden in his neighbor's coach, and that "the highest price he +can pay for a thing is to ask for it." + +A wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and know that +it is the part of prudence to face every claimant, and pay every just +demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay; for, +first or last, you must pay your entire debt. Persons and events may +stand for a time between you and justice, but it is only a +postponement. You must pay at last your own debt. If you are wise, you +will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more. Benefit is the +end of nature. But for every benefit which you receive, a tax is +levied. He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base--and +that is the one base thing in the universe--to receive favors and +render none. In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those +from whom we receive them, or only seldom.[132] But the benefit we +receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for +cent, to somebody. Beware of too much good staying in your hand. It +will fast corrupt and worm worms.[133] Pay it away quickly in some +sort. + +Labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws. Cheapest, say the +prudent, is the dearest labor. What we buy in a broom, a mat, a wagon, +a knife, is some application of good sense to a common want. It is +best to pay in your land a skillful gardener, or to buy good sense +applied to gardening; in your sailor, good sense applied to +navigation; in the house, good sense applied to cooking, sewing, +serving; in your agent, good sense applied to accounts and affairs. +So do you multiply your presence, or spread yourself throughout your +estate. But because of the dual constitution of things, in labor as in +life there can be no cheating. The thief steals from himself. The +swindler swindles himself. For the real price of labor is knowledge +and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs. These signs, like +paper money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which they +represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or +stolen. These ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions +of the mind, and in obedience to pure motives. The cheat, the +defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the knowledge of material and +moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative. +The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power: but +they who do not the thing have not the power. + +Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to +the construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of +the perfect compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give +and Take, the doctrine that everything has its price,--and if that +price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and +that it is impossible to get anything without its price,--is not less +sublime in the columns of a ledger than in the budgets of states, in +the laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of +nature. I cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees +implicated in those processes with which he is conversant, the stern +ethics which sparkle on his chisel edge, which are measured out by his +plumb and foot rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the +shop bill as in the history of a state,--do recommend to him his +trade, and though seldom named, exalt his business to his imagination. + +The league between virtue and nature engages all things to assume a +hostile front to vice. The beautiful laws and substances of the world +persecute and whip the traitor. He finds that things are arranged for +truth and benefit, but there is no den in the wide world to hide a +rogue. Commit a crime,[134] and the earth is made of glass. Commit a +crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as +reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel +and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word,[135] you cannot wipe out +the foot-track, you cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet +or clew. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and +substances of nature--water, snow, wind, gravitation--become penalties +to the thief. + +On the other hand, the law holds with equal sureness for all right +action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, +as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. The good man has +absolute good, which like fire turns everything to its own nature, so +that you cannot do him any harm; but as the royal armies sent against +Napoleon, when he approached, cast down their colors and from enemies +became friends, so disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offense, +poverty, prove benefactors:-- + + "Winds blow and waters roll + Strength to the brave, and power and deity, + Yet in themselves are nothing." + +The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had +ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had +ever a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in +the fable[136] admired his horns and blamed his feet, but when the +hunter came, his feet saved him, and afterwards, caught in the +thicket, his horns destroyed him. Every man in his lifetime needs to +thank his faults. As no man thoroughly understands a truth until he +has contended against it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with +the hindrances or talents of men, until he has suffered from the one, +and seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the same. Has +he a defect of temper that unfits him to live in society? Thereby he +is driven to entertain himself alone, and acquire habits of self-help; +and thus, like the wounded oyster, he mends his shell with pearl. + +Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms +itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and +stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. +Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he +is punished, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; +he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; +learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got +moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of +his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his +weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead +skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. +Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As +long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain +assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are +spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. +In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As +the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the +enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the +temptation we resist. + +The same guards which protect us from disaster, defect, and enmity, +defend us, if we will, from selfishness and fraud. Bolts and bars are +not the best of our institutions, nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of +wisdom. Men suffer all their life long, under the foolish superstition +that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be +cheated by anyone but himself,[137] as for a thing to be and not to be +at the same time. There is a third silent party to all our bargains. +The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the +fulfillment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to +loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God +in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is +withholden,[138] the better for you; for compound interest on compound +interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer. + +The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, +to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. It makes no +difference whether the actors be many or one, a tyrant or a mob. A +mob[139] is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of +reason, and traversing its work. The mob is man voluntarily descending +to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its +actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a +principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by +inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who +have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines +to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate +spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be +dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a +more illustrious abode; every burned book or house enlightens the +world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the +earth from side to side. Hours of sanity and consideration are always +arriving to communities, as to individuals, when the truth is seen, +and the martyrs are justified. + +Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances. The man +is all. Everything has two sides, a good and an evil. Every advantage +has its tax. I learn to be content. But the doctrine of compensation +is not the doctrine of indifferency. The thoughtless say, on hearing +these representations, What boots it to do well? there is one event to +good and evil; if I gain any good, I must pay for it; if I lose any +good, I gain some other; all actions are indifferent. + +There is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation, to wit, its own +nature. The soul is not a compensation, but a life. The soul _is_. +Under all this running sea of circumstance, whose waters ebb and flow +with perfect balance, lies the aboriginal abyss of real Being. +Essence, or God, is not a relation, or a part, but the whole. Being is +the vast affirmative, excluding negation, self-balanced, and +swallowing up all relations, parts, and times within itself. Nature, +truth, virtue, are the influx from thence. Vice is the absence or +departure of the same. Nothing, Falsehood, may indeed stand as the +great Night or shade, on which, as a background, the living universe +paints itself forth, but no fact is begotten by it; it cannot work, +for it is not. It cannot work any good; it cannot work any harm. It is +harm inasmuch as it is worse not to be than to be. + +We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts, because the +criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy, and does not come to a +crisis or judgment anywhere in visible nature. There is no stunning +confutation of his nonsense before men and angels. Has he therefore +outwitted the law? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie +with him, he so far deceases from nature. In some manner there will be +a demonstration of the wrong to the understanding also; but should we +not see it, this deadly deduction makes square the eternal account. + +Neither can it be said, on the other hand, that the gain of rectitude +must be bought by any loss. There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty +to wisdom; they are proper additions of being. In a virtuous action, I +properly _am_; in a virtuous act, I add to the world; I plant into +deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing, and see the darkness +receding on the limits of the horizon. There can be no excess to love; +none to knowledge; none to beauty, when these attributes are +considered in the purest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always +affirms an Optimism,[140] never a Pessimism. + +Man's life is a progress, and not a station. His instinct is trust. +Our instinct uses "more" and "less" in application to man, of the +_presence of the soul_, and not of its absence; the brave man is +greater than the coward; the true, the benevolent, the wise, is more a +man, and not less, than the fool and knave. There is no tax on the +good of virtue; for that is the incoming of God himself, or absolute +existence without any comparative. Material good has its tax, and if +it came without desert or sweat, has no root in me, and the next wind +will blow it away. But all the good of nature is the soul's, and may +be had, if paid for in nature's lawful coin, that is, by labor which +the heart and the head allow. I no longer wish to meet a good I do not +earn; for example, to find a pot of buried gold, knowing that it +brings with it new burdens. I do not wish more external +goods,--neither possessions, nor honors, nor powers, nor persons. The +gain is apparent; the tax is certain. But there is no tax on the +knowledge that the compensation exists, and that it is not desirable +to dig up treasure. Herein I rejoice with a serene eternal peace. I +contract the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn the wisdom of +St. Bernard,[141]--"Nothing can, work me damage except myself; the +harm, that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real +sufferer but by my own fault." + +In the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequalities of +condition. The radical tragedy of nature seems to be the distinction +of More and Less. How can Less not feel the pain; how not feel +indignation or malevolence towards More? Look at those who have less +faculty, and one feels sad, and knows not well what to make of it. He +almost shuns their eye; he fears they will upbraid God. What should +they do? It seems a great injustice. But see the facts nearly, and +these mountainous inequalities vanish. Love reduces them, as the sun +melts the iceberg in the sea. The heart and soul of all men being one, +this bitterness of _His_ and _Mine_ ceases. His is mine. I am my +brother, and my brother is me. If I feel overshadowed and outdone by +great neighbors, I can yet love; I can still receive; and he that +loveth maketh his own the grandeur he loves. Thereby I make the +discovery that my brother is my guardian, acting for me with the +friendliest designs, and the estate I so admired and envied is my own. +It is the nature of the soul to appropriate all things. Jesus[142] and +Shakespeare are fragments of the soul, and by love I conquer and +incorporate them in my own conscious domain. His[143] virtue,--is not +that mine? His wit,--if it cannot be made mine, it is not wit. + +Such, also, is the natural history of calamity. The changes which +break up at short intervals the prosperity of men are advertisements +of a nature whose law is growth. Every soul is by this intrinsic +necessity quitting its whole system of things, its friends, and home, +and laws, and faith, as the shellfish crawls out of its beautiful but +stony case, because it no longer admits of its growth, and slowly +forms a new house. In proportion to the vigor of the individual, these +revolutions are frequent, until in some happier mind they are +incessant, and all worldly relations hang very loosely about him, +becoming, as it were, a transparent fluid membrane through which the +living form is seen, and not, as in most men, an indurated +heterogeneous fabric of many dates, and of no settled character, in +which the man is imprisoned. Then there can be enlargement, and the +man of to-day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday. And such +should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead +circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment day by day. But to +us, in our lapsed estate, resting, not advancing, resisting, not +coöperating with the divine expansion, this growth comes by shocks. + +We cannot part with our friend. We cannot let our angels go. We do not +see that they only go out, that archangels may come in. We are +idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in +its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any +force in to-day to rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We +linger in the ruins of the old tent, where once we had bread and +shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and +nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so +graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty +saith, "Up and onward forevermore!" We cannot stay amid the ruins. +Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted +eyes, like those monsters who look backwards. + +And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the +understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a +mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of +friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure +years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The +death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but +privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; +for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an +epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up +a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows +the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It +permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the +reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the +next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny +garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for +its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, +is made the banyan[144] of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to +wide neighborhoods of men. + + + + +SELF-RELIANCE + +"Ne te quæsiveris extra."[145] + + "Man is his own star; and the soul that can + Render an honest and a perfect man, + Commands all light, all influence, all fate; + Nothing to him falls early or too late. + Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, + Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."[146] + + * * * * * + + Cast the bantling on the rocks, + Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat; + Wintered with the hawk and fox, + Power and speed be hands and feet.[147] + +I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which +were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an +admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The +sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may +contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for +you in your private heart is true for all men,--that is genius.[148] +Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal +sense;[149] for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,--and our +first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last +Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest +merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato,[150] and Milton[151] is, that they +set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what +they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of +light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster +of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice +his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize +our own rejected thoughts:[152] they come back to us with a certain +alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson +for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression +with good-humored inflexibility then most when[153] the whole cry of +voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with +masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the +time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from +another. + +There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the +conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide;[154] +that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that +though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn +can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground +which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new +in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor +does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one +character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. +This sculpture in the memory is not without preëstablished harmony. +The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of +that particular ray. We but half express ourselves,[155] and are +ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be +safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be +faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by +cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his +work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall +give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the +attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no +hope. + +Trust thyself:[156] every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept +the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your +contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done +so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, +betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated +at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all +their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind +the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a +protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, +redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing +on Chaos[157] and the Dark. + +What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text, in the face and +behavior of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel +mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed +the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these[158] have not. +Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we +look in their faces we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody: +all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five[159] +out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth +and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and +made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it +will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he +cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is +sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his +contemporaries. Bashful or bold, then, he will know how to make us +seniors very unnecessary. + +The nonchalance[160] of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would +disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the +healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit +is in the playhouse;[161] independent, irresponsible, looking out from +his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences +them on their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys, as good, bad, +interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never +about consequences about interests; he gives an independent, genuine +verdict. You must court him: he does not court you. But the man is, as +it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has +once acted or spoken with _éclat_[162] he is a committed person, +watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections +must now enter into his account. There is no Lethe[163] for this. Ah, +that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who[164] can thus avoid +all pledges, and having observed, observe again from the same +unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always +be formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which +being seen to be not private, but necessary, would sink like darts +into the ear of men, and put them in fear. + +These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint +and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in +conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is +a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better +securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty +and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. +Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, +but names and customs. + +Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.[165] He who would gather +immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must +explore if it be goodness.[166] Nothing is at last sacred but the +integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall +have the suffrage[167] of the world. I remember an answer which when +quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont +to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my +saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live +wholly from within? my friend suggested: "But these impulses may be +from below, not from above." I replied: "They do not seem to me to be +such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." +No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but +names very readily transferable to that or this;[168] the only right +is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A +man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if +everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think +how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and +dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and +sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and +speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat +of philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this +bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from +Barbadoes,[169] why should I not say to him: "Go love thy infant; love +thy wood-chopper: be good-natured and modest: have that grace; and +never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible +tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is +spite at home." Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth +is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have +some edge to it,--else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be +preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules +and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my +genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, +_Whim_.[170] I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we +cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I +seek or why I exclude company. Then, again, do not tell me, as a good +man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good +situations. Are they _my_ poor? I tell thee, thou foolish +philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give +to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There +is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought +and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your +miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; +the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now +stand; alms to sots; and the thousand-fold Relief Societies;--though I +confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a +wicked dollar which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold. + +Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the +rule. There is the man _and_ his virtues. Men do what is called a good +action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a +fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are +done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world,--as +invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. +I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not +for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so +it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and +unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and +bleeding.[171] I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse +this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it +makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are +reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I +have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, +and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows +any secondary testimony. + +What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. +This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may +serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is +the harder, because you will always find those who think they know +what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to +live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after +our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps +with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.[172] + +The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, +that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the +impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, +contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for +the government or against it, spread your table like base +housekeepers,--under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the +precise[173] man you are. And, of course, so much force is withdrawn +from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you.[174] Do +your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what +a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I +anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and +topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I +not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous +word? Do I not know that, with[175] all this ostentation of examining +the grounds of the institution, he will do no such thing? Do I not +know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side,--the +permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister? He is a +retained attorney, and these airs of the bench[176] are the emptiest +affectation. Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another +handkerchief,[177] and attached themselves to some one of these +communities of opinion.[178] This conformity makes them not false in a +few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. +Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, +their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, +and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is +not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we +adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by +degrees the gentlest asinine expression. There is a mortifying +experience in particular which does not fail to wreak itself also in +the general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced +smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease in +answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not +spontaneously moved, but moved by a low usurping willfulness, grow +tight about the outline of the face with the most disagreeable +sensation. + +For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.[179] And +therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The bystanders +look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlor. If +this aversation had its origin in contempt and resistance like his +own, he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces +of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are +put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs.[180] Yet is +the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the +senate and the college. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the +world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is +decorous and prudent, for they are timid as being very vulnerable +themselves. But when to their feminine rage the indignation of the +people is added, when the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the +unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made +to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to +treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment. + +The other terror[181] that scares us from self-trust is our +consistency;[182] a reverence for our past act or word, because the +eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit[183] than +our past acts, and we are loth to disappoint them. + +But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about +this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat[184] you have +stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict +yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on +your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring +the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in +a new day. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the +Deity; yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them +heart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color. +Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and +flee.[185] + +A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by +little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a +great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself +with the shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, +and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though +it contradict everything you said to-day.--"Ah, so you shall be sure +to be misunderstood."--Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? +Pythagoras[186] was misunderstood, and Socrates,[187] and Jesus, and +Luther,[188] and Copernicus,[189] and Galileo,[190] and Newton,[191] +and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to +be misunderstood. + +I suppose no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will +are rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of +Andes[192] and Himmaleh[193] are insignificant in the curve of the +sphere. Nor does it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is +like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;[194]--read it forward, +backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing, +contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my +honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it +will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not, and see it not. My +book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The +swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he +carries in his bill into my web also. We pass for what we are. +Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate +their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue +or vice emit a breath every moment. + +There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be +each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions +will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost +sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One +tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line +of a hundred tacks.[195] See the line from a sufficient distance, and +it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action +will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your +conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already +done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If +I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes,[196] I must +have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, +do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. The force +of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their +health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate +and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a +train of great days and victories behind. They shed an united light on +the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of angels. +That is it which throws thunder into Chatham's[197] voice, and dignity +into Washington's port, and America into Adams's[198] eye. Honor is +venerable to us because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient +virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it +and pay it homage, because it is not a trap for our love and homage, +but is self-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an old +immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person. + +I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and +consistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward. +Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the +Spartan[199] fife. Let us never bow and apologize more. A great man is +coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he +should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity, and though I +would make it kind, I would make it true. Let us affront and reprimand +the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl +in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the +upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and +Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no +other time or place, but is the center of things. Where he is, there +is nature. He measures you, and all men, and all events. Ordinarily, +everybody in society reminds us of somewhat else, or of some other +person. Character, reality, reminds you of nothing else; it takes +place of the whole creation. The man must be so much, that he must +make all circumstances indifferent. Every true man is a cause, a +country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time +fully to accomplish his design;--and posterity seem to follow his +steps as a train of clients. A man Cæsar[200] is born, and for ages +after we have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds +so grow and cleave to his genius, that he is confounded with virtue +and the possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of +one man; as Monachism, of the hermit Antony;[201] the Reformation, of +Luther; Quakerism, of Fox;[202] Methodism, of Wesley;[203] Abolition, +of Clarkson.[204] Scipio,[205] Milton called "the height of Rome"; and +all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few +stout and earnest persons. + +Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him +not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, +a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which exists for him. But +the man in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds +to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels +poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, a statue, a costly book, +have an alien and forbidding air, much like a gay equipage, and seem +to say like that, "Who are you, Sir?" Yet they all are his, suitors +for his notice, petitioners to his faculties that they will come out +and take possession. The picture waits for my verdict: it is not to +command me, but I am to settle its claims to praise. That popular +fable of the sot who was picked up dead drunk in the street, carried +to the duke's house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke's bed, +and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the +duke, and assured that he had been insane,[206] owes its popularity to +the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the +world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason, +and finds himself a true prince. + +Our reading is mendicant and sycophantic. In history, our imagination +plays us false. Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier +vocabulary than private John and Edward in a small house and common +day's work; but the things of life are the same to both; the sum total +of both is the same. Why all this deference to Alfred,[207] and +Scanderbeg,[208] and Gustavus?[209] Suppose they were virtuous; did +they wear out virtue? As great a stake depends on your private act +to-day, as followed their public and renowned steps. When private men +shall act with original views, the luster will be transferred from the +actions of kings to those of gentlemen. + +The world has been instructed by its kings, who have so magnetized the +eyes of nations. It has been taught by this colossal symbol the mutual +reverence that is due from man to man. The joyful loyalty with which +men have everywhere suffered the king, the noble, or the great +proprietor to walk among them by a law of his own, make his own scale +of men and things, and reverse theirs, pay for benefits not with money +but with honor, and represent the law in his person, was the +hieroglyphic[210] by which they obscurely signified their +consciousness of their own right and comeliness, the right of every +man. + +The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we +inquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee? What is the +aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What +is the nature and power of that science-baffling star, without +parallax,[211] without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of +beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of +independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the +essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity +or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all +later teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, the last fact behind +which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin. For the +sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the +soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, +from man, but one with them, and proceeds obviously from the same +source whence their life and being also proceed. We first share the +life by which things exist, and afterwards see them as appearances in +nature, and forget that we have shared their cause. Here is the +fountain of action and of thought. Here are the lungs of that +inspiration which giveth man wisdom, and which cannot be denied +without impiety and atheism. We lie in the lap of immense +intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its +activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do +nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask +whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all +philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can +affirm. Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his +mind, and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his +involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the +expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day +and night, not to be disputed. My willful actions and acquisitions are +but roving;--the idlest reverie, the faintest native emotion, command +my curiosity and respect. Thoughtless people contradict as readily the +statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; +for, they do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy +that I choose to see this or that thing. But perception is not +whimsical, it is fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it +after me, and in course of time, all mankind,--although it may chance +that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much +a fact as the sun. + +The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is +profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh +he should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the +world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, +from the center of the present thought; and new date and new create +the whole. Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, +old things pass away,--means, teachers, texts, temples, fall; it lives +now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are +made sacred by relation to it,--one as much as another. All things +are dissolved to their center by their cause, and, in the universal +miracle, petty and particular miracles disappear. If, therefore, a man +claims to know and speak of God, and carries you backward to the +phraseology of some old moldered nation in another country, in another +world, believe him not. Is the acorn better than the oak which is its +fullness and completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom +he has cast his ripened being?[212] Whence, then, this worship of the +past?[213] The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and +authority of the soul. Time and space are but physiological colors +which the eye makes, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where +it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury, if it +be anything more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and +becoming. + +Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say +"I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before +the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window +make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what +they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There +is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. +Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown +flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its +nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. +But man postpones, or remembers; he does not live in the present, but +with a reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that +surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be +happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above +time. + +This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not +yet hear God himself, unless he speak the phraseology of I know not +what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a +price on a few texts, on a few lives.[214] We are like children who +repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they +grow older, of the men and talents and characters they chance to +see,--painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, +when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered +those saying, they understand them, and are willing to let the words +go; for, at any time, they can use words as good when occasion comes. +If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man +to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. When we have new +perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded +treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall +be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn. + +And now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid; +probably cannot be said; for all that we say is the far-off +remembering of the intuition. That thought, by what I can now nearest +approach to say it, is this. When good is near you, when you have +life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall +not discern the footprints of any other; you shall not see the face of +man; you shall not hear any name;--the way, the thought, the good, +shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and +experience. You take the way from man, not to man. All persons that +ever existed are its forgotten ministers. Fear and hope are alike +beneath it. There is somewhat low even in hope. In the hour of vision, +there is nothing that can be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The +soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation, +perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right, and calms itself with +knowing that all things go well. Vast spaces of nature, the Atlantic +Ocean, the South Sea,--long intervals of time, years, centuries,--are +of no account. This which I think and feel underlay every former state +of life and circumstances, as it does underlie my present, and what is +called life, and what is called death. + +Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of +repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new +state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one +fact the world hates, that the soul _becomes_; for that forever +degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to +shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas[215] +equally aside. Why, then, do we prate of self-reliance? Inasmuch as +the soul is present, there will be power not confident but agent.[216] +To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather +of that which relies, because it works and is. Who has more obedience +than I masters me, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I +must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. We fancy it rhetoric, when +we speak of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, +and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable to +principles, by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities, +nations, kings, rich men, poets, who are not. + +This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on +every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE. +Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it +constitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into +all lower forms. All things real are so by so much virtue as they +contain. Commerce, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war eloquence, +personal weight, are somewhat, and engage my respect as examples of +its presence and impure action. I see the same law working in nature +for conservation and growth. Power is in nature the essential measure +of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which +cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise +and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the +vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of +the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul. + +Thus all concentrates: let us not rove; let us sit at home with the +cause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books +and institutions, by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the +invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here +within.[217] Let our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our +own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our +native riches. + +But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his +genius admonished to stay at home to put itself in communication with +the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the +urns of other men. We must go alone. I like the silent church before +the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, +how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or +sanctuary! So let us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of +our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our +hearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood, and +I have all men's.[218] Not for that will I adopt their petulance or +folly, even to the extent of being ashamed of it. But your isolation +must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At +times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with +emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, +charity, all knock at once at thy closet door, and say, "Come out unto +us." But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men +possess to annoy men, I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can +come near me but through my act. "What we love that we have, but by +desire we bereave ourselves of the love." + +If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and faith, +let us at least resist our temptations; let us enter into the state of +war, and wake Thor and Woden,[219] courage and constancy, in our Saxon +breasts. This is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. +Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to +the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we +converse. Say to them, O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O +friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward +I am the truth's. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law +less than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but +proximities.[220] I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support +my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife,--but these relations +I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your +customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, +or you.[221] If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the +happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. +I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is +deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever +inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will +love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by +hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth +with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not +selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, +and all men's however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. +Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by +your nature as well as mine, and, if we follow the truth, it will +bring us out safe at last.[222] But so may you give these friends +pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their +sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when +they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they +justify me, and do the same thing. + +The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a +rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism;[223] and the bold +sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the +law of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one or +the other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfill your round of +duties by clearing yourself in the _direct_, or in the _reflex_ way. +Consider whether you have satisfied your relations to father, mother, +cousin, neighbor, town, cat, and dog; whether any of these can upbraid +you. But I may also neglect this reflex standard, and absolve me to +myself. I have my own stern claims and perfect circle. It denies the +name of duty to many offices that are called duties. But if I can +discharge its debts, it enables me to dispense with the popular code. +If any one imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its +commandment one day. + +And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the +common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a +taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, +that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, +that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to +others! + +If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by +distinction _society_, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew +and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, +desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, +afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and +perfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our +social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot +satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to +their practical force,[224] and do lean and beg day and night +continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, +our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but society has +chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of +fate, where strength is born. + +If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all +heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is _ruined_. If the +finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in +an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of +Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is +right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. +A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the +professions, who _teams it, farms it_,[225] _peddles_, keeps a school, +preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so +forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, +is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his +days, and feels no shame in not "studying a profession," for he does +not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a +hundred chances. Let a Stoic[226] open the resources of man, and tell +men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; +that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a +man is the word made flesh,[227] born to shed healing to the +nations,[228] that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that +the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, +idolatries and customs out of the window, we pity him no more, but +thank and revere him,--and that teacher shall restore the life of man +to splendor, and make his name dear to all history. + +It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution +in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their +education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their +association; in their property; in their speculative views. + +1. In what prayers do men allow themselves![229] That which they call +a holy office is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad +and asks for some foreign addition to come through some foreign +virtue, and loses itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural, +and mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves a particular +commodity,--anything less than all good,--is vicious. Prayer is the +contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It +is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul.[230] It is the +spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to +effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and +not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one +with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action. The +prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of +the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard +throughout nature, though for cheap ends. Caratach,[231] in Fletcher's +Bonduca, when admonished to inquire the mind of the god Audate, +replies,-- + + "His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors; + Our valors are our best gods." + +Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want +of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you +can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and +already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. +We come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for company, +instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric +shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. +The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods +and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him +all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our +love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We +solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he +held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods love him +because men hated him. "To the persevering mortal," said +Zoroaster,[232] "the blessed Immortals are swift." + +As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a +disease of the intellect. They say with those foolish Israelites, "Let +not God speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any man with us, and +we will obey."[233] Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my +brother, because he has shut his own temple doors, and recites fables +merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God. Every new mind +is a new classification. If it prove a mind of uncommon activity and +power, a Locke,[234] a Lavoisier,[235] a Hutton,[236] a Betham,[237] a +Fourier,[238] it imposes its classification on other men, and lo! a new +system. In proportion to the depth of the thought, and so to the number +of the objects it touches and brings within reach of the pupil, is his +complacency. But chiefly is this apparent in creeds and churches, which +are also classifications of some powerful mind acting on the elemental +thought of duty, and man's relation to the Highest. Such is +Calvinism,[239] Quakerism,[240] Swedenborgism.[241] The pupil takes the +same delight in subordinating everything to the new terminology, as a +girl who has just learned botany in seeing a new earth and new seasons +thereby. It will happen for a time, that the pupil will find his +intellectual power has grown by the study of his master's mind. But in +all unbalanced minds, the classification is idolized, passes for the +end, and not for a speedily exhaustible means, so that the walls of the +system blend to their eye in the remote horizon with the walls of the +universe; the luminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their +master built. They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to +see,--how you can see; "It must be somehow that you stole the light from +us." They do not yet perceive that light, unsystematic, indomitable, +will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and +call it their own. If they are honest and do well, presently their neat +new pinfold will be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot +and vanish, and the immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, +million-colored, will beam over the universe as on the first morning. + +2. It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Traveling, +whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all +educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable +in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an +axis of the earth. In manly hours, we feel that duty is our place. The +soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home, and when his +necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or +into foreign lands, he is at home still; and shall make men sensible +by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of +wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not +like an interloper or a valet. + +I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for +the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is +first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding +somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get +somewhat which he does not carry,[242] travels away from himself, and +grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes,[243] in +Palmyra,[244] his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as +they. He carries ruins to ruins. + +Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the +indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can +be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, +embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, +and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, +identical, that I fled from.[245] I seek the Vatican,[246] and the +palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but +I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go. + +3. But the rage of traveling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness +affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, +and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel +when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is +imitation but the traveling of the mind? Our houses are built with +foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our +opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the +Distant. The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It +was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an +application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the +conditions to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric[247] or the +Gothic[248] model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought, and +quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if the American +artist will study with hope and love the precise thing to be done by +him considering the climate, the soil, the length of the day, the +wants of the people, the habit and form of the government, he will +create a house in which all these will find themselves fitted, and +taste and sentiment will be satisfied also. + +Insist on yourself; never imitate.[249] Your own gift you can present +every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; +but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, +half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can +teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has +exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught +Shakespeare?[250] Where is the master who could have instructed +Franklin,[251] or Washington, or Bacon,[252] or Newton?[253] Every great +man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio[254] is precisely that part he +could not borrow. Shakespeare will never be made by the study of +Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too +much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance +brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias,[255] or +trowel of the Egyptians,[256] or the pen of Moses,[257] or Dante,[258] +but different from all these. Not possibly will the soul all rich, all +eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if +you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in +the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue are two organs of +one nature. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy +heart, and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld[259] again. + +4. As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so does our +spirit of society. All men plume themselves on the improvement of +society, and no man improves. + +Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on +the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is +civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this +change is not amelioration. For everything that is given, something is +taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. What a +contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, +with a watch, a pencil, and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the +naked New Zealander,[260] whose property is a club, a spear, a mat, +and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under! But compare the +health of the two men, and you shall see that the white man has lost +his aboriginal strength. If the traveler tell us truly, strike the +savage with a broad ax, and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and +heal as if you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow +shall send the white to his grave. + +The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. +He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He +has a fine Geneva[261] watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the +hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac[262] he has, and so +being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street +does not know a star in the sky. The solstice[263] he does not +observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar +of the year is without a dial in his mind. His notebooks impair his +memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases +the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery +does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some +energy, by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and forms, some +vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom +where is the Christian? + +There is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the standard +of height or bulk. No greater men are now than ever were. A singular +equality may be observed between great men of the first and of the +last ages; nor can all the science, art, religion, and philosophy of +the nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than +Plutarch's[264] heroes, three or four and twenty centuries ago. Not in +time is the race progressive. Phocion,[265] Socrates, Anaxagoras,[266] +Diogenes,[267] are great men, but they leave no class. He who is +really of their class will not be called by their name, but will be +his own man, and, in his turn, the founder of a sect. The arts and +inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate +men. The harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good. +Hudson[268] and Bering[269] accomplished so much in their fishing +boats, as to astonish Parry[270] and Franklin,[271] whose equipment +exhausted the resources of science and art. Galileo, with an +opera-glass, discovered a more splendid series of celestial phenomena +than any one since. Columbus[272] found the New World in an undecked +boat. It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of +means and machinery, which were introduced with loud laudation a few +years or centuries before. The great genius returns to essential man. +We reckoned the improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of +science, and yet Napoleon[273] conquered Europe by the bivouac, which +consisted of falling back on naked valor, and disencumbering it of all +aids. The Emperor held it impossible to make a perfect army, says Las +Casas,[274] "without abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries, and +carriages, until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should +receive his supply of corn, grind it in his handmill, and bake his +bread himself." + +Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is +composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to +the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a +nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them. + +And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments +which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away +from themselves and at things so long, that they have come to esteem +the religious, learned, and civil institutions as guards of property, +and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be +assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what +each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes +ashamed of his property, out of new respect for his nature. Especially +he hates what he has, if he see that it is accidental,--came to him by +inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; +it does not belong to him, has no root in him, and merely lies there, +because no revolution or no robber takes it away. But that which a man +is, does always by necessity acquire, and what the man acquires is +living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or +revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually +renews itself wherever the man breathes. "Thy lot or portion of life," +said the Caliph Ali,[275] "is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest +from seeking after it." Our dependence on these foreign goods leads us +to our slavish respect for numbers. The political parties meet in +numerous conventions; the greater the concourse, and with each new +uproar of announcement, The delegation from Essex![276] The Democrats +from New Hampshire! The Whigs of Maine! the young patriot feels +himself stronger than before by a new thousand of eyes and arms. In +like manner the reformers summon conventions, and vote and resolve in +multitude. Not so, O friends! will the god deign to enter and inhabit +you, but by a method precisely the reverse. It is only as a man puts +off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong +and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a +man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and in the endless +mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of +all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is inborn, that he is +weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so +perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly +rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, +works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than +a man who stands on his head. + +So use all that is called Fortune.[277] Most men gamble with her, and +gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as +unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the +chancelors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained +the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her +rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your +sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable +event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for +you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. +Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. + + + + +FRIENDSHIP.[278] + + +1. We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Barring all +the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human +family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many +persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we +honor, and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in +church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the +language of these wandering eyebeams. The heart knoweth. + +2. The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain +cordial exhilaration. In poetry, and in common speech, the emotions of +benevolence and complacency which are felt toward others, are likened +to the material effects of fire; so swift, or much more swift, more +active, more cheering are these fine inward irradiations. From the +highest degree of passionate love, to the lowest degree of good will, +they make the sweetness of life. + +3. Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The +scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not +furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is +necessary to write a letter to a friend, and, forthwith, troops of +gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen words. +See in any house where virtue and self-respect abide, the palpitation +which the approach of a stranger causes. A commended stranger is +expected and announced, and an uneasiness between pleasure and pain +invades all the hearts of a household. His arrival almost brings fear +to the good hearts that would welcome him. The house is dusted, all +things fly into their places, the old coat is exchanged for the new, +and they must get up a dinner if they can. Of a commended stranger, +only the good report is told by others, only the good and new is heard +by us. He stands to us for humanity. He is, what we wish. Having +imagined and invested him, we ask how we should stand related in +conversation and action with such a man, and are uneasy with fear. The +same idea exalts conversation with him. We talk better than we are +wont. We have the nimblest fancy, a richer memory, and our dumb devil +has taken leave for the time. For long hours we can continue a series +of sincere, graceful, rich communications, drawn from the oldest, +secretest experience, so that they who sit by, of our own kinsfolk and +acquaintance, shall feel a lively surprise at our unusual powers. But +as soon as the stranger begins to intrude his partialities, his +definitions, his defects, into the conversation, it is all over. He +has heard the first, the last and best, he will ever hear from us. He +is no stranger now. Vulgarity, ignorance, misapprehension, are old +acquaintances. Now, when he comes, he may get the order, the dress, +and the dinner, but the throbbing of the heart, and the communications +of the soul, no more. + +4. What is so pleasant as these jets of affection which relume[279] a +young world for me again? What is so delicious as a just and firm +encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling? How beautiful, on their +approach to this beating heart, the steps and forms of the gifted and +the true! The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is +metamorphosed; there is no winter, and no night; all tragedies, all +ennuis vanish; all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity +but the forms all radiant of beloved persons. Let the soul be assured +that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it +would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years. + +5. I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old +and the new. Shall I not call God, the Beautiful, who daily showeth +himself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude, and +yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely, and the +noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate.[280] Who hears me, +who understands me, becomes mine,--a possession for all time. Nor is +nature so poor, but she gives me this joy several times, and thus we +weave social threads of our own, a new web of relations; and, as many +thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by-and-by stand +in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims +is a traditionary globe. My friends have come[281] to me unsought. The +great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of +virtue with itself, I find them, or rather, not I, but the Deity in me +and in them, both deride and cancel the thick walls of individual +character, relation, age, sex and circumstance, at which he usually +connives, and now makes many one. High thanks I owe you, excellent +lovers, who carry out the world for me to new and noble depths, and +enlarge the meaning of all my thoughts. These are new poetry of the +first Bard[282]--poetry without stop--hymn, ode and epic,[283] poetry +still flowing, Apollo[284] and the Muses[285] chanting still. Will these +two separate themselves from me again, or some of them? I know not, but +I fear it not; for my relation to them is so pure, that we hold by +simple affinity, and the Genius[286] of my life being thus social, the +same affinity will exert its energy on whomsoever is as noble as these +men and women, wherever I may be. + +6. I confess to an extreme tenderness of nature on this point. It is +almost dangerous to me to "crush the sweet poison,[287] of misused +wine" of the affections. A new person is to me a great event, and +hinders me from sleep. I have had such fine fancies lately about two +or three persons, as have given me delicious hours, but the joy ends +in the day: it yields no fruit. Thought is not born of it; my action +is very little modified. I must feel pride in my friend's +accomplishments as if they were mine, and a property in his virtues. +I feel as warmly when he is praised, as the lover when he hears +applause of his engaged maiden. We over-estimate the conscience of our +friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature finer, +his temptations less. Everything that is his,--his name, his form, his +dress, books and instruments,--fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds +new and larger from his mouth. + +7. Yet the systole and diastole[288] of the heart are not without +their analogy in the ebb and flow of love. Friendship, like the +immortality[289] of the soul, is too good to be believed. The lover, +beholding his maiden, half knows that she is not verily that which he +worships; and in the golden hour of friendship, we are surprised with +shades of suspicion and unbelief. We doubt that we bestow on our hero +the virtues in which he shines, and afterward worship the form to +which we have ascribed this divine inhabitation. In strictness, the +soul does not respect men as it respects itself. In strict science, +all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness. +Shall we fear to cool our love by mining for the metaphysical +foundation of this Elysian temple?[290] Shall I not be as real as the +things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they +are. Their essence is not less beautiful than their appearance, though +it needs finer organs for its apprehension. The root of the plant is +not unsightly to science, though for chaplets and festoons we cut the +stem short. And I must hazard the production of the bald fact amid +these pleasing reveries, though it should prove an Egyptian skull at +our banquet.[291] A man who stands united with his thought, conceives +magnificently to himself. He is conscious of a universal success,[292] +even though bought by uniform particular failures. No advantages, no +powers, no gold or force can be any match for him. I cannot choose but +rely on my own poverty, more than on your wealth. I cannot make your +consciousness tantamount to mine. Only the star dazzles; the planet +has a faint, moon-like ray. I hear what you say of the admirable parts +and tried temper of the party you praise, but I see well that for all +his purple cloaks I shall not like him, unless he is at least a poor +Greek like me. I cannot deny it, O friend, that the vast shadow of the +Phenomenal includes thee, also, in its pied and painted +immensity,--thee, also, compared with whom all else is shadow. Thou +art not Being, as Truth is, as Justice is,--thou art not my soul, but +a picture and effigy of that. Thou hast come to me lately, and already +thou art seizing thy hat and cloak. It is not that the soul puts forth +friends, as the tree puts forth leaves, and presently, by the +germination of new buds, extrudes the old leaf?[293] The law of nature +is alternation forevermore. Each electrical state superinduces the +opposite. The soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter +into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone, for a +season, that it may exalt its conversation or society. This method +betrays itself along the whole history of our personal relations. The +instinct of affection revives the hope of union with our mates, and +the returning sense of insulation recalls us from the chase. Thus +every man passes his life in the search after friendship, and if he +should record his true sentiment, he might write a letter like this, +to each new candidate for his love:-- + + DEAR FRIEND:-- + + If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match + my mood with thine, I should never think again of trifles, + in relation to thy comings and goings. I am not very wise; + my moods are quite attainable; and I respect thy genius; it + is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a + perfect intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a + delicious torment. Thine ever, or never. + +8. Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity, and +not for life. They are not to be indulged. This is to weave cobweb, +and not cloth. Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, +because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams,[294] instead +of the tough fiber of the human heart. The laws of friendship are +great, austere, and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of +morals. But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a +sudden sweetness. We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden +of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen. We seek our +friend not sacredly but with an adulterate passion which would +appropriate him to ourselves. In vain. We are armed all over with +subtle antagonisms, which, as soon as we meet, begin to play, and +translate all poetry into stale prose. Almost all people descend to +meet. All association must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the +very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures +disappears as they approach each other. What a perpetual +disappointment is actual society, even of the virtuous and gifted! +After interviews have been compassed with long foresight, we must be +tormented presently by baffled blows, by sudden, unseasonable +apathies, by epilepsies of wit and of animal spirits, in the heyday of +friendship and thought. Our faculties do not play us true, and both +parties are relieved by solitude. + +9. I ought to be equal to every relation. It makes no difference how +many friends I have, and what content I can find in conversing with +each, if there be one to whom I am not equal. If I have shrunk unequal +from one contest instantly, the joy I find in all the rest becomes +mean and cowardly. I should hate myself, if then I made my other +friends my asylum. + + "The valiant warrior[295] famoused for fight, + After a hundred victories, once foiled, + Is from the book of honor razed quite, + And all the rest forgot for which he toiled." + +10. Our impatience is thus sharply rebuked. Bashfulness and apathy are +a tough husk in which a delicate organization is protected from +premature ripening. It would be lost if it knew itself before any of +the best souls were yet ripe enough to know and own it. Respect the +_naturlangsamkeit_[296] which hardens the ruby in a million years, +and works in duration, in which Alps and Andes come and go as +rainbows. The good spirit of our life has no heaven which is the price +of rashness. Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but +for the total worth of man. Let us not have this childish luxury in +our regards, but the austerest worth; let us approach our friend with +an audacious trust in the truth of his heart, in the breadth, +impossible to be overturned, of his foundations. + +11. The attractions of this subject are not to be resisted, and I +leave, for the time, all account of subordinate social benefit, to +speak of that select and sacred relation which is a kind of absolute, +and which even leaves the language of love suspicious and common, so +much is this purer, and nothing is so much divine. + +12. I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest +courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, +but the solidest thing we know. For now, after so many ages of +experience, what do we know of nature, or of ourselves? Not one step +has man taken toward the solution of the problem of his destiny. In +one condemnation of folly stand the whole universe of men. But the +sweet sincerity of joy and peace, which I draw from this alliance +with my brother's soul, is the nut itself whereof all nature and all +thought is but the husk and shell. Happy is the house that shelters a +friend! It might well be built, like a festal bower or arch, to +entertain him a single day. Happier, if he know the solemnity of that +relation, and honor its law! He who offers himself a candidate for +that covenant comes up, like an Olympian,[297] to the great games, +where the first-born of the world are the competitors. He proposes +himself for contest where Time, Want, Danger are in the lists, and he +alone is victor who has truth enough in his constitution to preserve +the delicacy of his beauty from the wear and tear of all these. The +gifts of fortune may be present or absent, but all the hap in that +contest depends on intrinsic nobleness, and the contempt of trifles. +There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each +so sovereign, that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason +why either should be first named. One is Truth. A friend is a person +with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud. I am +arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may +drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and +second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with +the simplicity and wholeness, with which one chemical atom meets +another. Sincerity is the luxury allowed, but diadems and authority, +only to the highest rank, _that_ being permitted to speak truth as +having none above it to court or conform unto. Every man alone is +sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We +parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by +gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him +under a hundred folds. I knew a man who,[298] under a certain +religious frenzy, cast off this drapery, and omitting all compliments +and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he +encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first he was +resisted, and all men agreed he was mad. But persisting, as indeed he +could not help doing, for some time in this course, he attained to the +advantage of bringing every man of his acquaintance into true +relations with him. No man would think of speaking falsely with him, +or of putting him off with any chat of markets or reading-rooms. But +every man was constrained by so much sincerity to the like plain +dealing and what love of nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth he +had, he did certainly show him. But to most of us society shows not +its face and eye, but its side and its back. To stand in true +relations with men in a false age, is worth a fit of insanity, is it +not? We can seldom go erect. Almost every man we meet requires some +civility,--requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some +whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be +questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend +is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me. My friend gives +me entertainment without requiring any stipulation on my part. A +friend, therefore, is a sort of paradox[299] in nature. I who alone +am, I who see nothing in nature whose existence I can affirm with +equal evidence to my own, behold now the semblance of my being in all +its height, variety and curiosity, reiterated in a foreign form; so +that a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. + +13. The other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to +men by every sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by +lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and +badge and trifle, but we can scarce believe that so much character can +subsist in another as to draw us by love. Can another be so blessed, +and we so pure, that we can offer him tenderness? When a man becomes +dear to me, I have touched the goal of fortune. I find very little +written directly to the heart of this matter in books. And yet I have +one text which I cannot choose but remember. My author says,[300]--"I +offer myself faintly and bluntly to those whose I effectually am, and +tender myself least to him to whom I am the most devoted." I wish that +friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and eloquence. It must +plant itself on the ground, before it vaults over the moon. I wish it +to be a little of a citizen, before it is quite a cherub.[301] We +chide the citizen because he makes love a commodity. It is an exchange +of gifts, of useful loans; it is good neighborhood; it watches with +the sick; it holds the pall at the funeral; and quite loses sight of +the delicacies and nobility of the relation. But though we cannot find +the god under this disguise of a sutler, yet, on the other hand, we +cannot forgive the poet if he spins his thread too fine, and does not +substantiate his romance by the municipal virtues of justice, +punctuality, fidelity and pity. I hate the prostitution of the name of +friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances. I much prefer the +company of plow-boys and tin-peddlers, to the silken and perfumed +amity which only celebrates its days of encounter by a frivolous +display, by rides in a curricle,[302] and dinners at the best taverns. +The end of friendship is a commerce the most strict and homely that +can be joined; more strict than any of which we have experience. It is +for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and +death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country +rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, +and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the +trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs +and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and +unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but +should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was +drudgery. + +14. Friendship may be said to require natures so rare and costly, each +so well-tempered, and so happily adapted, and withal so +circumstanced, (for even in that particular, a poet says, love demands +that the parties be altogether paired,) that its satisfaction can very +seldom be assured. It cannot subsist in its perfection, say some of +those who are learned in this warm lore of the heart, betwixt more +than two. I am not quite so strict in my terms, perhaps because I have +never known so high a fellowship as others. I please my imagination +more with a circle of godlike men and women variously related to each +other, and between whom subsists a lofty intelligence. But I find this +law of _one to one_,[303] peremptory for conversation, which is the +practice and consummation of friendship. Do not mix waters too much. +The best mix as ill as good and bad. You shall have very useful and +cheering discourse at several times with two several men, but let all +three of you come together, and you shall not have one new and hearty +word. Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take part in a +conversation of the most sincere and searching sort. In good company +there is never such discourse between two, across the table, as takes +place when you leave them alone. In good company, the individuals at +once merge their egotism into a social soul exactly co-extensive with +the several consciousnesses there present. No partialities of friend +to friend, no fondnesses of brother to sister, of wife to husband, are +there pertinent, but quite otherwise. Only he may then speak who can +sail on the common thought of the party, and not poorly limited to +his own. Now this convention, which good sense demands, destroys the +high freedom of great conversation, which requires an absolute running +of two souls into one. + +15. No two men but being left alone with each other, enter into +simpler relations. Yet it is affinity that determines _which_ two +shall converse. Unrelated men give little joy to each other; will +never suspect the latent powers of each. We talk sometimes of a great +talent for conversation, as if it were a permanent property in some +individuals. Conversation is an evanescent relation,--no more. A man +is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say +a word to his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his silence with as +much reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the +shade. In the sun it will mark the hour. Among those who enjoy his +thought, he will regain his tongue. + +16. Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and +unlikeness, that piques each with the presence of power and of consent +in the other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather +than that my friend should overstep by a word or a look his real +sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him +not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being +mine, is that the _not mine_ is _mine_. I hate, where I looked for a +manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of +concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend, than his +echo. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do +without it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There +must be very two before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance +of two large formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, +before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these +disparities unites them. + +17. He only is fit for this society who is magnanimous; who is sure +that greatness and goodness are always economy; who is not swift to +intermeddle with his fortunes. Let him not intermeddle with this. +Leave to the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the +births of the eternal. Friendship demands a religious treatment. We +talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected. Reverence +is a great part of it. Treat your friend as a spectacle. Of course he +has merits that are not yours, and that you cannot honor, if you must +needs hold him close to your person. Stand aside; give those merits +room; let them mount and expand. Are you the friend of your friend's +buttons, or of his thought? To a great heart he will still be a +stranger in a thousand particulars, that he may come near in the +holiest ground. Leave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as +property, and to suck a short and all-confounding pleasure instead of +the noblest benefits. + +18. Let us buy our entrance to this guild by a long probation. Why +should we desecrate noble and beautiful souls by intruding on them? +Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to his +house, or know his mother and brother and sisters? Why be visited by +him at your own? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this +touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, +a sincerity, a glance from him I want, but not news, nor pottage. I +can get politics, and chat, and neighborly conveniences, from cheaper +companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, +universal, and great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is +profane in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the +horizon, or that clump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us +not vilify but raise it to that standard. That great defying eye, that +scornful beauty of his mien and action, do not pique yourself on +reducing, but rather fortify and enhance. Worship his superiorities; +wish him not less by a thought, but hoard and tell them all. Guard him +as thy counterpart. Let him be to thee forever a sort of beautiful +enemy, untamable, devoutly revered, and not a trivial conveniency to +be soon outgrown and cast aside. The hues of the opal, the light of +the diamond, are not to be seen, if the eye is too near. To my friend +I write a letter, and from him I receive a letter. That seems to you a +little. It suffices me. It is a spiritual gift worthy of him to give +and of me to receive. It profanes nobody. In these warm lines the +heart will trust itself, as it will not to the tongue, and pour out +the prophecy of a godlier existence than all the annals of heroism +have yet made good. + +19. Respect so far the holy laws of this fellowship as not to +prejudice its perfect flower by your impatience for its opening. We +must be our own before we can be another's. There is at least this +satisfaction in crime, according to the Latin proverb;--you can speak +to your accomplice on even terms. _Crimen quos[304] inquinat, æquat_. +To those whom we admire and love, at first we cannot. Yet the least +defect of self-possession vitiates, in my judgment, the entire +relation. There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never +mutual respect until, in their dialogue, each stands for the whole +world. + +20. What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what grandeur of +spirit we can. Let us be silent,--so we may hear the whisper of the +gods. Let us not interfere. Who set you to cast about what you should +say to the select souls, or how to say anything to such? No matter how +ingenious, no matter how graceful and bland. There are innumerable +degrees of folly and wisdom, and for you to say aught is to be +frivolous. Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait until the necessary +and everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves +of your lips. The only reward of virtue, is virtue; the only way to +have a friend is to be one. You shall not come nearer a man by getting +into his house. If unlike, his soul only flees the faster from you, +and you shall catch never a true glance of his eye. We see the noble +afar off, and they repel us; why should we intrude? Late,--very +late,--we perceive that no arrangements, no introductions, no +consuetudes or habits of society, would be of any avail to establish +us in such relations with them as we desire,--but solely the uprise of +nature in us to the same degree it is in them; then shall we meet as +water with water; and if we should not meet them then, we shall not +want them, for we are already they. In the last analysis, love is only +the reflection of a man's own worthiness from other men. Men have +sometimes exchanged names with their friends, as if they would signify +that in their friend each loved his own soul. + +21. The higher the style we demand of friendship, of course the less +easy to establish it with flesh and blood. We walk alone in the world. +Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope +cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of +the universal power, souls are now acting, enduring and daring, which +can love us, and which we can love. We may congratulate ourselves that +the period of nonage,[305] of follies, of blunders, and of shame, is +passed in solitude, and when we are finished men, we shall grasp +heroic hands in heroic hands. Only be admonished by what you already +see, not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no +friendship can be. Our impatience betrays us into rash and foolish +alliances which no God attends. By persisting in your path, though +you forfeit the little you gain the great. You demonstrate yourself, +so as to put yourself out of the reach of false relations, and you +draw to you the first-born of the world, those rare pilgrims whereof +only one or two wander in nature at once, and before whom the vulgar +great show as specters and shadows merely. + +22. It is foolish to be afraid of making our ties too spiritual, as if +so we could lose any genuine love. Whatever correction of our popular +views we make from insight, nature will be sure to bear us out in, and +though it seem to rob us of some joy, will repay us with a greater. +Let us feel, if we will, the absolute insulation of man. We are sure +that we have all in us. We go to Europe, or we pursue persons, or we +read books, in the instinctive faith that these will call it out and +reveal us to ourselves. Beggars all. The persons are such as we; the +Europe, an old faded garment of dead persons; the books, their ghosts. +Let us drop this idolatry. Let us give over this mendicancy. Let us +even bid our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, "Who are +you? Unhand me. I will be dependent no more." Ah! seest thou not, O +brother, that thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform, +and only be more each other's, because we are more our own? A friend +is Janus-faced:[306] he looks to the past and the future. He is the +child of all my foregoing hours, the prophet of those to come, and +the harbinger[307] of a greater friend. + +23. I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them +where I can find them, but I seldom use them. We must have society on +our own terms, and admit or exclude it on the slightest cause. I +cannot afford to speak much with my friend. If he is great, he makes +me so great that I cannot descend to converse. In the great days, +presentiments hover before me, far before me in the firmament. I ought +then to dedicate myself to them. I go in that I may seize them, I go +out that I may seize them. I fear only that I may lose them receding +into the sky in which now they are only a patch of brighter light. +Then, though I prize my friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and +study their visions, lest I lose my own. It would indeed give me a +certain household joy to quit this lofty seeking, this spiritual +astronomy, or search of stars, and come down to warm sympathies with +you; but then I know well I shall mourn always the vanishing of my +mighty gods. It is true, next week I shall have languid moods, when I +can well afford to occupy myself with foreign objects; then I shall +regret the lost literature of your mind, and wish you were by my side +again. But if you come, perhaps you will fill my mind only with new +visions, not with yourself but with your lusters, and I shall not be +able any more than now to converse with you. So I will owe to my +friends this evanescent intercourse. I will receive from them, not +what they have, but what they are. They shall give me that which +properly they cannot give, but which emanates from them. But they +shall not hold me by any relations less subtile and pure. We will meet +as though we met not, and part as though we parted not. + +24. It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a +friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the +other. Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is +not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall +wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the +reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold +companion. If he is unequal, he will presently pass away; but thou art +enlarged by thy own shining, and no longer a mate for frogs and worms, +dost soar and burn with the gods of the empyrean.[308] It is thought a +disgrace to love unrequited. But the great will see that true love +cannot be unrequited. True love transcends the unworthy object, and +dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask +crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its +independency the surer. Yet these things may hardly be said without a +sort of treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is +entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or +provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it may +deify both. + + + + +HEROISM[309] + + "Paradise is under the shadow of swords,"[310] + _Mahomet._ + + +1. In the elder English dramatists,[311] and mainly in the plays of +Beaumont and Fletcher,[312] there is a constant recognition of +gentility, as if a noble behavior were as easily marked in the society +of their age, as color is in our American population. When any Rodrigo, +Pedro, or Valerio[313] enters, though he be a stranger, the duke or +governor exclaims, This is a gentleman,--and proffers civilities without +end; but all the rest are slag and refuse. In harmony with this delight +in personal advantages, there is in their plays a certain heroic cast of +character and dialogue,--as in Bonduca, Sophocles, the Mad Lover, the +Double Marriage,[314]--wherein the speaker is so earnest and cordial, +and on such deep grounds of character, that the dialogue, on the +slightest additional incident in the plot, rises naturally into poetry. +Among many texts, take the following. The Roman Martius has conquered +Athens--all but the invincible spirits of Sophocles, the duke of Athens, +and Dorigen, his wife. The beauty of the latter inflames Martius, and he +seeks to save her husband; but Sophocles will not ask his life, although +assured, that a word will save him, and the execution of both proceeds. + +"_Valerius._ Bid thy wife farewell. + +_Soph._ No, I will take no leave. My Dorigen, +Yonder, above, 'bout Ariadne's crown.[315] +My spirit shall hover for thee. Prithee, haste. + +_Dor._ Stay, Sophocles--with this, tie up my sight; +Let not soft nature so transformed be, +And lose her gentler sexed humanity, +To make me see my lord bleed. So, 'tis well; +Never one object underneath the sun +Will I behold before my Sophocles: +Farewell; now teach the Romans how to die. + +_Mar._ Dost know what 'tis to die? + +_Soph._ Thou dost not, Martius, +And therefore, not what 'tis to live; to die +Is to begin to live. It is to end +An old, stale, weary work, and to commence +A newer and a better. 'Tis to leave +Deceitful knaves for the society +Of gods and goodness. Thou, thyself, must part +At last, from all thy garlands, pleasures, triumphs, +And prove thy fortitude what then 'twill do. + +_Val._ But art not grieved nor vexed to leave thy life thus? + +_Soph._ Why should I grieve or vex for being sent +To them I ever loved best? Now, I'll kneel, +But with my back toward thee; 'tis the last duty +This trunk can do the gods. + +_Mar._ Strike, strike, Valerius, +Or Martius' heart will leap out at his mouth: +This is a man, a woman! Kiss thy lord, +And live with all the freedom you were wont. +O love! thou doubly hast afflicted me +With virtue and with beauty. Treacherous heart, +My hand shall cast thee quick into my urn, +Ere thou transgress this knot of piety. + +_Val._ What ails my brother? + +_Soph._ Martius, oh Martius, +Thou now hast found a way to conquer me. + +_Dor._ O star of Rome! what gratitude can speak +Fit words to follow such a deed as this? + +_Mar._ This admirable duke, Valerius, +With his disdain of fortune and of death, +Captived himself, has captived me, +And though my arm hath ta'en his body here, +His soul hath subjugated Martius' soul. +By Romulus,[316] he is all soul, I think; +He hath no flesh, and spirit cannot be gyved; +Then we have vanquished nothing; he is free, +And Martius walks now in captivity." + +2. I do not readily remember any poem, play, sermon, novel, or +oration, that our press vents in the last few years, which goes to the +same tune. We have a great many flutes and flageolets, but not often +the sound of any fife. Yet, Wordsworth's Laodamia, and the ode of +"Dion,"[317] and some sonnets, have a certain noble music; and +Scott[318] will sometimes draw a stroke like the portrait of Lord +Evandale, given by Balfour of Burley.[319] Thomas Carlyle,[320] with +his natural taste for what is manly and daring in character, has +suffered no heroic trait in his favorites to drop from his +biographical and historical pictures. Earlier, Robert Burns[321] has +given us a song or two. In the Harleian Miscellanies,[322] there is an +account of the battle of Lutzen,[323] which deserves to be read. And +Simon Ockley's[324] History of the Saracens recounts the prodigies of +individual valor with admiration, all the more evident on the part of +the narrator, that he seems to think that his place in Christian +Oxford[325] requires of him some proper protestations of abhorrence. +But if we explore the literature of Heroism, we shall quickly come to +Plutarch,[326] who is its Doctor and historian. To him we owe the +Brasidas,[327] the Dion,[328] the Epaminondas,[329] the Scipio[330] of +old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all +the ancient writers. Each of his "Lives" is a refutation to the +despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A +wild courage, a Stoicism[331] not of the schools, but of the blood, +shines in every anecdote, and has given that book its immense fame. + +3. We need books of this tart cathartic virtue, more than books of +political science, or of private economy. Life is a festival only to +the wise. Seen from the nook and chimney-side of prudence, it wears a +ragged and dangerous front. The violations of the laws of nature by +our predecessors and our contemporaries are punished in us also. The +disease and deformity around us certify the infraction of natural, +intellectual, and moral laws, and often violation on violation to +breed such compound misery. A lockjaw that bends a man's head back to +his heels, hydrophobia that makes him bark at his wife and babes, +insanity that makes him eat grass; war, plague, cholera, famine +indicate a certain ferocity in nature, which, as it had its inlet by +human crime, must have its outlet by human suffering. Unhappily, +almost no man exists who has not in his own person become, to some +amount, a stockholder in the sin, and so made himself liable to a +share in the expiation. + +4. Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let +him hear in season that he is born into the state of war, and that the +commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go +dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self-collected, and neither +defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and +life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the +mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his +behavior. + +5. Toward all this external evil, the man within the breast assumes a +warlike attitude, and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with +the infinite army of enemies. To this military attitude of the soul we +give the name of Heroism. Its rudest form is the contempt for safety +and ease, which makes the attractiveness of war. It is a self-trust +which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its +energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind +of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will, but +pleasantly, and, as it were, merrily, he advances to his own music, +alike in frightful alarms, and in the tipsy mirth of universal +dissoluteness. There is somewhat not philosophical in heroism; there +is somewhat not holy in it; it seems not to know that other souls are +of one texture with it; it has pride; it is the extreme of individual +nature. Nevertheless, we must profoundly revere it. There is somewhat +in great actions, which does not allow us to go behind them. Heroism +feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right; and although a +different breeding, different religion, and greater intellectual +activity, would have modified or even reversed the particular action, +yet for the hero, that thing he does is the highest deed, and is not +open to the censure of philosophers or divines. It is the avowal of +the unschooled man, that he finds a quality in him that is negligent +of expense, of health, of life, of danger, of hatred, of reproach, and +knows that his will is higher and more excellent than all actual and +all possible antagonists. + +6. Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind, and in +contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism +is an obedience[332] to a secret impulse of an individual's character. +Now to no other man can its wisdom appear as it does to him, for every +man must be supposed to see a little further on his own proper path +than any one else. Therefore, just and wise men take umbrage at his +act, until after some little time be past: then they see it to be in +unison with their acts. All prudent men see that the action is clean +contrary to a sensual prosperity; for every heroic act measures itself +by its contempt of some external good. But it finds its own success +at last, and then the prudent also extol. + +7. Self-trust is the essence of heroism. It is the state of the soul +at war, and its ultimate objects are the last defiance of falsehood +and wrong, and the power to bear all that can be inflicted by evil +agents. It speaks the truth, and it is just, generous, hospitable, +temperate, scornful of petty calculations, and scornful of being +scorned. It persists; it is of an undaunted boldness, and of a +fortitude not to be wearied out. Its jest is the littleness of common +life. That false prudence which dotes on health and wealth is the butt +and merriment of heroism. Heroism, like Plotinus,[333] is almost +ashamed of its body. What shall it say, then, to the sugar-plums, and +cats'-cradles, to the toilet, compliments, quarrels, cards, and +custard, which rack the wit of all human society. What joys has kind +nature provided for us dear creatures! There seems to be no interval +between greatness and meanness. When the spirit is not master of the +world then it is its dupe. Yet the little man takes the great hoax so +innocently, works in it so headlong and believing, is born red, and +dies gray, arranging his toilet, attending on his own health, laying +traps for sweet food and strong wine, setting his heart on a horse or +a rifle, made happy with a little gossip or a little praise, that the +great soul cannot choose but laugh at such earnest nonsense. "Indeed, +these humble considerations[334] make me out of love with greatness. +What a disgrace is it to me to take note how many pairs of silk +stockings thou hast, namely, these and those that were the +peach-colored ones; or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as one for +superfluity, and one other for use!" + +8. Citizens, thinking after the laws of arithmetic, consider the +inconvenience of receiving strangers at their fireside, reckon +narrowly the loss of time and the unusual display: the soul of a +better quality thrusts back the unreasonable economy into the vaults +of life, and says, I will obey the God, and the sacrifice and the fire +he will provide. Ibn Hankal,[335] the Arabian geographer, describes a +heroic extreme in the hospitality of Sogd, in Bokhar,[336] "When I was +in Sogd I saw a great building, like a palace, the gates of which were +open and fixed back to the wall with large nails. I asked the reason, +and was told that the house had not been shut, night or day, for a +hundred years. Strangers may present themselves at any hour, and in +whatever number; the master has amply provided for the reception of +the men and their animals, and is never happier than when they tarry +for some time. Nothing of the kind have I seen in any other country." +The magnanimous know very well that they who give time, or money, or +shelter, to the stranger--so it be done for love, and not for +ostentation--do, as it were, put God under obligation to them, so +perfect are the compensations of the universe. In some way the time +they seem to lose is redeemed, and the pains they seem to take +remunerate themselves. These men fan the flame of human love, and +raise the standard of civil virtue among mankind. But hospitality must +be for service, and not for show, or it pulls down the host. The brave +soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its +table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it hath, but its +own majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks[337] and fair water +than belong to city feasts. + +9. The temperance of the hero proceeds from the same wish to do no +dishonor to the worthiness he has. But he loves it for its elegancy, +not for its austerity. It seems not worth his while to be solemn, and +denounce with bitterness flesh-eating or wine-drinking, the use of +tobacco, or opium, or tea, or silk, or gold. A great man scarcely +knows how he dines, how he dresses; but without railing or precision, +his living is natural and poetic. John Eliot,[338] the Indian Apostle, +drank water, and said of wine,--"It is a noble, generous liquor, and +we should be humbly thankful for it, but, as I remember, water was +made before it." Better still is the temperance of king David[339] who +poured out on the ground unto the Lord the water which three of his +warriors had brought him to drink, at the peril of their lives. + +10. It is told of Brutus,[340] that when he fell on his sword, after +the battle of Philippi,[341] he quoted a line of Euripides,[342]--"O +virtue! I have followed thee through life, and I find thee at last but +a shade." I doubt not the hero is slandered by this report. The heroic +soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to +dine nicely, and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the +perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not +need plenty, and can very well abide its loss. + +11. But that which takes my fancy most, in the heroic class, is the +good humor and hilarity they exhibit. It is a height to which common +duty can very well attain, to suffer and to dare with solemnity. But +these rare souls set opinion, success, and life, at so cheap a rate, +that they will not soothe their enemies by petitions, or the show of +sorrow, but wear their own habitual greatness. Scipio,[343] charged +with peculation, refuses to do himself so great a disgrace as to wait +for justification, though he had the scroll of his accounts in his +hands, but tears it to pieces before the tribunes. Socrates'[344] +condemnation of himself to be maintained in all honor in the +Prytaneum,[345] during his life, and Sir Thomas More's[346] +playfulness at the scaffold, are of the same strain. In Beaumont and +Fletcher's "Sea Voyage," Juletta tells the stout captain and his +company, + +_Jul._ Why, slaves, 'tis in our power to hang ye. + +_Master._ Very likely, +'Tis in our powers, then, to be hanged, and scorn ye. + +These replies are sound and whole. Sport is the bloom and glow of a +perfect health. The great will not condescend to take anything +seriously; all must be as gay as the song of a canary, though it were +the building of cities, or the eradication of old and foolish +churches and nations, which have cumbered the earth long thousands of +years. Simple hearts put all the history and customs of this world +behind them, and play their own play in innocent defiance of the +Blue-Laws[347] of the world; and such would appear, could we see the +human race assembled in vision, like little children frolicking +together; though, to the eyes of mankind at large, they wear a stately +and solemn garb of works and influences. + +12. The interest these fine stories have for us, the power of a +romance over the boy who grasps the forbidden book under his bench at +school, our delight in the hero, is the main fact to our purpose. All +these great and transcendent properties are ours. If we dilate in +beholding the Greek energy, the Roman pride, it is that we are already +domesticating the same sentiment. Let us find room for this great +guest in our small houses. The first step of worthiness will be to +disabuse us of our superstitious associations with places and times, +with number and size. Why should these words, Athenian, Roman, Asia, +and England, so tingle in the ear? Where the heart is, there the +muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. +Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry +places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But +here we are; and, if we will tarry a little, we may come to learn that +here is best. See to it only that thyself is here;--and art and +nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall +not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest. Epaminondas,[348] +brave and affectionate, does not seem to us to need Olympus[349] to +die upon, nor the Syrian sunshine. He lies very well where he is. The +Jerseys[350] were handsome ground enough for Washington to tread, and +London streets for the feet of Milton.[351] A great man makes his +climate genial in the imagination of men, and its air the beloved +element of all delicate spirits. That country is the fairest, which is +inhabited by the noblest minds. The pictures which fill the +imagination in reading the actions of Pericles,[352] Xenophon,[353] +Columbus,[354] Bayard,[355] Sidney,[356] Hampden,[357] teach us how +needlessly mean our life is, that we, by the depth of our living, +should deck it with more than regal or national splendor, and act on +principles that should interest man and nature in the length of our +days. + +13. We have seen or heard of many extraordinary young men, who never +ripened, or whose performance in actual life was not extraordinary. +When we see their air and mien, when we hear them speak of society, or +books, or religion, we admire their superiority; they seem to throw +contempt on our entire polity and social state; theirs is the tone of +a youthful giant, who is sent to work revolutions. But they enter an +active profession, and the forming Colossus[358] shrinks to the common +size of man. The magic they used was the ideal tendencies, which +always make the Actual ridiculous; but the tough world had its revenge +the moment they put their horses of the sun to plow in its furrow. +They found no example and no companion, and their heart fainted. What +then? The lesson they gave in their first aspirations, is yet true; +and a better valor and a purer truth shall one day organize their +belief. Or why should a woman liken herself to any historical woman, +and think, because Sappho,[359] or Sévigné,[360] or De Staël,[361] or +the cloistered souls who have had genius and cultivation, do not +satisfy the imagination and the serene Themis,[362] none +can,--certainly not she. Why not? She has a new and unattempted +problem to solve, perchance that of the happiest nature that ever +bloomed. Let the maiden, with erect soul, walk serenely on her way, +accept the hint of each new experience, search, in turn, all the +objects that solicit her eye, that she may learn the power and the +charm of her new-born being which is the kindling of a new dawn in the +recesses of space. The fair girl, who repels interference by a decided +and proud choice of influences, so careless of pleasing, so wilful and +lofty, inspires every beholder with somewhat of her own nobleness. The +silent heart encourages her; O friend, never strike sail to a fear! +Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas. Not in vain you +live, for every passing eye is cheered and refined by the vision. + +14. The characteristic of a genuine heroism is its persistency. All +men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when +you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to +reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, +nor the common the heroic. Yet we have the weakness to expect the +sympathy of people in those actions whose excellence is that they +outrun sympathy, and appeal to a tardy justice. If you would serve +your brother, because it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back +your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. +Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done +something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a +decorous age. It was a high counsel[363] that I once heard given to a +young person,--"Always do what you are afraid to do." A simple manly +character need never make an apology, but should regard its past +action with the calmness of Phocion,[364] when he admitted that the +event of the battle was happy, yet did not regret his dissuasion from +the battle. + +15. There is no weakness or exposure for which we cannot find +consolation in the thought,--this is a part of my constitution, part +of my relation and office to my fellow-creature. Has nature covenanted +with me that I should never appear to disadvantage, never make a +ridiculous figure? Let us be generous of our dignity as well as of our +money. Greatness once and forever has done with opinion. We tell our +charities, not because we wish to be praised for them, not because we +think they have great merit, but for our justification. It is a +capital blunder; as you discover, when another man recites his +charities. + +16. To speak the truth, even with some austerity, to live with some +rigor of temperance, or some extremes of generosity, seems to be an +asceticism which common good-nature would appoint to those who are at +ease and in plenty, in sign that they feel a brotherhood with the +great multitude of suffering men. And not only need we breathe and +exercise the soul by assuming the penalties of abstinence, of debt, of +solitude, of unpopularity, but it behooves the wise man to look with a +bold eye into those rarer dangers which sometimes invade men, and to +familiarize himself with disgusting forms of disease, with sounds of +execration, and the vision of violent death. + +17. Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never +shines in which this element may not work. The circumstances of man, +we say, are historically somewhat better in this country, and at this +hour, than perhaps ever before. More freedom exists for culture. It +will not now run against an ax at the first step out of the beaten +track of opinion. But whoso is heroic will always find crises to try +his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the +trial of persecution always proceeds. It is but the other day that the +brave Lovejoy[365] gave his breast to the bullets of a mob, for the +rights of free speech and opinion, and died when it was better not to +live. + +18. I see not any road to perfect peace which a man can walk, but to +take counsel of his own bosom. Let him quit too much association, let +him go home much, and establish himself in those courses he approves. +The unremitting retention of simple and high sentiments in obscure +duties is hardening the character to that temper which will work with +honor, if need be, in the tumult, or on the scaffold. Whatever +outrages have happened to men may befall a man again; and very easily +in a republic, if there appear any signs of a decay of religion. +Coarse slander, fire, tar and feathers, and the gibbet, the youth may +freely bring home to his mind, and with what sweetness of temper he +can, and inquire how fast he can fix his sense of duty, braving such +penalties, whenever it may please the next newspaper and a sufficient +number of his neighbors to pronounce his opinions incendiary. + +19. It may calm the apprehension of calamity in the most susceptible +heart to see how quick a bound nature has set to the utmost infliction +of malice. We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow +us. + + "Let them rave:[366] + Thou art quiet in thy grave." + +In the gloom of our ignorance of what shall be, in the hour when we +are deaf to the higher voices, who does not envy them who have seen +safely to an end their manful endeavor? Who that sees the meanness of +our politics, but inly congratulates Washington that he is long +already wrapped in his shroud, and forever safe; that he was laid +sweet in his grave, the hope of humanity not yet subjugated in him? +Who does not sometimes envy the good and brave, who are no more to +suffer from the tumults of the natural world, and await with curious +complacency the speedy term of his own conversation with finite +nature? And yet the love that will be annihilated sooner than +treacherous has already made death impossible, and affirms itself no +mortal, but a native of the deeps of absolute and inextinguishable +being. + + + + +MANNERS[367] + + +1. Half the world, it is said, knows not how the other half live. Our +Exploring Expedition saw the Feejee Islanders[368] getting their +dinner off human bones; and they are said to eat their own wives and +children. The husbandry of the modern inhabitants of Gournou[369] +(west of old Thebes) is philosophical to a fault. To set up their +housekeeping, nothing is requisite but two or three earthen pots, a +stone to grind meal, and a mat which is the bed. The house, namely, a +tomb, is ready without rent or taxes. No rain can pass through the +roof, and there is no door, for there is no want of one, as there is +nothing to lose. If the house do not please them, they walk out and +enter another, as there are several hundreds at their command. "It is +somewhat singular," adds Berzoni, to whom we owe this account, "to +talk of Happiness among people who live in sepulchers, among corpses +and rags of an ancient nation which they knew nothing of." In the +deserts of Borgoo[370] the rock-Tibboos still dwell in caves, like +cliff-swallows, and the language of these negroes is compared by their +neighbors to the shrieking of bats, and to the whistling of birds. +Again, the Bornoos[371] have no proper names; individuals are called +after their height, thickness, or other accidental quality, and have +nick-names merely. But the salt, the dates, the ivory, and the gold, +for which these horrible regions are visited, find their way into +countries, where the purchaser and consumer can hardly be ranked in +one race with these cannibals and man-stealers; countries where man +serves himself with metals, wood, stone, glass, gum, cotton, silk and +wool; honors himself with architecture;[372] writes laws, and +contrives to execute his will through the hands of many nations; and, +especially, establishes a select society, running through all the +countries of intelligent men, a self-constituted aristocracy, or +fraternity of the best, which, without written law, or exact usage of +any kind, perpetuates itself, colonizes every new-planted island, and +adopts and makes its own whatever personal beauty or extraordinary +native endowment anywhere appears. + +2. What fact more conspicuous in modern history, than the creation of +the gentleman? Chivalry[373] is that, and loyalty is that, and, in +English literature, half the drama, and all the novels, from Sir +Philip Sidney[374] to Sir Walter Scott,[375] paint this figure. The +word _gentleman_, which, like the word Christian, must hereafter +characterize the present and the few preceding centuries, by the +importance attached to it, is a homage to personal and incommunicable +properties. Frivolous and fantastic additions have got associated with +the name, but the steady interest of mankind in it must be attributed +to the valuable properties which it designates. An element which +unites all the most forcible persons of every country; makes them +intelligible and agreeable to each other, and is somewhat so precise, +that it is at once felt if an individual lack the masonic sign,[376] +cannot be any casual product, but must be an average result of the +character and faculties universally found in men. It seems a certain +permanent average; as the atmosphere is a permanent composition, +whilst so many gases are combined only to be decompounded. _Comme il +faut_, is the Frenchman's description of good society, _as we must +be_. It is a spontaneous fruit of talents and feelings of precisely +that class who have most vigor, who take the lead in the world of this +hour, and, though far from pure, far from constituting the gladdest +and highest tone of human feeling, is as good as the whole society +permits it to be. It is made of the spirit, more than of the talent of +men, and is a compound result, into which every great force enters as +an ingredient, namely, virtue, wit, beauty, wealth, and power. + +3. There is something equivocal in all the words in use to express the +excellence of manners and social cultivation, because the qualities +are fluxional, and the last effect is assumed by the senses as the +cause. The word _gentleman_ has not any correlative abstract[377] to +express the quality. _Gentility_ is mean, and _gentilesse_[378] is +obsolete. But we must keep alive in the vernacular the distinction +between _fashion_, a word of narrow and often sinister meaning, and +the heroic character which the gentleman imports. The usual words, +however, must be respected: they will be found to contain the root of +the matter. The point of distinction in all this class of names, as +courtesy, chivalry, fashion, and the like, is, that the flower and +fruit, not the grain of the tree, are contemplated. It is beauty which +is the aim this time, and not worth. The result is now in question, +although our words intimate well enough the popular feeling, that the +appearance supposes a substance. The gentleman is a man of truth, lord +of his own actions, and expressing that lordship in his behavior, not +in any manner dependent and servile either on persons, or opinions, or +possessions. Beyond this fact of truth and real force, the word +denotes good-nature and benevolence: manhood first, and then +gentleness. The popular notion certainly adds a condition of ease and +fortune; but that is a natural result of personal force and love, that +they should possess and dispense the goods of the world. In times of +violence, every eminent person must fall in with many opportunities to +approve his stoutness and worth; therefore every man's name that +emerged at all from the mass in the feudal ages,[379] rattles in our +ear like a flourish of trumpets. But personal force never goes out of +fashion. That is still paramount to-day, and, in the moving crowd of +good society, the men of valor and reality are known, and rise to +their natural place. The competition is transferred from war to +politics and trade, but the personal force appears readily enough in +these new arenas. + +4. Power first, or no leading class. In politics and in trade, +bruisers and pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks. +God knows[380] that all sorts of gentlemen knock at the door; but +whenever used in strictness, and with any emphasis, the name will be +found to point at original energy. It describes a man standing in his +own right, and working after untaught methods. In a good lord, there +must first be a good animal, at least to the extent of yielding the +incomparable advantage of animal spirits.[381] The ruling class must +have more, but they must have these, giving in every company the sense +of power,[382] which makes things easy to be done which daunt the +wise. The society of the energetic class, in their friendly and +festive meetings, is full of courage, and of attempts, which +intimidate the pale scholar. The courage which girls exhibit is like a +battle of Lundy's Lane,[383] or a sea-fight. The intellect relies on +memory to make some supplies to face these extemporaneous squadrons. +But memory is a base mendicant with basket and badge, in the presence +of these sudden masters. The rulers of society must be up to the work +of the world, and equal to their versatile office: men of the right +Cæsarian pattern,[384] who have great range of affinity. I am far from +believing the timid maxim[385] of Lord Falkland,[386] ("That for +ceremony there must go two to it; since a bold fellow will go through +the cunningest forms,") and am of opinion that the gentleman is the +bold fellow whose forms are not to be broken through; and only that +plenteous nature is rightful master, which is the complement of +whatever person it converses with. My gentleman gives the law where he +is; he will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the +field, and outshine all courtesy in the hall. He is good company for +pirates, and good with academicians; so that it is useless to fortify +yourself against him; he has the private entrance to all minds, and I +could as easily exclude myself as him. The famous gentlemen of Asia +and Europe have been of this strong type: Saladin,[387] Sapor,[388] +the Cid,[389] Julius Cæsar,[390] Scipio,[391] Alexander,[392] +Pericles,[393] and the lordliest personages. They sat very carelessly +in their chairs, and were too excellent themselves to value any +condition at a high rate. + +5. A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the popular judgment, +to the completion of this man of the world: and it is a material deputy +which walks through the dance which the first has led. Money is not +essential, but this wide affinity is, which transcends the habits of +clique and caste, and makes itself felt by men of all classes. If the +aristocrat is only valid in fashionable circles, and not with truckmen, +he will never be a leader in fashion; and if the man of the people +cannot speak on equal terms with the gentleman, so that the gentleman +shall perceive that he is already really of his own order, he is not to +be feared. Diogenes,[394] Socrates,[395] and Epaminondas[396] are +gentlemen of the best blood, who have chosen the condition of poverty, +when that of wealth was equally open to them. I use these old names, but +the men I speak of are my contemporaries.[397] Fortune will not supply +to every generation one of these well-appointed knights, but every +collection of men furnishes some example of the class: and the politics +of this country, and the trade of every town, are controlled by these +hardy and irresponsible doers, who have invention to take the lead, and +a broad sympathy which puts them in fellowship with crowds, and makes +their action popular. + +6. The manners of this class are observed and caught with devotion by +men of taste. The association of these masters with each other, and +with men intelligent of their merits, is mutually agreeable and +stimulating. The good forms, the happiest expressions of each, are +repeated and adopted. By swift consent, everything superfluous is +dropped, everything graceful is renewed. Fine manners[398] show +themselves formidable to the uncultivated man. They are a subtler +science of defence to parry and intimidate; but once matched by the +skill of the other party, they drop the point of the sword,--points +and fences disappear, and the youth finds himself in a more +transparent atmosphere, wherein life is a less troublesome game, and +not a misunderstanding rises between the players. Manners aim to +facilitate life, to get rid of impediments, and bring the man pure to +energize. They aid our dealing and conversation, as a railway aids +traveling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the road, +and leaving nothing to be conquered but pure space. These forms very +soon become fixed, and a fine sense of propriety is cultivated with +more heed, that it becomes a badge of social and civil distinctions. +Thus grows up Fashion, an equivocal semblance, the most puissant, the +most fantastic and frivolous, the most feared and followed, and which +morals and violence assault in vain. + +7. There exists a strict relation between the class of power, and the +exclusive and polished circles. The last are always filled or filling +from the first. The strong men usually give some allowance even to the +petulances of fashion, for that affinity they find in it. +Napoleon,[399] child of the revolution, destroyer of the old +noblesse,[400] never ceased to court the Faubourg St. Germain:[401] +doubtless with the feeling, that fashion is a homage to men of his +stamp. Fashion, though in a strange way, represents all manly virtue. +It is a virtue gone to seed: it is a kind of posthumous honor. It does +not often caress the great, but the children of the great: it is a +hall of the Past. It usually sets its face against the great of this +hour. Great men are not commonly in its halls: they are absent in the +field: they are working, not triumphing. Fashion is made up of their +children; of those, who, through the value and virtue of somebody, +have acquired lustre to their name, marks of distinction, means of +cultivation and generosity, and, in their physical organization, a +certain health and excellence, which secures to them, if not the +highest power to work, yet high power to enjoy. The class of power, +the working heroes, the Cortez,[402] the Nelson,[403] the Napoleon, +see that this is the festivity and permanent celebration of such as +they; that fashion is funded talent; is Mexico,[404] Marengo,[405] and +Trafalgar[406][407] beaten out thin; that the brilliant names of +fashion run back to just such busy names as their own, fifty or sixty +years ago. They are the sowers, their sons shall be the reapers, and +_their_ sons, in the ordinary course of things, must yield the +possession of the harvest, to new competitors with keener eyes and +stronger frames. The city is recruited from the country. In the year +1805, it is said, every legitimate monarch in Europe was imbecile. The +city would have died out, rotted, and exploded, long ago, but that it +was reinforced from the fields. It is only country which came to town +day before yesterday, that is city and court to-day. + +8. Aristocracy and fashion are certain inevitable results. These +mutual selections are indestructible. If they provoke anger in the +least favored class, and the excluded majority revenge themselves on +the excluding minority, by the strong hand, and kill them, at once a +new class finds itself at the top, as certainly as cream rises in a +bowl of milk: and if the people should destroy class after class, +until two men only were left, one of these would be the leader, and +would be involuntarily served and copied by the other. You may keep +this minority out of sight and out of mind, but it is tenacious of +life, and is one of the estates of the realm.[408] I am the more +struck with this tenacity, when I see its work. It respects the +administration of such unimportant matters, that we should not look +for any durability in its rule. We sometimes meet men under some +strong moral influence, as a patriotic, a literary, a religious +movement, and feel that the moral sentiment rules man and nature. We +think all other distinctions and ties will be slight and fugitive, +this of caste or fashion, for example; yet come from year to year, and +see how permanent that is, in this Boston or New York life of man, +where, too, it has not the lease countenance from the law of the land. +Not in Egypt or in India a firmer or more impassable line. Here are +associations whose ties go over, and under, and through it, a meeting +of merchants, a military corps, a college-class, a fire-club, a +professional association, a political, a religious convention;--the +persons seem to draw inseparably near; yet that assembly once +dispersed, its members will not in the year meet again. Each returns +to his degree in the scale of good society, porcelain remains +porcelain, and earthen earthen. The objects of fashion may be +frivolous, or fashion may be objectless, but the nature of this union +and selection can be neither frivolous nor accidental. Each man's rank +in that perfect graduation depends on some symmetry in his structure, +or some agreement in his structure to the symmetry of society. Its +doors unbar instantaneously to a natural claim of their own kind. A +natural gentleman finds his way in, and will keep the oldest patrician +out, who has lost his intrinsic rank. Fashion understands itself; +good-breeding and personal superiority of whatever country readily +fraternize with those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have +distinguished themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their +tournure.[409] + +9. To say what good of fashion we can,--it rests on reality, and hates +nothing so much as pretenders;--to exclude and mystify pretenders, and +send them into everlasting "Coventry,"[410] is its delight. We +contemn, in turn, every other gift of men of the world; but the habit, +even in little and the least matters, of not appealing to any but our +own sense of propriety, constitutes the foundation of all chivalry. +There is almost no kind of self-reliance, so it be sane and +proportioned, which fashion does not occasionally adopt, and give it +the freedom of its saloons. A sainted soul is always elegant, and, if +it will, passes unchallenged into the most guarded ring. But so will +Jock the teamster pass, in some crisis that brings him thither, and +find favor, as long as his head is not giddy with the new +circumstance, and the iron shoes do not wish to dance in waltzes and +cotillions. For there is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of +behavior yield to the energy of the individual. The maiden at her +first ball, the countryman at a city dinner, believes that there is a +ritual according to which every act and compliment must be performed, +or the failing party must be cast out of this presence. Later, they +learn that good sense and character make their own forms every moment, +and speak or abstain, to take wine or refuse it, stay or go, sit in a +chair or sprawl with children on the floor, or stand on their head, or +what else soever, in a new and aboriginal way: and that strong will is +always in fashion, let who will be unfashionable. All that fashion +demands is composure, and self-content. A circle of men perfectly +well-bred would be a company of sensible persons, in which every man's +native manners and character appear. If the fashionist have not this +quality, he is nothing. We are such lovers of self-reliance, that we +excuse in man many sins, if he will show us a complete satisfaction in +his position, which asks no leave to be of mine, or any man's good +opinion. But any deference to some eminent man or woman of the world, +forfeits all privilege of nobility. He is an underling: I have nothing +to do with him; I will speak with his master. A man should not go +where he cannot carry his whole sphere or society with him,--not +bodily, the whole circle of his friends, but atmospherically. He +should preserve in a new company the same attitude of mind and reality +of relation, which his daily associates draw him to, else he is shorn +of his best beams, and will be an orphan in the merriest club. "If you +could see Vich Ian Vohr with his tail on![411]--" But Vich Ian Vohr +must always carry his belongings in some fashion, if not added as +honor, then severed as disgrace. + +10. There will always be in society certain persons who are +mercuries[412] of its approbation, and whose glance will at any time +determine for the curious their standing in the world. These are the +chamberlains of the lesser gods. Accept their coldness as an omen of +grace with the loftier deities, and allow them all their privilege. +They are clear in their office, nor could they be thus formidable, +without their own merits. But do not measure the importance of this +class by their pretension, or imagine that a fop can be the dispenser +of honor and shame. They pass also at their just rate; for how can +they otherwise, in circles which exist as a sort of herald's +office[413] for the sifting of character? + +11. As the first thing man requires of man is reality, so that appears +in all the forms of society. We pointedly, and by name, introduce the +parties to each other. Know you before all heaven and earth, that this +is Andrew, and this is Gregory;--they look each other in the eye; they +grasp each other's hand, to identify and signalize each other. It is a +great satisfaction. A gentleman never dodges; his eyes look straight +forward, and he assures the other party, first of all, that he has +been met. For what is it that we seek, in so many visits and +hospitalities? Is it your draperies, pictures, and decorations? Or, do +we not insatiably ask. Was a man in the house? I may easily go into a +great household where there is much substance, excellent provision for +comfort, luxury, and taste, and yet not encounter there any +Amphitryon,[414] who shall subordinate these appendages. I may go into +a cottage, and find a farmer who feels that he is the man I have come +to see, and fronts me accordingly. It was therefore a very natural +point of old feudal etiquette, that a gentleman who received a visit, +though it were of his sovereign, should not leave his roof, but should +wait his arrival at the door of his house. No house, though it were +the Tuileries,[415] or the Escurial,[416] is good for anything without +a master. And yet we are not often gratified by this hospitality. +Everybody we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, +conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to +interpose between himself and his guests. Does it not seem as if man +was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a +full renconter front to front with his fellow? It were unmerciful, I +know, quite to abolish the use of these screens, which are of eminent +convenience, whether the guest is too great, or too little. We call +together many friends who keep each other in play, or by luxuries and +ornaments we amuse the young people, and guard our retirement. Or if, +perchance, a searching realist comes to our gate, before whose eyes we +have no care to stand, then again we run to our curtain, and hide +ourselves as Adam[417] at the voice of the Lord God in the garden. +Cardinal Caprara,[418] the Pope's[419] legate at Paris, defended +himself from the glances of Napoleon, by an immense pair of green +spectacles. Napoleon remarked them, and speedily managed to rally them +off: and yet Napoleon, in his turn, was not great enough, with eight +hundred thousand troops at his back, to face a pair of free-born eyes, +but fenced himself with etiquette, and within triple barriers of +reserve: and, as all the world knows from Madame de Stael,[420] was +wont, when he found himself observed, to discharge his face of all +expression. But emperors and rich men are by no means the most +skillful masters of good manners. No rent roll nor army-list can +dignify skulking and dissimulations: and the first point of courtesy +must always be truth, as really all forms of good-breeding point that +way. + +12. I have just been reading, in Mr. Hazlitt's[421] translation, +Montaigne's[422] account of his journey into Italy, and am struck with +nothing more agreeably than the self-respecting fashions of the time. +His arrival in each place, the arrival of a gentleman of France, is an +event of some consequence. Wherever he goes, he pays a visit to +whatever prince or gentleman of note resides upon his road, as a duty +to himself and to civilization. When he leaves any house in which he +has lodged for a few weeks, he causes his arms to be painted and hung +up as a perpetual sign to the house, as was the custom of gentlemen. + +13. The complement of this graceful self-respect, and that of all the +points of good breeding I most require and insist upon, is deference. +I like that every chair should be a throne, and hold a king. I prefer +a tendency to stateliness, to an excess of fellowship. Let the +incommunicable objects of nature and the metaphysical isolation of man +teach us independence. Let us not be too much acquainted. I would have +a man enter his house through a hall filled with heroic and sacred +sculptures, that he might not want the hint of tranquillity and +self-poise.[423] We should meet each morning, as from foreign +countries, and spending the day together, should depart at night, as +into foreign countries. In all things I would have the island of a man +inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all +round Olympus. No degree of affection need invade this religion. This +is myrrh and rosemary to keep the other sweet. Lovers should guard +their strangeness. If they forgive too much, all slides into confusion +and meanness. It is easy to push this deference to a Chinese +etiquette;[424] but coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate +fine qualities. A gentleman makes no noise: a lady is serene +Proportionate is our disgust at those invaders who fill a studious +house with blast and running, to secure some paltry convenience. Not +less I dislike a low sympathy of each with his neighbors's needs. Must +we have a good understanding with one another's palates? as foolish +people who have lived long together, know when each wants salt or +sugar. I pray my companion, if he wishes for bread, to ask me for +bread, and if he wishes for sassafras or arsenic, to ask me for them, +and not to hold out his plate, as if I knew already. Every natural +function can be dignified by deliberation and privacy. Let us leave +hurry to slaves. The compliments and ceremonies of our breeding should +recall,[425] however remotely, the grandeur of our destiny. + +14. The flower of courtesy does not very well bide handling, but if we +dare to open another leaf, and explore what parts go to its +conformation, we shall find also an intellectual quality. To the +leaders of men, the brain as well as the flesh and the heart must +furnish a proportion. Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine +perceptions. Men are too coarsely made for the delicacy of beautiful +carriage and customs. It is not quite sufficient to good breeding, a +union of kindness and independence. We imperatively require a +perception of, and a homage to, beauty in our companions. Other +virtues are in request in the field and work yard, but a certain +degree of taste is not to be spared in those we sit with. I could +better eat with one who did not respect the truth or the laws, than +with a sloven and unpresentable person. Moral qualities rule the +world, but at short distances the senses are despotic. The same +discrimination of fit and fair runs out, if with less rigor, into all +parts of life. The average spirit of the energetic class is good +sense, acting under certain limitations and to certain ends. It +entertains every natural gift. Social in its nature, it respects +everything which tends to unite men. It delights in measure.[426] The +love of beauty is mainly the love of measure or proportion. The person +who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat, +puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved, love +measure. You must have genius, or a prodigious usefulness, if you will +hide the want of measure. This perception comes in to polish and +perfect the parts of the social instrument. Society will pardon much +to genius and special gifts, but, being in its nature a convention, it +loves what is conventional, or what belongs to coming together. That +makes the good and bad of manners, namely, what helps or hinders +fellowship. For, fashion is not good sense absolute, but relative; not +good sense private, but good sense entertaining company. It hates +corners and sharp points of character, hates quarrelsome, egotistical, +solitary, and gloomy people; hates whatever can interfere with total +blending of parties; whilst it values all peculiarities as in the +highest degree refreshing, which can consist with good fellowship. And +besides the general infusion of wit to heighten civility, the direct +splendor of intellectual power is ever welcome in fine society as the +costliest addition to its rule and its credit. + +15. The dry light must shine in to adorn our festival, but it must be +tempered and shaded, or that will also offend. Accuracy is essential +to beauty, and quick perceptions to politeness, but not too quick +perceptions. One may be too punctual and too precise. He must leave +the omniscience of business at the door, when he comes into the palace +of beauty. Society loves creole natures,[427] and sleepy, languishing +manners, so that they cover sense, grace, and good-will: the air of +drowsy strength, which disarms criticism; perhaps, because such a +person seems to reserve himself for the best of the game, and not +spend himself on surfaces; an ignoring eye, which does not see the +annoyances, shifts, and inconveniences, that cloud the brow and +smother the voice of the sensitive. + +16. Therefore, besides personal force and so much perception as +constitutes unerring taste, society demands in its patrician class, +another element already intimated, which it significantly terms +good-nature, expressing all degrees of generosity, from the lowest +willingness and faculty to oblige, up to the heights of magnanimity +and love. Insight we must have, or we shall run against one another, +and miss the way to our food; but intellect is selfish and barren. The +secret of success in society, is a certain heartiness and sympathy. A +man who is not happy in the company, cannot find any word in his +memory that will fit the occasion. All his information is a little +impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds in every turn of the +conversation equally lucky occasions for the introduction of that +which he has to say. The favorites of society, and what it calls +_whole souls_, are able men, and of more spirit than wit, who have no +uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and the company, +contented and contenting, at a marriage or a funeral, a ball or a +jury, a water-party or a shooting-match. England, which is rich in +gentlemen, furnished, in the beginning of the present century, a good +model of that genius which the world loves, in Mr. Fox,[428] who +added to his great abilities the most social disposition, and real +love of men. Parliamentary history has few better passages than the +debate, in which Burke[429] and Fox separated in the House of Commons; +when Fox urged on his old friend the claims of old friendship with +such tenderness, that the house was moved to tears. Another anecdote +is so close to my matter, that I must hazard the story. A tradesman +who had long dunned him for a note of three hundred guineas, found him +one day counting gold, and demanded payment. "No," said Fox, "I owe +this money to Sheridan[430]: it is a debt of honor: if an accident +should happen to me, he has nothing to show." "Then," said the +creditor, "I change my debt into a debt of honor," and tore the note +in pieces. Fox thanked the man for his confidence, and paid him, +saying, "his debt was of older standing, and Sheridan must wait." +Lover of liberty, friend of the Hindoo, friend of the African slave, +he possessed a great personal popularity; and Napoleon said of him on +the occasion of his visit to Paris, in 1805, "Mr. Fox will always hold +the first place in an assembly at the Tuileries." + +17. We may easily seem ridiculous in our eulogy of courtesy, whenever +we insist on benevolence as its foundation. The painted phantasm +Fashion rises to cast a species of derision on what we say. But I will +neither be driven from some allowance to Fashion as a symbolic +institution, nor from the belief that love is the basis of courtesy. +"We must obtain _that_, if we can; but by all means we must affirm +_this_. Life owes much of its spirit to these sharp contrasts. Fashion +which affects to be honor, is often, in all men's experience, only a +ballroom code. Yet, so long as it is the highest circle, in the +imagination of the best heads on the planet, there is something +necessary and excellent in it; for it is not to be supposed that men +have agreed to be the dupes of anything preposterous; and the respect +which these mysteries inspire in the most rude and sylvan characters, +and the curiosity with which details of high life are read, betray the +universality of the love of cultivated manners. I know that a comic +disparity would be felt, if we should enter the acknowledged 'first +circles,' and apply these terrific standards of justice, beauty, and +benefit, to the individuals actually found there. Monarchs and heroes, +sages and lovers, these gallants are not. Fashion has many classes and +many rules of probation and admission; and not the best alone. There +is not only the right of conquest, which genius pretends,--the +individual, demonstrating his natural aristocracy best of the +best;--but less claims will pass for the time; for Fashion loves +lions, and points, like Circe,[431] to her horned company. This +gentleman is this afternoon arrived from Denmark; and that is my Lord +Ride, who came yesterday from Bagdad; here is Captain Friese, from +Cape Turnagain, and Captain Symmes,[432] from the interior of the +earth; and Monsieur Jovaire, who came down this morning in a balloon; +Mr. Hobnail, the reformer; and Reverend Jul Bat, who has converted +the whole torrid zone in his Sunday school; and Signer Torre del +Greco, who extinguished Vesuvius by pouring into it the Bay of Naples; +Spahr, the Persian ambassador; and Tul Wil Shan, the exiled nabob of +Nepaul, whose saddle is the new moon.--But these are monsters of one +day, and to-morrow will be dismissed to their holes and dens; for, in +these rooms every chair is waited for. The artist, the scholar, and, +in general, the clerisy,[433] wins its way up into these places, and +gets represented here, somewhat on this footing of conquest. Another +mode is to pass through all the degrees, spending a year and a day in +St. Michael's Square,[434] being steeped in Cologne water,[435] and +perfumed, and dined, and introduced, and properly grounded in all the +biography, and politics, and anecdotes of the boudoirs. + +18. Yet these fineries may have grace and wit. Let there be grotesque +sculpture about the gates and offices of temples. Let the creed and +commandments even have the saucy homage of parody. The forms of +politeness universally express benevolence in superlative degrees. +What if they are in the mouths of selfish men, and used as means of +selfishness? What if the false gentleman almost bows the true out of +the world? What if the false gentleman contrives so to address his +companion, as civilly to exclude all others from his discourse, and +also to make them feel excluded? Real service will not lose its +nobleness. All generosity is not merely French and sentimental; nor is +it to be concealed, that living blood and a passion of kindness does +at last distinguish God's gentleman from Fashion's. The epitaph of Sir +Jenkin Grout is not wholly unintelligible to the present age. "Here +lies Sir Jenkin Grout, who loved his friend, and persuaded his enemy: +what his mouth ate, his hand paid for: what his servants robbed, he +restored: if a woman gave him pleasure, he supported her in pain: he +never forgot his children: and whoso touched his finger, drew after it +his whole body." Even the line of heroes is not utterly extinct. There +is still ever some admirable person in plain clothes, standing on the +wharf, who jumps in to rescue a drowning man; there is still some +absurd inventor of charities; some guide and comforter of runaway +slaves; some friend of Poland;[436] some Philhellene;[437] some +fanatic who plants shade-trees for the second and third generation, +and orchards when he is grown old; some well-concealed piety; some +just man happy in an ill-fame; some youth ashamed of the favors of +fortune, and impatiently casting them on other shoulders. And these +are the centers of society, on which it returns for fresh impulses. +These are the creators of Fashion, which is an attempt to organize +beauty of behavior. The beautiful and the generous are in the theory, +the doctors and apostles of this church: Scipio, and the Cid, and Sir +Philip Sidney, and Washington, and every pure and valiant heart, who +worshiped Beauty by word and by deed. The persons who constitute the +natural aristocracy, are not found in the actual aristocracy, or only +on its edge; as the chemical energy of the spectrum is found to be +greatest just outside of the spectrum. Yet that is the infirmity of +the seneschals, who do not know their sovereign, when he appears. The +theory of society supposes the existence and sovereignty of these. It +divines afar off their coming. It says with the elder gods,-- + + "As Heaven and Earth are fairer far[438] + Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs; + And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth, + In form and shape compact and beautiful; + So, on our heels a fresh perfection treads; + A power, more strong in beauty, born of us, + And fated to excel us, as we pass + In glory that old Darkness: + ... for, 'tis the eternal law, + That first in beauty shall be first in might." + +19. Therefore, within the ethnical circle of good society, there is a +narrower and higher circle, concentration of its light, and flower of +courtesy, to which there is always a tacit appeal of pride and +reference, as to its inner and imperial court, the parliament of love +and chivalry. And this is constituted of those persons in whom heroic +dispositions are native, with the love of beauty, the delight in +society, and the power to embellish the passing day. If the +individuals who compose the purest circles of aristocracy in Europe, +the guarded blood of centuries, should pass in review, in such manner +as that we could, leisurely and critically, inspect their behavior, we +might find no gentleman, and no lady; for although excellent specimens +of courtesy and high-breeding would gratify us in the assemblage, in +the particulars, we should detect offense. Because, elegance comes of +no breeding, but of birth. There must be romance of character, or the +most fastidious exclusion of impertinencies will not avail. It must be +genius which takes that direction: it must be not courteous, but +courtesy. High behavior is as rare in fiction as it is in fact. Scott +is praised for the fidelity with which he painted the demeanor and +conversation of the superior classes. Certainly, kings and queens, +nobles and great ladies, had some right to complain of the absurdity +that had been put in their mouths, before the days of Waverley;[439] +but neither does Scott's dialogue bear criticism. His lords brave each +other in smart epigrammatic speeches, but the dialogue is in costume, +and does not please on the second reading; it is not warm with life. +In Shakespeare alone, the speakers do not strut and bridle, the +dialogue is easily great, and he adds to so many titles that of being +the best-bred man in England, and in Christendom. Once or twice in a +lifetime we are permitted to enjoy the charm of noble manners, in the +presence of a man or woman who have no bar in their nature, but whose +character emanates freely in their word and gesture. A beautiful form +is better than a beautiful face: a beautiful behavior is better than a +beautiful form: it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; +it is the finest of the fine arts. A man is but a little thing in the +midst of the objects of nature, yet, by the moral quality radiating +from his countenance, he may abolish all considerations of magnitude, +and in his manners equal the majesty of the world. I have seen an +individual whose manners though wholly within the conventions of +elegant society, were never learned there, but were original and +commanding, and held out protection and prosperity; one who did not +need the aid of a court-suit, but carried the holiday in his eye; who +exhilarated the fancy by flinging wide the doors of new modes of +existence; who shook off the captivity of etiquette, with happy, +spirited bearing, good-natured and free as Robin Hood;[440] yet with +the port of an emperor,--if need be, calm, serious, and fit to stand +the gaze of millions. + +20. The open air and the fields, the street and public chambers, are +the places where Man executes his will; let him yield or divide the +scepter at the door of the house. Woman, with her instinct of +behavior, instantly detects in man a love of trifles, any coldness or +imbecility, or, in short, any want of that large, flowing, and +magnanimous deportment, which is indispensable as an exterior in the +hall. Our American institutions have been friendly to her, and at this +moment I esteem it a chief felicity of this country, that it excels in +women. A certain awkward consciousness of inferiority in the men, may +give rise to the new chivalry in behalf of Woman's Rights. Certainly, +let her be as much better placed in the laws and in social forms, as +the most zealous reformer can ask, but I confide so entirely in her +inspiring and musical nature, that I believe only herself can show us +how she shall be served. The wonderful generosity of her sentiments +raises her at times into heroical and godlike regions, and verifies +the pictures of Minerva,[441] Juno,[442] or Polymnia;[443] and, by the +firmness with which she treads her upward path, she convinces the +coarsest calculators that another road exists than that which their +feet know. But besides those who make good in our imagination the +place of muses and of Delphic Sibyls,[444] are there not women who +fill our vase with wine and roses to the brim, so that the wine runs +over and fills the house with perfume; who inspire us with courtesy; +who unloose our tongues, and we speak; who anoint our eyes, and we +see? We say things we never thought to have said; for once, our walls +of habitual reserve vanished, and left us at large; we were children +playing with children in a wide field of flowers. Steep us, we cried, +in these influences, for days, for weeks, and we shall be sunny poets, +and will write out in many-colored words the romance that you are. Was +it Hafiz[445] or Firdousi[446] that said of his Persian Lilla, "She +was an elemental force, and astonished me by her amount of life, when +I saw her day after day radiating, every instant, redundant joy and +grace on all around her.[447] She was a solvent powerful to reconcile +all heterogeneous persons into one society; like air or water, an +element of such a great range of affinities, that it combines readily +with a thousand substances. Where she is present, all others will be +more than they are wont. She was a unit and whole, so that whatsoever +she did, became her. She had too much sympathy and desire to please, +than that you could say, her manners were marked with dignity, yet no +princess could surpass her clear and erect demeanor on each occasion. +She did not study the Persian grammar, nor the books of the seven +poets, but all the poems of the seven seemed to be written upon her. +For, though the bias of her nature was not to thought, but to +sympathy, yet was she so perfect in her own nature, as to meet +intellectual persons by the fullness of her heart, warming them by her +sentiments; believing, as she did, that by dealing nobly with all, all +would show themselves noble." + +21. I know that this Byzantine[448] pile of chivalry of Fashion, which +seems so fair and picturesque to those who look at the contemporary +facts for science or for entertainment, is not equally pleasant to all +spectators. The constitution of our society makes it a giant's castle +to the ambitious youth who have not found their names enrolled in its +Golden Book,[449] and whom it has excluded from its coveted honors and +privileges. They have yet to learn that its seeming grandeur is +shadowy and relative: it is great by their allowance: its proudest +gates will fly open at the approach of their courage and virtue. For +the present distress, however, of those who are predisposed to suffer +from the tyrannies of this caprice, there are easy remedies. To remove +your residence a couple of miles, or at most four, will commonly +relieve the most extreme susceptibility. For, the advantages which +fashion values are plants which thrive in very confined localities, +in a few streets, namely. Out of this precinct, they go for nothing; +are of no use in the farm, in the forest, in the market, in war, in +the nuptial society, in the literary or scientific circle, at sea, in +friendship, in the heaven of thought or virtue. + +22. But we have lingered long enough in these painted courts. The +worth of the thing signified must vindicate our taste for the emblem. +Everything that is called fashion and courtesy humbles itself before +the cause and fountain of honor, creator of titles and dignities, +namely, the heart of love. This is the royal blood, this the fire, +which, in all countries and contingencies, will work after its kind +and conquer ind expand all that approaches it. This gives new meanings +to every fact. This impoverishes the rich, suffering no grandeur but +its own. What _is_ rich? Are you rich enough to help anybody? to +succor the unfashionable and the eccentric? rich enough to make the +Canadian in his wagon, the itinerant with his consul's paper which +commends him "To the charitable," the swarthy Italian with his few +broken words of English, the lame pauper hunted by overseers from town +to town, even the poor insane or besotted wreck of man or woman, feel +the noble exception of your presence and your house, from the general +bleakness and stoniness; to make such feel that they were greeted with +a voice which made them both remember and hope? What is vulgar, but to +refuse the claim on acute and conclusive reasons? What is gentle, but +to allow it, and give their heart and yours lone holiday from the +national caution? Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar. +The king of Schiraz[450] could not afford to be so bountiful as the +poor Osman[451] who dwelt at his gate. Osman had a humanity so broad +and deep, that although his speech was so bold and free with the +Koran[452] as to disgust all the dervishes, yet was there never a poor +outcast, eccentric, or insane man, some fool who had cut off his +beard, or who had been mutilated under a vow, or had a pet madness in +his brain, but fled at once to him,--that great heart lay there so +sunny and hospitable in the center of the country,--that it seemed as +if the instinct of all sufferers drew them to his side. And the +madness which he harbored, he did not share. Is not this to be rich? +this only to be rightly rich? + +23. But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, +and talk of that which I do not well understand. It is easy to see, +that what is called by distinction society and fashion, has good laws +as well as bad, has much that is necessary, and much that is absurd. +Too good for banning, and too bad for blessing, it reminds us of a +tradition of the pagan mythology, in any attempt to settle its +character. "I overheard Jove,[453] one day," said Silenus,[454] +"talking of destroying the earth; he said, it had failed; they were +all rogues and vixens, who went from bad to worse, as fast as the days +succeeded each other. Minerva said, she hoped not; they were only +ridiculous little creatures, with this odd circumstance, that they had +a blur, or indeterminate aspect, seen far or seen near; if you called +them bad, they would appear so; if you called them good, they would +appear so; and there was no one person or action among them, which +would not puzzle her owl,[455] much more all Olympus, to know whether +it was fundamentally bad or good." + + + + +GIFTS[456] + + Gifts of one who loved me-- + 'Twas high time they came; + When he ceased to love me, + Time they stopped for shame. + + +1. It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the +world owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into +chancery,[457] and be sold. I do not think this general insolvency, +which involves in some sort all the population, to be the reason of +the difficulty experienced at Christmas and New Year, and other times, +in bestowing gifts; since it is always so pleasant to be generous, +though very vexatious to pay debts. But the impediment lies in the +choosing. If, at any time, it comes into my head that a present is due +from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity +is gone. Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because +they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the +utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat +stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of +a work-house. Nature does not cocker us:[458] we are children, not +pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or +favor, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look +like the frolic and interference of love and beauty. Men use to tell +us that we love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, +because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted. +Something like that pleasure, the flowers give us: what am I to whom +these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable gifts,[459] +because they are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic +values being attached to them. If a man should send to me to come a +hundred miles to visit him, and should set before me a basket of fine +summer-fruit, I should think there was some proportion between the +labor and the reward. + +2. For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty every day, +and one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option, since if the +man at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you +could procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a +man eat bread or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is +always a great satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity +does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it +seems heroic to let the petitioner[460] be the judge of his necessity, +and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience. If it be +a fantastic desire, it is better to leave to others the office of +punishing him. I can think of many parts I should prefer playing to +that of the Furies.[461] Next to things of necessity, the rule for a +gift, which one of my friends prescribed, is that we might convey to +some person that which properly belonged to his character, and was +easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment +and love are for the most part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are +not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of +thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; +the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the +sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a +handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it +restores society in so far to its primary basis, when a man's +biography[462] is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an +index of his merit. But it is a cold lifeless business when you go to +the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and +talent, but a goldsmith's. That is fit for kings, and rich men who +represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of +gold and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering,[463] or +payment of blackmail.[464] + +3. The law of benefits is a difficult channel, which requires careful +sailing, or rude boats. It is not the office of a man to receive +gifts. How dare you give them? We wish to be self-sustained. We do not +quite forgive a forgiver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of +being bitten. We can receive anything from love, for that is a way of +receiving it from ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to +bestow. We sometimes hate the meat which we eat, because there seems +something of degrading dependence in living by it. + + "Brother, if Jove[465] to thee a present make, + Take heed that from his hands thou nothing take." + +We ask the whole. Nothing less will content us. We arraign society, if +it do not give us besides earth, and fire, and water, opportunity, +love, reverence, and objects of veneration. + +4. He is a good man, who can receive a gift well. We are either glad +or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. Some violence, I +think, is done, some degradation borne, when I rejoice or grieve at a +gift. I am sorry when my independence is invaded, or when a gift comes +from such as do not know my spirit, and so the act is not supported; +and if the gift pleases me overmuch, then I should be ashamed that the +donor should read my heart, and see that I love his commodity, and not +him. The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, +correspondent to my flowing unto him. When the waters are at level, +then my goods pass to him, and his to me. All his are mine, all mine +his. I say to him, How can you give me this pot of oil, or this flagon +of wine, when all your oil and wine is mine, which belief of mine this +gift seems to deny? Hence the fitness of beautiful, not useful things +for gifts. This giving is flat usurpation, and therefore when the +beneficiary is ungrateful, as all beneficiaries hate all Timons,[466] +not at all considering the value of the gift, but looking back to the +greater store it was taken from, I rather sympathize with the +beneficiary, than with the anger of my lord, Timon. For, the +expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually punished by the +total insensibility of the obliged person. It is a great happiness to +get off without injury and heart-burning, from one who has had the ill +luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business,[467] this of +being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap. A +golden text for these gentlemen is that which I admire in the +Buddhist,[468] who never thanks, and who says, "Do not flatter your +benefactors." + +5. The reason of these discords I conceive to be, that there is no +commensurability between a man and any gift. You cannot give anything +to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts +you in debt by his magnanimity. The service a man renders his friend +is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend +stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve +his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my +friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small. +Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so +incidental and at random, that we can seldom hear the acknowledgments +of any person who would thank us for a benefit, without some shame and +humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct stroke, but must be content +with an oblique one; we seldom have the satisfaction of yielding a +direct benefit, which is directly received. But rectitude scatters +favors on every side without knowing it, and receives with wonder the +thanks of all people. + +6. I fear to breathe any treason against the majesty of love, which is +the genius and god of gifts, and to whom we must not affect to +prescribe. Let him give kingdoms or flower-leaves indifferently. There +are persons from whom we always expect fairy tokens; let us not cease +to expect them. This is prerogative, and not to be limited by our +municipal rules. For the rest, I like to see that we cannot be bought +and sold. The best of hospitality and of generosity is also not in the +will, but in fate. I find that I am not much to you; you do not need +me; you do not feel me; then am I thrust out of doors, though you +proffer me house and lands. No services are of any value, but only +likeness. When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, +it proved an intellectual trick--no more. They eat your service like +apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel for you, and +delight in you all the time. + + + + +NATURE[469] + + The rounded world is fair to see, + Nine times folded in mystery: + Though baffled seers cannot impart + The secret of its laboring heart, + Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast, + And all is clear from east to west. + Spirit that lurks each form within + Beckons to spirit of its kin; + Self-kindled every atom glows, + And hints the future which it owes. + + +1. There are days[470] which occur in this climate, at almost any +season of the year, wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the +air, the heavenly bodies, and the earth, make a harmony, as if nature +would indulge her offspring; when, in these bleak upper sides of the +planet, nothing is to desire that we have heard of the happiest +latitudes, and we bask in the shining hours of Florida and Cuba; when +everything that has life gives sign of satisfaction, and the cattle +that lie on the ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts. These +halcyons[471] may be looked for with a little more assurance in that +pure October weather, which we distinguish by the name of Indian +Summer.[472] The day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills +and warm wide fields. To have lived through all its sunny hours, +seems longevity enough. The solitary places do not seem quite lonely. +At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced +to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish. The +knapsack of custom falls off his back with the first step he makes +into these precincts. Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and +reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be the +circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a +god all men that come to her. We have crept out of our close and +crowded houses into the night and morning, and we see what majestic +beauties daily wrap us in their bosom. How willingly we would escape +the barriers which render them comparatively impotent, escape the +sophistication and second thought, and suffer nature to entrance us. +The tempered light of the woods is like a perpetual morning, and is +stimulating and heroic. The anciently reported spells of these places +creep on us. The stems of pines, hemlocks, and oaks, almost gleam like +iron on the excited eye. The incommunicable trees begin to persuade us +to live with them, and quit our life of solemn trifles. Here no +history, or church, or state, is interpolated on the divine sky and +the immortal year. How easily we might walk onward into opening +landscape, absorbed by new pictures, and by thoughts fast succeeding +each other, until by degrees the recollection of home was crowded out +of the mind, all memory obliterated by the tyranny of the present, +and we were led in triumph by nature. + +2. These enchantments are medicinal, they sober and heal us. These are +plain pleasures, kindly and native to us. We come to our own, and make +friends with matter, which the ambitious chatter of the schools would +persuade us to despise. We never can part with it; the mind loves its +old home: as water to our thirst, so is the rock, the ground, to our +eyes, and hands, and feet. It is firm water: it is cold flame: what +health, what affinity! Ever an old friend, ever like a dear friend and +brother, when we chat affectedly with strangers, comes in this honest +face, and takes a grave liberty with us, and shames us out of our +nonsense. Cities give not the human senses room enough. We go out +daily and nightly to feed the eyes on the horizon, and require so much +scope, just as we need water for our bath. There are all degrees of +natural influence, from these quarantine powers of nature, up to her +dearest and gravest ministrations to the imagination and the soul. +There is the bucket of cold water from the spring, the wood-fire to +which the chilled traveler rushes for safety,--and there is the +sublime moral of autumn and of noon. We nestle in nature, and draw our +living as parasites from her roots and grains, and we receive glances +from the heavenly bodies, which call us to solitude, and foretell the +remotest future. The blue zenith is the point in which romance and +reality meet. I think, if we should be rapt away into all that we +dream of heaven, and should converse with Gabriel[473] and Uriel,[474] +the upper sky would be all that would remain of our furniture. + +3. It seems as if the day was not wholly profane, in which we have +given heed to some natural object. The fall of snowflakes in a still +air, preserving to each crystal its perfect form; the blowing of sleet +over a wide sheet of water, and over plains; the waving rye-fields; +the mimic waving of acres of houstonia, whose innumerable florets +whiten and ripple before the eye; the reflections of trees and flowers +in glassy lakes; the musical steaming odorous south wind, which +converts all trees to wind-harps;[475] the crackling and spurting of +hemlock in the flames; or of pine-logs, which yield glory to the walls +and faces in the sitting-room,--these are the music and pictures of +the most ancient religion. My house stands in low land, with limited +outlook, and on the skirt of the village.[476] But I go with my +friend[477] to the shore of our little river,[478] and with one stroke +of the paddle, I leave the village politics and personalities, yes, +and the world of villages and personalities behind, and pass into a +delicate realm of sunset and moonlight, too bright almost for spotted +man to enter without novitiate and probation.[479] We penetrate bodily +this incredible beauty: we dip our hands in this painted element: our +eyes are bathed in these lights and forms. A holiday, a +villeggiatura,[480] a royal revel, the proudest, most heart-rejoicing +festival that valor and beauty, power and taste, ever decked and +enjoyed, establishes itself on the instant. These sunset clouds, these +delicately emerging stars, with their private and ineffable glances, +signify it and proffer it. I am taught the poorness of our invention, +the ugliness of towns and palaces. Art and luxury have early learned +that they must work as enhancement and sequel to this original beauty. +I am overinstructed for my return. Henceforth I shall be hard to +please. I cannot go back to toys. I am grown expensive and +sophisticated. I can no longer live without elegance: but a countryman +shall be my master of revels. He who knows the most, he who knows what +sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the +heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal +man. Only as far as masters of the world have called in nature to +their aid, can they reach the height of magnificence. This is the +meaning of their hanging-gardens,[481] villas, garden-houses, islands, +parks, and preserves, to back their faulty personality with these +strong accessories. I do not wonder that the landed interest should be +invincible in the state with these dangerous auxiliaries. These bribe +and invite; not kings, not palaces, not men, not women, but these +tender and poetic stars, eloquent of secret promises. We heard what +the rich man said, we knew of his villa, his grove, his wine, and his +company, but the provocation and point of the invitation came out of +these beguiling stars. In their soft glances, I see what men strove to +realize in some Versailles,[482] or Paphos,[483] or Ctesiphon.[484] +Indeed, it is the magical lights of the horizon, and the blue sky for +the background, which save all our works of art, which were otherwise +baubles. When the rich tax the poor with servility and obsequiousness, +they should consider the effect of man reputed to be the possessors of +nature, on imaginative minds. Ah! if the rich were rich as the poor +fancy riches! A boy hears a military band play on the field at night, +and he has kings and queens, and famous chivalry palpably before him. +He hears the echoes of a horn in a hill country, in the Notch +Mountains,[485] for example, which converts the mountains into an +Æolian harp,[486] and this supernatural _tiralira_ restores to him the +Dorian[487] mythology, Apollo,[488] Diana,[489] and all divine hunters +and huntresses. Can a musical note be so lofty, so haughtily +beautiful! To the poor young poet, thus fabulous is his picture of +society; he is loyal; he respects the rich; they are rich for the sake +of his imagination; how poor his fancy would be, if they were not +rich! That they have some high-fenced grove, which they call a park; +that they live in larger and better-garnished saloons than he has +visited, and go in coaches, keeping only the society of the elegant, +to watering-places, and to distant cities, are the groundwork from +which he has delineated estates of romance, compared with which their +actual possessions are shanties and paddocks. The muse herself betrays +her son, and enhances the gift of wealthy and well-born beauty, by a +radiation out of the air, and clouds, and forests that skirt the +road,--a certain haughty favor, as if from patrician genii to +patricians, a kind of aristocracy in nature, a prince of the power of +the air. + +4. The moral sensibility which makes Edens[490] and Tempes[491] so +easily, may not be always found, but the material landscape is never +far off. We can find these enchantments without visiting the Como +Lake,[492] or the Madeira Islands.[493] We exaggerate the praises of +local scenery. In every landscape, the point of astonishment is the +meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the first +hillock as well as from the top of the Alleghanies. The stars at night +stoop down over the brownest, homeliest common,[494] with all the +spiritual magnificence which they shed on the Campagna,[495] or on the +marble deserts of Egypt. The uprolled clouds and the colors of morning +and evening, will transfigure maples and alders. The difference +between landscape and landscape is small, but there is great +difference in the beholders. There is nothing so wonderful in any +particular landscape, as the necessity of being beautiful under which +every landscape lies. Nature cannot be surprised in undress. Beauty +breaks in everywhere. + +5. But it is very easy to outrun the sympathy of readers on this +topic, which school-men called _natura naturata_, or nature passive. +One can hardly speak directly of it without excess. It is as easy to +broach in mixed companies what is called "the subject of religion." A +susceptible person does not like to indulge his tastes in this kind, +without the apology of some trivial necessity: he goes to see a +wood-lot, or to look at the crops, or to fetch a plant or a mineral +from a remote locality, or he carries a fowling-piece, or a +fishing-rod. I suppose this shame must have a good reason. A +dilettantism[496] in nature is barren and unworthy. The fop of fields +is no better than his brother of Broadway. Men are naturally hunters +and inquisitive of woodcraft and I suppose that such a gazetteer as +wood-cutters and Indians should furnish facts for would take place in +the most sumptuous drawing-rooms of all the "Wreaths" and "Flora's +chaplets"[497] of the book-shops; yet ordinarily, whether we are too +clumsy for so subtle a topic, or from whatever cause, as soon as men +begin to write on nature, they fall into euphuism. Frivolity is a most +unfit tribute to Pan,[498] who ought to be represented in the +mythology as the most continent of gods. I would not be frivolous +before the admirable reserve and prudence of time, yet I cannot +renounce the right of returning often to this old topic. The multitude +of false churches[499] accredits the true religion. Literature, +poetry, science, are the homage of man to this unfathomed secret, +concerning which no sane man can affect an indifference or +incuriosity. Nature is loved by what is best in us. It is loved as the +city of God, although, or rather because there is no citizen. The +sunset is unlike anything that is underneath it: it wants men. And the +beauty of nature must always seem unreal and mocking, until the +landscape has human figures, that are as good as itself. If there +were good men, there would never be this rapture in nature. If the +king is in the palace nobody looks at the walls. It is when he is +gone, and the house is filled with grooms and gazers, that we turn +from the people, to find relief in the majestic men that are suggested +by the pictures and architecture. The critics who complain of the +sickly separation of the beauty of nature from the thing to be done, +must consider that our hunting of the picturesque is inseparable from +our protest against false society. Man is fallen; nature is erect, and +serves as a differential thermometer, detecting the presence or +absence of the divine sentiment in man. By fault of our dulness and +selfishness, we are looking up to nature, but when we are +convalescent, nature will look up to us. We see the foaming brook with +compunction; if our own life flowed with the right energy, we should +shame the brook. The stream of zeal sparkles with real fire, and not +with reflex rays of sun and moon. Nature may be as selfishly studied +as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, +mesmerism (with intent to show where our spoons are gone); and anatomy +and physiology become phrenology and palmistry. + +6. But taking timely warning, and leaving many things unsaid on this +topic, but not longer omit our homage to the Efficient Nature, _natura +naturans_, the quick cause, before which all forms flee as the driven +snows, itself secret, its works driven before it in flocks and +multitudes, (as the ancient represented nature by Proteus,[500] a +shepherd), and in undescribable variety. It publishes itself in +creatures, reaching from particles and spicula, through transformation +on transformation to the highest symmetries, arriving at consummate +results without a shock or a leap. A little heat, that is, a little +motion, is all that differences the bald, dazzling white, and deadly +cold poles of the earth from the prolific tropical climates. All changes +pass without violence, by reason of the two cardinal conditions of +boundless space and boundless time. Geology has initiated us into the +secularity of nature, and taught us to disuse our dame-school measures, +and exchange our Mosaic[501] and Ptolemaic schemes[502] for her large +style. We know nothing rightly, for want of perspective. Now we learn +what patient periods must round themselves before the rock is formed, +then before the rock is broken, and the first lichen race has +disintegrated the thinnest external plate into soil, and opened the door +for the remote Flora,[503] Fauna,[504] Ceres,[505] and Pomona,[506] to +come in. How far off yet is the trilobite! how far the quadruped! how +inconceivably remote is man! All duly arrive,[507] and then race after +race of men. It is a long way from granite to the oyster; farther yet to +Plato,[508] and the preaching of the immortality of the soul. Yet all +must come, as surely as the first atom has two sides. + +7. Motion or change, and identity or rest, are the first and second +secrets of nature: Motion and Rest. The whole code of her laws may be +written on the thumb-nail, or the signet of a ring. The whirling +bubble on the surface of a brook, admits us to the secret of the +mechanics of the sky. Every shell on the beach is a key to it. A +little water made to rotate in a cup explains the formation of the +simpler shells; the addition of matter from year to year, arrives at +last at the most complex forms; and yet so poor is nature with all her +craft, that, from the beginning to the end of the universe, she has +but one stuff,--but one stuff with its two ends, to serve up all her +dream-like variety. Compound it how she will, star, sand, fire, water, +tree, man, it is still one stuff, and betrays the same properties. + +8. Nature is always consistent, though she feigns to contravene her +own laws. She keeps her laws, and seems to transcend them. She arms +and equips an animal to find its place and living in the earth, and, +at the same time, she arms and equips another animal to destroy it. +Space exists to divide creatures; but by clothing the sides of a bird +with a few feathers, she gives him a petty omnipresence. The direction +is forever onward, but the artist still goes back for materials, and +begins again with the first elements on the most advanced stage: +otherwise, all goes to ruin. If we look at her work, we seem to catch +a glance of a system in transition. Plants are the young of the world, +vessels of health and vigor; but they grope ever upward toward +consciousness; the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their +imprisonment, rooted in the ground. The animal is the novice and +probationer of a more advanced order. The men, though young, having +tasted the first drop from the cup of thought, are already dissipated: +the maples and ferns are still uncorrupt; yet no doubt, when they come +to consciousness, they too will curse and swear. Flowers so strictly +belong to youth, that we adult men soon come to feel, that their +beautiful generations concern not us: we have had our day; now let the +children have theirs. The flowers jilt us, and we are old bachelors +with our ridiculous tenderness. + +9. Things are so strictly related, that according to the skill of the +eye, from any one object the parts and properties of any other may be +predicted. If we had eyes to see it, a bit of stone from the city wall +would certify us of the necessity that man must exist, as readily as +the city. That identity makes us all one, and reduces to nothing great +intervals on our customary scale. We talk of deviations from natural +life, as if artificial life were not also natural. The smoothest +curled courtier in the boudoirs of a palace has an animal nature, rude +and aboriginal as a white bear, omnipotent to its own ends, and is +directly related, there amid essences and billets-doux, to Himalaya +mountain-chains[509] and the axis of the globe. If we consider how +much we are nature's, we need not be superstitious about towns, as if +that terrific or benefic force did not find us there also, and fashion +cities. Nature, who made the mason, made the house. We may easily hear +too much of rural influences. The cool, disengaged air of natural +objects, makes them enviable to us, chafed and irritable creatures +with red faces, and we think we shall be as grand as they, if we camp +out and eat roots, but let us be men instead of wood-chucks, and the +oak and the elm shall gladly serve us, though we sit in chairs of +ivory on carpets of silk. + +10. This guiding identity runs through all the surprises and contrasts +of the piece, and characterizes every law. Man carries the world in +his head, the whole astronomy and chemistry suspended in a thought. +Because the history of nature is charactered in his brain, therefore +is he the prophet and discoverer of her secrets. Every known fact in +natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it +was actually verified. A man does not tie his shoe without recognizing +laws which bind the farthest regions of nature: moon, plant, gas, +crystal, are concrete geometry and numbers. Common sense knows its +own, and recognizes the fact at first sight in chemical experiment. +The common sense of Franklin,[510] Dalton,[511] Davy[512] and +Black,[513] is the same common sense which made the arrangements which +now it discovers. + +11. If the identity expresses organized rest, the counter action runs +also into organization. The astronomers said,[514] "Give us matter, +and a little motion, and we will construct the universe. It is not +enough that we should have matter, we must also have a single impulse, +one shove to launch the mass, and generate the harmony of the +centrifugal and centripetal[515] forces. Once heave the ball from the +hand, and we can show how all this mighty order grew." "A very +unreasonable postulate," said the metaphysicians, "and a plain begging +of the question. Could you not prevail to know the genesis of +projection, as well as the continuation of it?" Nature, meanwhile, had +not waited for the discussion, but, right or wrong, bestowed the +impulse, and the balls rolled. It was no great affair, a mere push, +but the astronomers were right in making much of it, for there is no +end of the consequences of the act. That famous aboriginal push +propagates itself through all the balls of the system, and through +every atom of every ball, through all the races of creatures, and +through the history and performances of every individual. Exaggeration +is in the course of things. Nature sends no creature, no man into the +world, without adding a small excess of his proper quality. Given the +planet, it is still necessary to add the impulse; so, to every +creature nature added a little violence of direction in its proper +path, a shove to put it on its way; in every instance, a slight +generosity, a drop too much. Without electricity the air would rot, +and without this violence of direction which men and women have, +without a spice of bigot and fanatic, no excitement, no efficiency. We +aim above the mark, to hit the mark. Every act hath some falsehood of +exaggeration in it. And when now and then comes along some sad, +sharp-eyed man, who sees how paltry a game is played, and refuses to +play, but blabs the secret;--how then? is the bird flown? O no, the +wary Nature sends a new troop of fairer forms, of lordlier youths, +with a little more excess of direction to hold them fast to their +several aims; makes them a little wrongheaded in that direction in +which they are rightest, and on goes the game again with new whirl, +for a generation or two more. The child with his sweet pranks, the +fool of his senses, commanded by every sight and sound, without any +power to compare and rank his sensations, abandoned to a whistle or a +painted chip, to a lead dragoon, or a ginger-bread dog, +individualizing everything, generalizing nothing, delighted with every +new thing, lies down at night overpowered by the fatigue, which this +day of continual petty madness has incurred. But Nature has answered +her purpose with the curly, dimpled lunatic. She has tasked every +faculty, and has secured the symmetrical growth of the bodily frame, +by all these attitudes and exertions,--an end of the first importance, +which could not be trusted to any care less perfect than her own. This +glitter, this opaline luster plays round the top of every toy to his +eye, to insure his fidelity, and he is deceived to his good. We are +made alive and kept alive by the same arts. Let the Stoics[516] say +what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because +the meat is savory and the appetite is keen. The vegetable life does +not content itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single +seed, but it fills the air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, +that if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves, that +hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity, that, at least, +one may replace the parent. All things betray the same calculated +profusion. The excess of fear with which the animal frame is hedged +round, shrinking from cold, starting at sight of a snake, or a sudden +noise, protects us, through a multitude of groundless alarms, from +some one real danger at last. The lover seeks in marriage his private +felicity and perfection, with no prospective end; and nature hides in +his happiness her own end, namely, progeny, or the perpetuity of the +race. + +12. But the craft with which the world is made runs also into the mind +and character of men. No man is quite sane; each has a vein of folly in +his composition, a slight determination of blood to the head, to make +sure of holding him hard to some one point which nature had taken to +heart. Great causes are never tried on their merits; but the cause is +reduced to particulars to suit the size of the partisans, and the +contention is ever hottest on minor matters. Not less remarkable is the +overfaith of each man in the importance of what he has to do or say. The +poet, the prophet, has a higher value for what he utters than any +hearer, and therefore it gets spoken. The strong, self-complacent +Luther[517] declares with an emphasis, not to be mistaken, that "God +himself cannot do without wise men." Jacob Behmen[518] and George +Fox[519] betray their egotism in the pertinacity of their controversial +tracts, and James Naylor[520] once suffered himself to be worshiped as +the Christ. Each prophet comes presently to identify himself with his +thought, and to esteem his hat and shoes sacred. However this may +discredit such persons with the judicious, it helps them with the +people, as it gives heat, pungency, and publicity to their words. A +similar experience is not infrequent in private life. Each young and +ardent person writes a diary, in which, when the hours of prayer and +penitence arrive, he inscribes his soul. The pages thus written are, to +him, burning and fragrant: he reads them on his knees by midnight and by +the morning star; he wets them with his tears: they are sacred; too good +for the world, and hardly yet to be shown to the dearest friend. This is +the man-child that is born to the soul, and her life still circulates in +the babe. The umbilical cord has not yet been cut. After some time has +elapsed, he begins to wish to admit his friend to this hallowed +experience, and with hesitation, yet with firmness, exposes the pages to +his eye. Will they not burn his eyes? The friend coldly turns them +over, and passes from the writing to conversation, with easy transition, +which strikes the other party with astonishment and vexation. He cannot +suspect the writing itself. Days and nights of fervid life, of communion +with angels of darkness and of light, have engraved their shadowy +characters on that tear-stained book. He suspects the intelligence or +the heart of his friend. Is there then no friend? He cannot yet credit +that one may have impressive experience, and yet may not know how to put +his private fact into literature; and perhaps the discovery that wisdom +has other tongues and ministers than we, that though we should hold our +peace, the truth would not the less be spoken, might check injuriously +the flames of our zeal. A man can only speak, so long as he does not +feel his speech to be partial and inadequate. It is partial, but he does +not see it to be so, whilst he utters it. As soon as he is released from +the instinctive and particular, and sees its partiality, he shuts his +mouth in disgust. For, no man can write anything, who does not think +that what he writes is for the time the history of the world; or do +anything well, who does not esteem his work to be of importance. My work +may be of none, but I must not think it is of none, or I shall not do it +with impunity. + +13. In like manner, there is throughout nature something mocking, +something that leads us on and on, but arrives nowhere, keeps no faith +with us. All promise outruns the performance. We live in a system of +approximations. Every end is prospective of some other end, which is +also temporary; a round and final success nowhere. We are encamped in +nature, not domesticated. Hunger and thirst lead us on to eat and to +drink; but bread and wine, mix and cook them how you will, leave us +hungry and thirsty, after the stomach is full. It is the same with all +our arts and performances. Our music, our poetry, our language itself +are not satisfactions, but suggestions. The hunger for wealth, which +reduces the planet to a garden, fools the eager pursuer. What is the +end sought? Plainly to secure the ends of good sense and beauty, from +the intrusion of deformity or vulgarity of any kind. But what an +operose[521] method! What a train of means to secure a little +conversation! This palace of brick and stone, these servants, this +kitchen, these stables, horses and equipage, this bank-stock, and file +of mortgages; trade to all the world, country-house and cottage by the +water-side, all for a little conversation, high, clear, and spiritual! +Could it not be had as well by beggars on the highway? No, all these +things came from successive efforts of these beggars to remove +friction from the wheels of life, and give opportunity. Conversation, +character, were the avowed ends; wealth was good as it appeased the +animal cravings, cured the smoky chimney, silenced the creaking door, +brought friends together in a warm and quiet room, and kept the +children and the dinner-table in a different apartment. Thought, +virtue, beauty, were the ends; but it was known that men of thought +and virtue sometimes had the headache, or wet feet, or could lose good +time, whilst the room was getting warm in winter days. Unluckily, in +the exertions necessary to remove these inconveniences, the main +attention has been diverted to this object; the old aims have been +lost sight of, and to remove friction has come to be the end. That is +the ridicule of rich men, and Boston, London, Vienna, and now the +governments generally of the world, are cities and governments of the +rich, and the masses are not men, but _poor men_, that is, men who +would be rich; this is the ridicule of the class, that they arrive +with pains and sweat and fury nowhere; when all is done, it is for +nothing. They are like one who has interrupted the conversation of a +company to make his speech, and now has forgotten what he went to say. +The appearance strikes the eye everywhere of an aimless society, of +aimless nations. Were the ends of nature so great and cogent, as to +exact this immense sacrifice of men? + +14. Quite analogous to the deceits in life, there is, as might be +expected, a similar effect on the eye from the face of external +nature. There is in woods and waters a certain enticement and +flattery, together with a failure to yield a present satisfaction. +This disappointment is felt in every landscape. I have seen the +softness and beauty of the summer clouds floating feathery overhead, +enjoying, as it seemed, their height and privilege of motion, whilst +yet they appeared not so much the drapery of this place and hour, as +fore-looking to such pavilions and gardens of festivity beyond. It is +an odd jealousy; but the poet finds himself not near enough to this +object. The pine tree, the river, the bank of flowers before him, does +not seem to be nature. Nature is still elsewhere. This or this is but +outskirt and far-off reflection[522] and echo of the triumph that has +passed by, and is now at its glancing splendor and heyday, perchance +in the neighboring fields, or, if you stand in the field, then in the +adjacent woods. The present object shall give you this sense of +stillness that follows a pageant which has just gone by. What splendid +distance, what recesses of ineffable pomp and loveliness in the +sunset! But who can go where they are, or lay his hand or plant his +foot thereon? Off they fall from the round world forever and ever. It +is the same among men and women as among the silent trees; always a +referred existence, an absence, never a presence and satisfaction. Is +it, that beauty can never be grasped? in persons and in landscapes is +equally inaccessible? The accepted and betrothed lover has lost the +wildest charm of his maiden in her acceptance of him. She was heaven +whilst he pursued her as a star: she cannot be heaven, if she stoops +to such a one as he. + +15. What shall we say of this omnipresent appearance of that first +projectile impulse, of this flattery and balking of so many +well-meaning creatures? Must we not suppose somewhere in the universe +a slight treachery and derision? Are we not engaged to a serious +resentment of this use that is made of us? Are we tickled trout, and +fools of nature? One looks at the face of heaven and earth lays all +petulance at rest, and soothes us to wiser convictions. To the +intelligent, nature converts itself into a vast promise, and will not +be rashly explained. Her secret is untold. Many and many an +Oedipus[523] arrives: he has the whole mystery teeming in his brain. +Alas! the same sorcery has spoiled his skill; no syllable can he shape +on his lips. Her mighty orbit vaults like the fresh rainbow into the +deep, but no archangel's wing was yet strong enough to follow it, and +report of the return of the curve. But it also appears, that our +actions are seconded and disposed to greater conclusions than we +designed. We are escorted on every hand through life by spiritual +agents, and a beneficent purpose lies in wait for us. We cannot bandy +words with nature, or deal with her as we deal with persons. If we +measure our individual forces against hers, we may easily feel as if +we were the sport of an insuperable destiny. But if, instead of +identifying ourselves with the work, we feel that the soul of the +workman streams through us, we shall find the peace of the morning +dwelling first in our hearts, and the fathomless powers of gravity and +chemistry, and, over them, of life preëxisting within us in their +highest form. + +16. The uneasiness which the thought of our helplessness in the chain +of causes occasions us, results from looking too much at one condition +of nature, namely, Motion. But the drag is never taken from the wheel. +Wherever the impulse exceeds the Rest or Identity insinuates its +compensation. All over the wide fields of earth grows the +prunella[524] or self-heal. After every foolish day we sleep off the +fumes and furies of its hours; and though we are always engaged with +particulars, and often enslaved to them, we bring with us to every +experiment the innate universal laws. These, while they exist in the +mind as ideas, stand around us in nature forever embodied, a present +sanity to expose and cure the insanity of men. Our servitude to +particulars betrays us into a hundred foolish expectations. We +anticipate a new era from the invention of a locomotive, or a balloon; +the new engine brings with it the old checks. They say that by +electro-magnetism, your salad shall be grown from the seed whilst your +fowl is roasting for dinner: it is a symbol of our modern aims and +endeavors,--of our condensation and acceleration of objects: but +nothing is gained: nature cannot be cheated: man's life is but seventy +salads long, grow they swift or grow they slow. In these checks and +impossibilities, however, we find our advantage, not less than in +impulses. Let the victory fall where it will, we are on that side. And +the knowledge that we traverse the whole scale of being, from the +center to the poles of nature, and have some stake in every +possibility, lends that sublime luster to death, which philosophy and +religion have too outwardly and literally striven to express in the +popular doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The reality is more +excellent than the report. Here is no ruin, no discontinuity, no spent +ball. The divine circulations never rest nor linger. Nature is the +incarnation of a thought, and turns to a thought again, as ice becomes +water and gas. The world is mind precipitated, and the volatile +essence is forever escaping again into the state of free thought. +Hence the virtue and pungency of the influence on the mind, of natural +objects, whether inorganic or organized. Man imprisoned, man +crystallized, man vegetative, speaks to man impersonated. That power +which does not respect quantity, which makes the whole and the +particle its equal channel, delegates its smile to the morning, and +distills its essence into every drop of rain. Every moment instructs +and every object: for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been +poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as +pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of +cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence, until after a long +time. + + + + +SHAKSPEARE;[525] OR, THE POET + +[Transcriber's Note: Shakspeare is spelled as "Shakspeare" as well as +"Shakespeare" in this book. The original spellings have been retained.] + + +1. Great men are more distinguished by range and extent, than by +originality. If we require the originality which consists in weaving, +like a spider, their web from their own bowels; in finding clay, and +making bricks, and building the house; no great men are original. Nor +does valuable originality consist in unlikeness to other men. The hero +is in the press of knights, and the thick of events; and, seeing what +men want, and sharing their desire, he adds the needful length of +sight and of arm, to come to the desired point. The greatest genius is +the most indebted man. A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes +uppermost and, because he says everything, saying, at last, something +good; but a heart in unison with his time and country. There is +nothing whimsical and fantastic in his production, but sweet and sad +earnest, freighted with the weightiest convictions, and pointed with +the most determined aim which any man or class knows of in his times. + +2. The Genius[526] of our life is jealous of individuals and will not +have any individual great, except through the general. There is no +choice to genius. A great man does not wake up on some fine morning, +and say, "I am full of life, I will go to sea, and find an Antarctic +continent: to-day I will square the circle: I will ransack botany, and +find a new food for man: I have a new architecture in my mind: I +foresee a new mechanic power:" no, but he finds himself in the river +of the thoughts and events, forced onward by the ideas and necessities +of his contemporaries. He stands where all the eyes of men look one +way, and their hands all point in the direction in which he should go. +The church has reared him amidst rites and pomps, and he carries out +the advice which her music gave him, and builds a cathedral needed by +her chants and processions. He finds a war raging: it educates him, by +trumpet, in barracks, and he betters the instruction. He finds two +counties groping to bring coal, or flour, or fish, from the place of +production to the place of consumption, and he hits on a railroad. +Every master has found his materials collected, and his power lay in +his sympathy with his people, and in his love of the materials he +wrought in. What an economy of power! and what a compensation for the +shortness of life! All is done to his hand. The world has brought him +thus far on his way. The human race has gone out before him, sunk the +hills, filled the hollows, and bridged the rivers. Men, nations, +poets, artisans, women, all have worked for him, and he enters into +their labors. Choose any other thing, out of the line of tendency, out +of the national feeling and history, and he would have all to do for +himself: his powers would be expended in the first preparations. Great +genial power, one would almost say, consists in not being original at +all; in being altogether receptive; in letting the world do all, and +suffering the spirit of the hour to pass unobstructed through the +mind. + +3. Shakspeare's youth[527] fell in a time when the English people were +importunate for dramatic entertainments. The court took offense easily +at political allusions, and attempted to suppress them. The +Puritans,[528] a growing and energetic party and the religious among +the Anglican Church,[529] would suppress them. But the people wanted +them. Inn-yards, houses without roofs, and extemporaneous inclosures +at country fairs, were the ready theaters of strolling players. The +people had tasted this new joy; and, as we could not hope to suppress +newspapers now,--no, not by the strongest party,--neither then could +king, prelate, or puritan,--alone or united, suppress an organ, which +was ballad, epic, newspaper, caucus, lecture, Punch,[530] and library, +at the same time. Probably king, prelate, and puritan, all found their +own account in it. It had become, by all causes, a national +interest,--by no means conspicuous, so that some great scholar would +have thought of treating it in an English history,--but not a whit +less considerable, because it was cheap, and of no account, like a +baker's shop. The best proof of its vitality is the crowd of writers +which suddenly broke into this field; Kyd, Marlow, Greene,[531] +Jonson, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Peele, Ford, +Massinger, Beaumont, and Fletcher. + +4. The secure possession, by the stage, of the public mind, is of the +first importance to the poet who works for it. He loses no time in +idle experiments. Here is audience and expectation prepared. In the +case of Shakspeare there is much more. At the time when[532] he left +Stratford, and went up to London, a great body of stage-plays, of all +dates and writers, existed in manuscript, and were in turn produced on +the boards. Here is the Tale of Troy,[533] which the audience will +bear hearing some part of, every week; the Death of Julius Cæsar,[534] +and other stories out of Plutarch,[535] which they never tire of; a +shelf full of English history, from the chronicles of Brut[536] and +Arthur,[537] down to the royal Henries,[538] which men hear eagerly; +and a string of doleful tragedies, merry Italian tales,[539] and +Spanish voyages,[540] which all the London prentices know. All the +mass has been treated, with more or less skill, by every playwright, +and the prompter has the soiled and tattered manuscripts. It is now no +longer possible to say who wrote them first. They have been the +property of the Theater so long, and so many rising geniuses have +enlarged or altered them, inserting a speech, or a whole scene, or +adding a song, that no man can any longer claim copyright in this work +of numbers. Happily, no man wishes to. They are not yet desired in +that way. We have few readers, many spectators and hearers. They had +best lie where they are. + +5. Shakspeare, in common with his comrades, esteemed the mass of old +plays, waste stock, in which any experiment could be freely tried. +Had the _prestige_[541] which hedges about a modern tragedy existed, +nothing could have been done. The rude warm blood of the living +England circulated in the play, as in street-ballads, and gave body +which he wanted to his airy and majestic fancy. The poet needs a +ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, +may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the +people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so +much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full +strength for the audacities of his imagination. In short, the poet +owes to his legend what sculpture owed to the temple. Sculpture in +Egypt, and in Greece, grew up in subordination to architecture. It was +the ornament of the temple wall: at first, a rude relief carved on +pediments, then the relief became bolder, and a head or arm was +projected from the wall, the groups being still arranged with +reference to the building, which serves also as a frame to hold the +figures; and when, at last, the greatest freedom of style and +treatment was reached, the prevailing genius of architecture still +enforced a certain calmness and continence in the statue. As soon as +the statue was begun for itself, and with no reference to the temple +or palace, the art began to decline: freak, extravagance, and +exhibition, took the place of the old temperance. This balance-wheel, +which the sculptor found in architecture, the perilous irritability of +poetic talent found in the accumulated dramatic materials to which the +people were already wonted, and which had a certain excellence which +no single genius,[542] however extraordinary, could hope to create. + +6. In point of fact, it appears that Shakspeare did owe debts in all +directions, and was able to use whatever he found; and the amount of +indebtedness may be inferred from Malone's[543] laborious computations +in regard to the First, Second, and Third parts of Henry VI., in +which, "out of 6043 lines, 1771 were written by some author preceding +Shakspeare; 2373 by him, on the foundation laid by his predecessors; +and 1899 were entirely his own." And the proceeding investigation +hardly leaves a single drama of his absolute invention. Malone's +sentence is an important piece of external history. In Henry VIII, I +think I see plainly the cropping out of the original rock on which his +own finer stratum was laid. The first play was written by a superior, +thoughtful man, with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, and know +well their cadence. See Wolsey's soliloquy,[544] and the following +scene from Cromwell,[545] where,--instead of the meter of Shakspeare, +whose secret is, that the thought constructs the tune, so that reading +for the sense will best bring out the rhythm,--here the lines are +constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit +eloquence. But the play contains, through all its length, unmistakable +traits of Shakspeare's hand, and some passages, as the account of the +coronation,[546] are like autographs. What is odd, the compliment to +Queen Elizabeth[547] is in bad rhythm.[548] + +7. Shakspeare knew that tradition supplies a better fable than any +invention can. If he lost any credit of design, he augmented his +resources; and, at that day, our petulant demand for originality was +not so much pressed. There was no literature for the million. The +universal reading, the cheap press, were unknown. A great poet, who +appears in illiterate times, absorbs into his sphere all the light +which is anywhere radiating. Every intellectual jewel, every flower of +sentiment, it is his fine office to bring to his people; and he comes +to value his memory[549] equally with his invention. He is therefore +little solicitous whence his thoughts have been derived; whether +through translation, whether through tradition, whether by travel in +distant countries, whether by inspiration; from whatever source, they +are equally welcome to his uncritical audience. Nay, he borrows very +near home. Other men say wise things as well as he; only they say a +good many foolish things, and do not know when they have spoken +wisely. He knows the sparkle of the true stone, and puts it in high +place, wherever he finds it. Such is the happy position of Homer,[550] +perhaps; of Chaucer,[551] of Saadi.[552] They felt that all wit was +their wit. And they are librarians and historiographers, as well as +poets. Each romancer was heir and dispenser of all the hundred tales +of the world,-- + + "Presenting Thebes'[553] and Pelops' line + And the tale of Troy divine." + +The influence of Chaucer is conspicuous in all our early literature; +and, more recently, not only Pope[554] and Dryden[555] have been +beholden to him, but, in the whole society of English writers, a large +unacknowledged debt is easily traced. One is charmed with the opulence +which feeds so many pensioners. But Chaucer is a huge borrower.[556] +Chaucer, it seems, drew continually, through Lydgat[557] and +Caxton,[558] from Guido di Colonna,[559] whose Latin romance of the +Trojan war was in turn a compilation from Dares Phrygius,[560] +Ovid,[561] and Statius.[562] Then Petrarch,[563] Boccaccio,[564] and +the Provençal poets,[565] and his benefactors: the Romaunt of the +Rose[566] is only judicious translation from William of Lorris and +John of Meung: Troilus and Creseide,[567] from Lollius of Urbino: The +Cock and the Fox,[568] from the _Lais_ of Marie: The House of +Fame,[569] from the French or Italian: and poor Gower[570] he uses as +if he were only a brick-kiln or stone-quarry, out of which to build +his house. He steals by this apology,--that what he takes has no worth +where he finds it, and the greatest where he leaves it. It has come to +be practically a sort of rule in literature, that a man, having once +shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to +steal from the writings of others at discretion. Thought is the +property of him who can entertain it; and of him who can adequately +place it. A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; +but, as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our +own. + +8. Thus, all originality is relative. Every thinker is retrospective. +The learned member of the legislature, at Westminister,[571] or at +Washington, speaks and votes for thousands. Show us the constituency, +and the now invisible channels by which the senator is made aware of +their wishes, the crowd of practical and knowing men, who, by +correspondence or conversation, are feeding him with evidence, +anecdotes, and estimates, and it will bereave his fine attitude and +resistance of something of their impressiveness. As Sir Robert +Peel[572] and Mr. Webster[573] vote, so Locke[574] and Rousseau[575] +think for thousands; and so there were foundations all around +Homer,[576] Menu,[577] Saada,[578] or Milton,[579] from which they +drew; friends, lovers, books, traditions, proverbs,--all +perished,--which, if seen, would go to reduce the wonder. Did the bard +speak with authority? Did he feel himself overmatched by any +companion? The appeal is to the consciousness of the writer. Is there +at last in his breast a Delphi[580] whereof to ask concerning any +thought or thing whether it be verily so, yea or nay? and to have +answer, and rely on that? All the debts which such a man could +contract to other wit, would never disturb his consciousness of +originality: for the ministrations of books, and of other minds, are a +whiff of smoke to that most private reality with which he has +conversed. + +9. It is easy to see that what is best written or done by genius, in +the world, was no man's work, but came by wide social labor, when a +thousand wrought like one, sharing the same impulse. Our English +Bible[581] is a wonderful specimen of the strength and music of the +English language. But it was not made by one man, or at one time; but +centuries and churches brought it to perfection. There never was a +time when there was not some translation existing. The Liturgy,[582] +admired for its energy and pathos, is an anthology of the piety of +ages and nations, a translation of the prayers and forms of the +Catholic church,--these collected, too, in long periods, from the +prayers and meditations of every saint and sacred writer all over the +world. Grotius[583] makes the like remark in respect to the Lord's +Prayer, that the single clauses of which it is composed were already +in use, in the time of Christ, in the rabbinical forms.[584] He picked +out the grains of gold. The nervous language of the Common Law,[585] +the impressive forms of our courts, and the precision and substantial +truth of the legal distinctions, are the contribution of all the +sharp-sighted, strong-minded men who have lived in the countries where +these laws govern. The translation of Plutarch gets its excellence by +being translation on translation. There never was a time when there +was none. All the truly idiomatic and national phrases are kept, and +all others successively picked out, and thrown away. Something like +the same process had gone on, long before, with the originals of these +books. The world takes liberties with world-books. Vedas,[586] Æsop's +Fables,[587] Pilpay,[588] Arabian Nights,[589] Cid,[590] Iliad,[591] +Robin Hood,[592] Scottish Minstrelsy,[593] are not the work of single +men. In the composition of such works, the time thinks, the market +thinks, the mason, the carpenter, the merchant, the farmer, the fop, +all think for us. Every book supplies its time with one good word; +every municipal law, every trade, every folly of the day, and the +generic catholic genius who is not afraid or ashamed to owe his +originality to the originality of all, stands with the next age as the +recorder and embodiment of his own. + +10. We have to thank the researches of antiquaries, and the Shakspeare +Society,[594] for ascertaining the steps of the English drama, from +the Mysteries[595] celebrated in churches and by churchmen, and the +final detachment from the church, and the completion of secular plays, +from Ferrex and Porrex,[596] and Gammer Gurton's Needle,[597] down to +the possession of the stage by the very pieces which Shakspeare +altered, remodelled, and finally made his own. Elated with success, +and piqued by the growing interest of the problem, they have left no +book-stall unsearched, no chest in a garret unopened, no file of old +yellow accounts to decompose in damp and worms, so keen was the hope +to discover whether the boy Shakspeare poached[598] or not, whether he +held horses at the theater-door, whether he kept school, and why he +left in his will only his second-best bed to Ann Hathaway, his wife. + +11. There is somewhat touching in the madness with which the passing +age mischooses the object on which all candles shine, and all eyes are +turned; the care with which it registers every trifle touching Queen +Elizabeth,[599] and King James,[600] and the Essexes,[601] +Leicesters,[602] Burleighs,[603] and Buckinghams;[604] and lets pass +without a single valuable note the founder of another dynasty, which +alone will cause the Tudor dynasty[605] to be remembered,--the man who +carries the Saxon race in him by the inspiration which feeds him, and +on whose thoughts the foremost people of the world are now for some +ages to be nourished, and minds to receive this and not another bias. +A popular player,--nobody suspected he was the poet of the human race; +and the secret was kept as faithfully from poets and intellectual men, +as from courtiers and frivolous people. Bacon,[606] who took the +inventory of the human understanding for his times, never mentioned +his name. Ben Jonson,[607] though we have strained his few words of +regard and panegyric, had no suspicion of the elastic fame whose first +vibrations he was attempting. He no doubt thought the praise he has +conceded to him generous, and esteemed himself, out of all question, +the better poet of the two. + +12. If it need wit to know wit, according to the proverb, Shakspeare's +time should be capable of recognizing it. Sir Henry Wotton[608] was +born four years after Shakspeare, and died twenty-three years after +him; and I find, among his correspondents and acquaintances, the +following persons:[609] Theodore Beza, Isaac Casaubon, Sir Philip +Sidney, Earl of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, +Sir Henry Vane, Isaac Walton, Dr. Donne, Abraham Cowley, Berlarmine, +Charles Cotton, John Pym, John Hales, Kepler, Vieta, Albericus +Gentilis, Paul Sarpi, Arminius; with all of whom exists some token of +his having communicated, without enumerating many others, whom +doubtless[610] he saw,--Shakspeare, Spenser, Jonson, Beaumont, +Massinger, two Herberts, Marlow, Chapman and the rest. Since the +constellation of great men who appeared in Greece in the time of +Pericles,[611] there was never any such society;--yet their genius +failed them to find out the best head in the universe. Our poet's mask +was impenetrable. You cannot see the mountain near. It took a century +to make it suspected; and not until two centuries had passed, after +his death, did any criticism which we think adequate begin to appear. +It was not possible to write the history of Shakspeare till now; for +he is the father of German literature: it was on the introduction of +Shakspeare into German, by Lessing,[612] and the translation of his +works by Wieland[613] and Schlegel,[614] that the rapid burst of +German literature was most intimately connected. It was not until the +nineteenth century, whose speculative genius is a sort of living +Hamlet,[615] that the tragedy of Hamlet could find such wondering +readers. Now, literature, philosophy, and thought, are Shakspearized. +His mind is the horizon beyond which, at present, we do not see. Our +ears are educated to music by his rhythm. Coleridge[616] and +Goethe[617] are the only critics who have expressed our convictions +with any adequate fidelity; but there is in all cultivated minds a +silent appreciation of his superlative power and beauty, which, like +Christianity, qualifies the period. + +[Transcriber's Note: Number runs from 12 to 14. Number 13 omitted] + +14. The Shakspeare Society have inquired in all directions, +advertised the missing facts, offered money for any information that +will lead to proof; and with what result? Beside some important +illustration of the history of the English stage, to which I have +adverted, they have gleaned a few facts touching the property, and +dealings in regard to property, of the poet. It appears that, from +year to year, he owned a larger share in the Blackfriars' +Theater:[618] its wardrobe and other appurtenances were his: and he +bought an estate in his native village, with his earnings, as writer +and shareholder; that he lived in the best house in Stratford;[619] +was intrusted by his neighbors with their commissions in London, as of +borrowing money, and the like; and he was a veritable farmer. About +the time when he was writing Macbeth,[620] he sues Philip Rogers, in +the borough-court of Stratford, for thirty-five shillings, ten pence, +for corn delivered to him at different times; and, in all respects, +appears as a good husband with no reputation for eccentricity or +excess. He was a good-natured sort of man, an actor and shareholder in +the theater, not in any striking manner distinguished from other +actors and managers. I admit the importance of this information. It is +well worth the pains that have been taken to procure it. + +15. But whatever scraps of information concerning his condition these +researches may have rescued, they can shed no light upon that infinite +invention which is the concealed magnet of his attraction for us. We +are very clumsy writers of history. We tell the chronicle of +parentage, birth, birth-place, schooling, schoolmates, earning of +money, marriage, publication of books, celebrity, death; and when we +have come to an end of this gossip no ray of relation appears between +it and the goddess-born; and it seems as if, had we dipped at random +into the "Modern Plutarch," and read any other life there, it would +have fitted the poems as well. It is the essence of poetry to spring, +like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish +the past, and refuse all history. Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and +Collier,[621] have wasted their oil. The famed theaters, Covent +Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont,[622] have vainly assisted. +Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready,[623] dedicate their +lives to this genius; him they crown, elucidate, obey, and express. +The genius knows them not. The recitation begins; one golden word +leaps out immortal from all this painted pedantry, and sweetly +torments us with invitations to its own inaccessible homes. I +remember, I went once to see the Hamlet of a famed performer,[624] the +pride of the English stage; and all I then heard, and all I now +remember, of the tragedian, was that in which the tragedian had no +part; simply, Hamlet's question to the ghost,-- + + "What may this mean,[625] + That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel + Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon?" + +That imagination which dilates the closet he writes in to the world's +dimension, crowds it with agents in rank and order, as quickly +reduces the big reality to be the glimpses of the moon. These tricks +of his magic spoil for us the illusions of the green-room. Can any +biography shed light on the localities into which the Midsummer +Night's Dream[626] admits me? Did Shakspeare confide to any notary or +parish recorder, sacristan, or surrogate, in Stratford, the genesis of +that delicate creation? The forest of Arden,[627] the nimble air of +Scone Castle,[628] the moonlight of Portia's villa,[629] "the antres +vast[630] and desarts idle," of Othello's captivity,--where is the +third cousin, or grand-nephew, the chancellor's file of accounts, or +private letter, that has kept one word of those transcendent secrets? +In fine, in this drama, as in all great works of art,--in the +Cyclopean architecture[631] of Egypt and India; in the Phidian +sculpture;[632] the Gothic ministers;[633] the Italian painting;[634] +the Ballads of Spain and Scotland,[635]--the Genius draws up the +ladder after him, when the creative age goes up to heaven, and gives +way to a new, which sees the works, and ask in vain for a history. + +16. Shakspeare is the only biographer of Shakspeare; and even he can +tell nothing, except to the Shakspeare in us; that is, to our most +apprehensive and sympathetic hour. He cannot step from off his +tripod,[636] and give us anecdotes of his inspirations. Read the antique +documents extricated, analyzed, and compared, by the assiduous Dyce and +Collier; and now read one of those skyey sentences,--aerolites,--which +seem to have fallen out of heaven, and which, not your experience, but +the man within the breast, has accepted, as words of fate; and tell me +if they match; if the former account in any manner for the latter; or, +which gives the most historical insight into the man. + +17. Hence, though our external history is so meager, yet, with +Shakspeare for biographer, instead of Aubrey[637] and Rowe,[638] we +have really the information which is material, that which describes +character and fortune, that which, if we were about to meet the man +and deal with him, would most import us to know. We have his recorded +convictions on those questions which knock for answer at every +heart,--on life and death, on love, on wealth and poverty, on the +prizes of life, and the ways whereby we come at them; on the +characters of men, and the influences, occult and open, which affect +their fortunes; and on those mysterious and demoniacal powers which +defy our science, and which yet interweave their malice and their gift +in our brightest hours. Who ever read the volume of the Sonnets, +without finding that the poet had there revealed, under masks that are +no masks to the intelligent, the lore of friendship and of love; the +confusion of sentiments in the most susceptible, and, at the same +time, the most intellectual of men? What trait of his private mind has +he hidden in his dramas? One can discern, in his ample pictures of the +gentleman and the king, what forms and humanities pleased him; his +delight in troops of friends, in large hospitality, in cheerful +giving. Let Timon,[639] let Warwick,[640] let Antonio[641] the +merchant, answer for his great heart. So far from Shakspeare's being +the least known, he is the one person, in all modern history, known to +us. What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of philosophy, of +religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not settled? What +mystery has he not signified his knowledge of? What office, or +function, or district of man's work, has he not remembered? What king +has he not taught state, as Talma[642] taught Napoleon? What maiden +has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not +out-loved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not +instructed in the rudeness of his behavior? + +18. Some able and appreciating critics think no criticism on +Shakspeare valuable, that does not rest purely on the dramatic merit; +that he is falsely judged as poet and philosopher. I think as highly +as these critics of his dramatic merit, who still think it secondary. +He was a full man, who liked to talk; a brain exhaling thoughts and +images, which, seeking vent, found the drama next at hand. Had he been +less, we should have had to consider how well he filled his place, how +good a dramatist he was,--and he is the best in the world. But it +turns out, that what he has to say is of that weight, as to withdraw +some attention from the vehicle; and he is like some saint whose +history is to be rendered into all languages, into verse and prose, +into songs and pictures, and cut up into proverbs; so that the +occasion which gave the saint's meaning the form of a conversation, or +of a prayer, or of a code of laws, is immaterial, compared with the +universality of its application. So it fares with the wise Shakspeare +and his book of life. He wrote the airs for all our modern music: he +wrote the text of modern life; the text of manners: he drew the man of +England and Europe; the father of the man in America: he drew the man, +and described the day, and what is done in it: he read the hearts of +men and women, their probity, and their second thought, and wiles; the +wiles of innocence, and the transitions by which virtues and vices +slide into their contraries: he could divide the mother's part from +the father's part in the face of the child, or draw the fine +demarcations of freedom and of fate: he knew the laws of repression +which make the police of nature: and all the sweets and all the +terrors of human lot lay in his mind as truly but as softly as the +landscape lies on the eye. And the importance of this wisdom of life +sinks the form, as of Drama or Epic, out of notice. 'Tis like making a +question concerning the paper on which a king's message is written. + +19. Shakspeare is as much out of the category of eminent authors, as +he is out of the crowd. He is inconceivably wise; the others, +conceivably. A good reader can, in a sort, nestle into Plato's brain, +and think from thence; but not into Shakspeare's. We are still out of +doors. For executive faculty, for creation, Shakspeare is unique. No +man can imagine it better. He was the farthest reach of subtlety +compatible with an individual self,--the subtilest of authors, and +only just within the possibility of authorship. With this wisdom of +life, is the equal endowment of imaginative and of lyric power. He +clothed the creatures of his legend with form and sentiments, as if +they were people who had lived under his roof; and few real men have +left such distinct characters as these fictions. And they spoke in +language as sweet as it was fit. Yet his talents never seduced him +into an ostentation, nor did he harp on one string. An omnipresent +humanity[643] coördinates all his faculties. Give a man of talents a +story to tell, and his partiality will presently appear. He has +certain observations, opinions, topics, which have some accidental +prominence, and which he disposes all to exhibit. He crams this part, +and starves that other part, consulting not the fitness of the thing, +but his fitness and strength. But Shakspeare has no peculiarity, no +importunate topic; but all is duly given; no veins, no curiosities: no +cow-painter, no bird-fancier, no mannerist is he: he has no +discoverable egotism: the great he tells greatly; the small, +subordinately. He is wise without emphasis or assertion; he is strong, +as nature is strong, who lifts the land into mountain slopes without +effort, and by the same rule as she floats a bubble in the air, and +likes as well to do the one as the other. This makes that equality of +power in farce, tragedy, narrative, and love-songs; a merit so +incessant, that each reader is incredulous of the perception of other +readers. + +20. This power of expression, or of transferring the inmost truth of +things into music and verse, makes him the type of the poet, and has +added a new problem to metaphysics. This is that which throws him into +natural history, as a main production of the globe, and as announcing +new eras and ameliorations. Things were mirrored in his poetry without +loss or blur; he could paint the fine with precision, the great with +compass: the tragic and the comic indifferently, and without any +distortion or favor. He carried his powerful execution into minute +details, to a hair point; finishes an eyelash or a dimple as firmly as +he draws a mountain; and yet these, like nature's, will bear the +scrutiny of the solar microscope. + +21. In short, he is the chief example to prove that more or less of +production, more or fewer pictures, is a thing indifferent. He had the +power to make one picture. Daguerre[644] learned how to let one flower +etch its image on his plate of iodine; and then proceeds at leisure to +etch a million. There are always objects; but there was never +representation. Here is perfect representation, at last; and now let +the world of figures sit for their portraits. No recipe can be given +for the making of a Shakspeare; but the possibility of the translation +of things into song is demonstrated. + +22. His lyric power lies in the genius of the piece. The sonnets, +though their excellence is lost in the splendor of the dramas, are as +inimitable as they: and it is not a merit of lines, but a total merit +of the piece; like the tone of voice of some incomparable person, so +is this a speech of poetic beings, and any clause as unproducible now +as a whole poem. + +23. Though the speeches in the plays, and single lines, have a beauty +which tempts the ear to pause on them for their euphuism,[645] yet the +sentence is so loaded with meaning, and so linked with its foregoers +and followers, that the logician is satisfied. His means are as +admirable as his ends; every subordinate invention, by which he helps +himself to connect some irreconcilable opposites, is a poem too. He is +not reduced to dismount and walk, because his horses are running off +with him in some distant direction; he always rides. + +24. The finest poetry was first experienced: but the thought has +suffered a transformation since it was an experience. Cultivated men +often attain a good degree of skill in writing verses; but it is easy +to read, through their poems, their personal history: any one +acquainted with parties can name every figure: this is Andrew, and +that is Rachael. The sense thus remains prosaic. It is a caterpillar +with wings, and not yet a butterfly. In the poet's mind, the fact has +gone quite over into the new element of thought, and has lost all that +is exuvial. This generosity bides with Shakspeare. We say, from the +truth and closeness of his pictures, that he knows the lesson by +heart. Yet there is not a trace of egotism. + +25. One more royal trait properly belongs to the poet. I mean his +cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,--for beauty is his +aim. He loves virtue, not for its obligation, but for its grace: he +delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that +sparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds +over the universe. Epicurus[646] relates, that poetry hath such charms +that a lover might forsake his mistress to partake of them. And the +true bards have been noted for their firm and cheerful temper. Homer +lies in sunshine; Chaucer is glad and erect; and Saadi says, "It was +rumored abroad that I was penitent; but what had I to do with +repentance?" Not less sovereign and cheerful,--much more sovereign and +cheerful, is the tone of Shakspeare. His name suggests joy and +emancipation to the heart of men. If he should appear in any company +of human souls, who would not march in his troop? He touches nothing +that does not borrow health and longevity from his festal style. + +26. And now, how stands the account of man with this bard and +benefactor, when in solitude, shutting our ears to the reverberations +of his fame, we seek to strike the balance? Solitude has austere +lessons; it can teach us to spare both heroes and poets; and it weighs +Shakspeare also, and finds him to share the halfness and imperfection +of humanity. + +27. Shakspeare, Homer, Dante,[647] Chaucer, saw the splendor of +meaning that plays over the visible world; knew that a tree had +another use than for apples, and corn another than for meal, and the +ball of the earth, than for tillage and roads: that these things bore +a second and finer harvest to the mind, being emblems of its +thoughts, and conveying in all their natural history a certain mute +commentary on human life. Shakspeare employed them as colors to +compose his picture. He rested in their beauty; and never took the +step which seemed inevitable to such genius, namely, to explore the +virtue which resides in these symbols, and imparts this power,--what +is that which they themselves say? He converted the elements, which +waited on his command, into entertainments. He was master of the +revels[648] to mankind. Is it not as if one should have, through +majestic powers of science, the comets given into his hand, or the +planets and their moons, and should draw them from their orbits to +glare with the municipal fireworks on a holiday night, and advertise +in all towns, "very superior pyrotechny this evening!" Are the agents +of nature, and the power to understand them, worth no more than a +street serenade, or the breath of a cigar? One remembers again the +trumpet-text in the Koran,[649]--"The heavens and the earth, and all +that is between them, think ye we have created them in jest?" As long +as the question is of talent and mental power, the world of men has +not his equal to show. But when the question is to life, and its +materials, and its auxiliaries, how does he profit me? What does it +signify? It is but a Twelfth Night,[650] or Midsummer Night's Dream, +or a Winter Evening's Tale: what signifies another picture more or +less? The Egyptian verdict[651] of the Shakspeare Societies comes to +mind, that he was a jovial actor and manager. I cannot marry this +fact to his verse. Other admirable men have led lives in some sort of +keeping with their thought; but this man, in wide contrast. Had he +been less, had he reached only the common measure of great authors, of +Bacon, Milton, Tasso,[652] Cervantes,[653] we might leave the fact in +the twilight of human fate: but, that this man of men, he who gave to +the science of mind a new and larger subject than had ever existed, +and planted the standard of humanity some furlongs forward into +Chaos,--that he should not be wise for himself,--it must even go into +the world's history, that the best poet led an obscure and profane +life, using his genius for the public amusement. + +28. Well, other men, priest and prophet, Israelite,[654] German,[655] +and Swede,[656] beheld the same objects: they also saw through them +that which was contained. And to what purpose? The beauty straightway +vanished; they read commandments, all-excluding mountainous duty; an +obligation, a sadness, as of piled mountains, fell on them, and life +became ghastly, joyless, a pilgrim's progress,[657] a probation, +beleaguered round with doleful histories, of Adam's fall[658] and +curse, behind us; with doomsdays and purgatorial[659] and penal fires +before us; and the heart of the seer and the heart of the listener +sank in them. + +29. It must be conceded that these are half-views of half-men. The +world still wants its poet-priest, a reconciler, who shall not trifle +with Shakspeare the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg +the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act, with equal +inspiration. For knowledge will brighten the sunshine; right is more +beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with +universal wisdom. + + + + +PRUDENCE.[660] + + +What right have I to write on Prudence, whereof I have little, and +that of the negative sort? My prudence consists in avoiding and going +without, not in the inventing of means and methods, not in adroit +steering, not in gentle repairing. I have no skill to make money spend +well, no genius in my economy, and whoever sees my garden discovers +that I must have some other garden. Yet I love facts, and hate +lubricity[661] and people without perception. Then I have the same +title to write on prudence that I have to write on poetry or holiness. +We write from aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. +We paint those qualities which we do not possess. The poet admires the +man of energy and tactics; the merchant breeds his son for the church +or the bar; and where a man is not vain and egotistic you shall find +what he has not by his praise. Moreover it would be hardly honest in +me not to balance these fine lyric words of Love and Friendship[662] +with words of coarser sound, and whilst my debt to my senses is real +and constant, not to own it in passing. + +Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of +appearances. It is the outmost action of the inward life. It is God +taking thought for oxen. It moves matter after the laws of matter. It +is content to seek health of body by complying with physical +conditions, and health of mind by the laws of the intellect. + +The world of the senses is a world of shows; it does not exist for +itself, but has a symbolic character; and a true prudence or law of +shows recognizes the co-presence of other laws and knows that its own +office is subaltern; knows that it is surface and not centre where it +works. Prudence is false when detached. It is legitimate when it is +the Natural History of the soul incarnate, when it unfolds the beauty +of laws within the narrow scope of the senses. + +There are all degrees of proficiency in knowledge of the world. It is +sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three. One class lives +to the utility of the symbol, esteeming health and wealth a final +good. Another class live above this mark of the beauty of the symbol, +as the poet and artist and the naturalist and man of science. A third +class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing +signified; these are wise men. The first class have common sense; the +second, taste; and the third, spiritual perception. Once in a long +time, a man traverses the whole scale, and sees and enjoys the symbol +solidly, then also has a clear eye for its beauty, and lastly, whilst +he pitches his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature, does not +offer to build houses and barns thereon reverencing the splendor of +the God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny. + +The world is filled with the proverbs[663] and acts and winkings of a +base prudence, which is a devotion to matter, as if we possessed no +other faculties than the palate, the nose, the touch, the eye and ear; +a prudence which adores the Rule of Three, which never subscribes, +which gives never, which seldom lends, and asks but one question of +any project,--Will it bake bread? This is a disease like a thickening +of the skin until the vital organs are destroyed. But culture, +revealing the high origin of the apparent world and aiming at the +perfection of the man as the end, degrades everything else, as health +and bodily life, into means. It sees prudence not to be a several +faculty, but a name for wisdom and virtue conversing with the body and +its wants. Cultivated men always feel and speak so as if a great +fortune, the achievement of a civil or social measure, great personal +influence, a graceful and commanding address, had their value as +proofs of the energy of the spirit. If a man lose his balance and +immerse himself in any trades or pleasures for their own sake, he may +be a good wheel or pin,[664] but he is not a cultivated man. + +The spurious prudence, making the senses final, is the god of sots and +cowards, and is the subject of all comedy. It is nature's joke, and +therefore literature's. The true prudence limits this sensualism by +admitting the knowledge of an internal and real world. This +recognition once made,--the order of the world and the distribution +of affairs and times being studied with the co-perception of their +subordinate place, will reward any degree of attention. For, our +existence, thus apparently attached in nature to the sun and the +returning moon and the periods which they mark; so susceptible to +climate and to country, so alive to social good and evil, so fond of +splendor and so tender to hunger and cold and debt,--reads all its +primary lessons out of these books. + +Prudence does not go behind nature and ask whence it is? It takes the +laws of the world whereby man's being is conditioned, as they are, and +keeps these laws that it may enjoy their proper good. It respects +space and time, climate, want, sleep, the law of polarity,[665] growth +and death. There revolve, to give bound and period to his being on all +sides, the sun and moon, the great formalists in the sky: here lies +stubborn matter, and will not swerve from its chemical routine. Here +is a planted globe, pierced and belted with natural laws and fenced +and distributed externally with civil partitions and properties which +impose new restraints on the young inhabitant. + +We eat of the bread which grows in the field. We live by the air which +blows around us and we are poisoned by the air that is too cold or too +hot, too dry or too wet. Time, which shows so vacant, indivisible and +divine in its coming, is slit and peddled into trifles and tatters. A +door is to be painted, a lock to be repaired. I want wood or oil, or +meal, or salt; the house smokes, or I have a headache; then the tax; +and an affair to be transacted with a man without heart or brains, and +the stinging recollection of an injurious or very awkward word,--these +eat up the hours. Do what we can, summer will have its flies.[666] If +we walk in the woods we must feed mosquitoes. If we go a-fishing we +must expect a wet coat. Then climate is a great impediment to idle +persons. We often resolve to give up the care of the weather, but +still we regard the clouds and the rain. + +We are instructed by these petty experiences which usurp the hours and +years. The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitant of the +northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the +fixed smile of the tropics. The islander may ramble all day at will. At +night he may sleep on a mat under the moon, and wherever a wild +date-tree grows, nature has, without a prayer even, spread a table for +his morning meal. The northerner is perforce a householder. He must +brew, bake, salt and preserve his food. He must pile wood and coal. But +as it happens that not one stroke can labor lay to without some new +acquaintance with nature; and as nature is inexhaustibly significant, +the inhabitants of these climates[667] have always excelled the +southerner in force. Such is the value of these matters that a man who +knows other things can never know too much of these. Let him have +accurate perceptions. Let him, if he have hands, handle; if eyes, +measure and discriminate; let him accept and hive every fact of +chemistry, natural history and economics; the more he has, the less is +he willing to spare any one. Time is always bringing the occasions that +disclose their value. Some wisdom comes out of every natural and +innocent action. The domestic man, who loves no music so well as his +kitchen clock and the airs which the logs sing to him as they burn on +the hearth, has solaces which others never dream of. The application of +means to ends ensures victory and the songs of victory not less in a +farm or a shop than in the tactics of party or of war. The good husband +finds method as efficient in the packing of fire-wood in a shed or in +the harvesting of fruits in the cellar, as in Peninsular campaigns[668] +or the files of the Department of State. In the rainy day he builds a +work-bench, or gets his tool-box set in the corner of the barn-chamber, +and stored with nails, gimlet, pincers, screwdriver and chisel. Herein +he tastes an old joy of youth and childhood, the cat-like love of +garrets, presses and corn-chambers, and of the conveniences of long +housekeeping. His garden or his poultry-yard--very paltry places it may +be--tells him many pleasant anecdotes. One might find argument for +optimism in the abundant flow of this saccharine element of pleasure in +every suburb and extremity of the good world. Let a man keep the +law--any law,--and his way will be strown with satisfactions. There is +more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount. + +On the other hand, nature punishes any neglect of prudence. If you +think the senses final, obey their law. If you believe in the soul, do +not clutch at sensual sweetness before it is ripe on the slow tree of +cause and effect. It is vinegar to the eyes to deal with men of loose +and imperfect perception. Dr. Johnson is reported to have +said,[669]--"If the child says he looked out of this window, when he +looked out of that,--whip him." Our American character is marked by a +more than average delight in accurate perception, which is shown by +the currency of the by-word, "No mistake." + +But the discomfort of unpunctuality, of confusion of thought about +facts, inattention to the wants of to-morrow, is of no nation. The +beautiful laws of time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude, +are holes and dens. If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, +instead of honey it will yield us bees. Our words and actions to be +fair must be timely. A gay and pleasant sound is the whetting of the +scythe in the mornings of June; yet what is more lonesome and sad than +the sound of a whetstone or mower's rifle[670] when it is too late in +the season to make hay? Scatter brained and "afternoon men" spoil much +more than their own affairs in spoiling the temper of those who deal +with them. I have seen a criticism on some paintings, of which I am +reminded when I see the shiftless and unhappy men who are not true to +their senses. The last Grand Duke of Weimar,[671] a man of superior +understanding, said: "I have sometimes remarked in the presence of +great works of art, and just now especially in Dresden, how much a +certain property contributes to the effect which gives life to the +figures, and to the life an irresistible truth. This property is the +hitting, in all the figures we draw, the right centre of gravity. I +mean the placing the figures firm upon their feet, making the hands +grasp, and fastening the eyes on the spot where they should look. Even +lifeless figures, as vessels and stools--let them be drawn ever so +correctly--lose all effect so soon as they lack the resting upon their +centre of gravity, and have a certain swimming and oscillating +appearance. The Raphael in the Dresden gallery[672] (the only great +affecting picture which I have seen) is the quietest and most +passionless piece you can imagine; a couple of saints who worship the +Virgin and child. Nevertheless it awakens a deeper impression than the +contortions of ten crucified martyrs. For, beside all the resistless +beauty of form, it possesses in the highest degree the property of the +perpendicularity of all the figures." This perpendicularity we demand +of all the figures in this picture of life. Let them stand on their +feet, and not float and swing. Let us know where to find them. Let +them discriminate between what they remember and what they dreamed. +Let them call a spade a spade.[673] Let them give us facts, and honor +their own senses with trust. + +But what man shall dare task another with imprudence? Who is prudent? +The men we call greatest are least in this kingdom. There is a certain +fatal dislocation in our relation to nature, distorting all our modes +of living and making every law our enemy, which seems at last to have +aroused all the wit and virtue in the world to ponder the question of +Reform. We must call the highest prudence to counsel, and ask why +health and beauty and genius should now be the exception rather than +the rule of human nature? We do not know the properties of plants and +animals and the laws of nature, through our sympathy with the same; +but this remains the dream of poets. Poetry and prudence should be +coincident. Poets should be lawgivers; that is, the boldest lyric +inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead +the civil code and the day's work. But now the two things seem +irreconcilably parted. We have violated law upon law until we stand +amidst ruins, and when by chance we espy a coincidence between reason +and the phenomena, we are surprised. Beauty should be the dowry of +every man and woman, as invariably as sensation; but it is rare. +Health or sound organization should be universal. Genius should be the +child of genius, and every child should be inspired; but now it is not +to be predicted of any child, and nowhere is it pure. We call partial +half lights, by courtesy, genius; talent which converts itself to +money; talent which glitters to-day that it may dine and sleep well +to-morrow; and society is officered by _men of parts_,[674] as they +are properly called, and not by divine men. These use their gifts to +refine luxury, not to abolish it. Genius is always ascetic; and piety, +and love. Appetite shows to the finer souls as a disease, and they +find beauty in rites and bounds that resist it. + +We have found out[675] fine names to cover our sensuality withal, but +no gifts can raise intemperance. The man of talent affects to call his +transgressions of the laws of the senses trivial and to count them +nothing considered with his devotion to his art. His art rebukes him. +That never taught him lewdness, nor the love of wine, nor the wish to +reap where he had not sowed. His art is less for every deduction from +his holiness, and less for every defect of common sense. On him who +scorned the world, as he said, the scorned world wreaks its revenge. +He that despiseth small things will perish by little and little. +Goethe's Tasso[676] is very likely to be a pretty fair historical +portrait, and that is true tragedy. It does not seem to me so genuine +grief when some tyrannous Richard III.[677] oppresses and slays a +score of innocent persons, as when Antonio and Tasso, both apparently +right, wrong each other. One living after the maxims of this world and +consistent and true to them, the other fired with all divine +sentiments, yet grasping also at the pleasures of sense, without +submitting to their law. That is a grief we all feel, a knot we cannot +untie. Tasso's is no infrequent case in modern biography. A man of +genius, of an ardent temperament, reckless of physical laws, +self-indulgent, becomes presently unfortunate, querulous, a +"discomfortable cousin," a thorn to himself and to others. + +The scholar shames us by his bifold[678] life. Whilst something higher +than prudence is active, he is admirable; when common sense is wanted, +he is an encumbrance. Yesterday, Cæsar[679] was not so great; to-day, +Job[680] not so miserable. Yesterday, radiant with the light of an +ideal world in which he lives, the first of men, and now oppressed by +wants and by sickness, for which he must thank himself, none is so +poor to do him reverence. He resembles the opium eaters whom +travellers describe as frequenting the bazaars of Constantinople, who +skulk about all day, the most pitiful drivellers, yellow, emaciated, +ragged, sneaking; then at evening, when the bazaars are open, they +slink to the opium-shop, swallow their morsel and become tranquil, +glorious and great. And who has not seen the tragedy of imprudent +genius struggling for years with paltry pecuniary difficulties, at +last sinking, chilled, exhausted and fruitless, like a giant +slaughtered by pins? + +Is it not better that a man should accept the first pains and +mortifications of this sort, which nature is not slack in sending him, +as hints that he must expect no other good than the just fruit of his +own labor and self-denial? Health, bread, climate, social position, +have their importance, and he will give them their due. Let him esteem +Nature a perpetual counsellor, and her perfections the exact measure +of our deviations. Let him make the night night, and the day day. Let +him control the habit of expense. Let him see that as much wisdom may +be expended on a private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom +may be drawn from it. The laws of the world are written out for him on +every piece of money in his hand. There is nothing he will not be the +better for knowing, were it only the wisdom of Poor Richard,[681] or +the State-street[682] prudence of buying by the acre to sell by the +foot; or the thrift of the agriculturist, to stick[683] in a tree +between whiles, because it will grow whilst he sleeps; or the prudence +which consists in husbanding little strokes of the tool, little +portions of time, particles of stock and small gains. The eye of +prudence may never shut. Iron, if kept at the ironmonger's, will rust; +beer, if not brewed in the right state of the atmosphere, will sour; +timber of ships will rot at sea, or if laid up high and dry, will +strain, warp and dry-rot. Money, if kept by us, yields no rent and is +liable to loss; if invested, is liable to depreciation of the +particular kind of stock. Strike, says the smith, the iron is white. +Keep the rake, says the haymaker, as nigh the scythe as you can, and +the cart as nigh the rake. Our Yankee trade is reputed to be very much +on the extreme of this prudence. It saves itself by its activity. It +takes bank notes,--good, bad, clean, ragged, and saves itself by the +speed with which it passes them off. Iron cannot rust, nor beer sour, +nor timber rot, nor calicoes go out of fashion, nor money stocks +depreciate, in the few swift moments in which the Yankee suffers any +one of them to remain in his possession. In skating over thin ice our +safety is in our speed. + +Let him learn a prudence of a higher strain. Let him learn that +everything in nature, even motes and feathers, go by law and not by +luck, and that what he sows he reaps. By diligence and self-command +let him put the bread he eats at his own disposal, and not at that of +others, that he may not stand in bitter and false relations to other +men; for the best good of wealth is freedom. Let him practise the +minor virtues.[684] How much of human life is lost in waiting! Let him +not make his fellow creatures wait. How many words and promises are +promises of conversation! Let his be words of fate. When he sees a +folded and sealed scrap of paper float around the globe in a pine ship +and come safe to the eye for which it was written, amidst a swarming +population, let him likewise feel the admonition to integrate his +being across all these distracting forces, and keep a slender human +word among the storms, distances and accidents that drive us hither +and thither, and, by persistency, make the paltry force of one man +reappear to redeem its pledge after months and years in the most +distant climates. + +We must not try to write the laws of any one virtue, looking at that +only. Human nature loves no contradictions, but is symmetrical. The +prudence which secures an outward well-being is not to be studied by +one set of men, whilst heroism and holiness are studied by another, +but they are reconcilable. Prudence concerns the present time, +persons, property and existing forms. But as every fact hath its roots +in the soul, and, if the soul were changed, would cease to be, or +would become some other thing, therefore the proper administration of +outward things will always rest on a just apprehension of their cause +and origin; that is, the good man will be the wise man, and the +single-hearted the politic man. Every violation of truth is not only a +sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human +society. On the most profitable lie the course of events presently +lays a destructive tax; whilst frankness proves to be the best +tactics, for it invites frankness, puts the parties on a convenient +footing and makes their business a friendship. Trust men and they will +be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves +great, though they make an exception in your favor to all their rules +of trade. + +So, in regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does not +consist in evasion or in flight, but in courage. He who wishes to walk +in the most peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw +himself up to resolution. Let him front the object of his worst +apprehension, and his stoutness will commonly make his fears +groundless. The Latin proverb says,[685] "in battles the eye is first +overcome." The eye is daunted and greatly exaggerates the perils of +the hour. Entire self-possession may make a battle very little more +dangerous to life than a match at foils or at football. Examples are +cited by soldiers of men who have seen the cannon pointed and the fire +given to it, and who have stepped aside from the path of the ball. The +terrors of the storm are chiefly confined to the parlor and the cabin. +The drover, the sailor, buffets it all day, and his health renews +itself at as vigorous a pulse under the sleet as under the sun of +June. + +In the occurrence of unpleasant things among neighbors, fear comes +readily to heart and magnifies the consequence of the other party; but +it is a bad counsellor. Every man is actually weak and apparently +strong. To himself he seems weak; to others formidable. You are afraid +of Grim; but Grim also is afraid of you. You are solicitous of the +good will of the meanest person, uneasy at his ill will. But the +sturdiest offender of your peace and of the neighborhood, if you rip +up _his_ claims, is as thin and timid as any; and the peace of society +is often kept, because, as children say, one is afraid and the other +dares not. Far off, men swell, bully and threaten: bring them hand to +hand, and they are a feeble folk. + +It is a proverb that "courtesy costs nothing"; but calculation might +come to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be blind, but +kindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an +eye-water. If you meet a sectary or a hostile partisan, never +recognize the dividing lines, but meet on what common ground +remains,--if only that the sun shines and the rain rains for +both,--the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it, the +boundary mountains on which the eye had fastened have melted into air. +If he set out to contend,[686] almost St. Paul will lie, almost St. +John will hate. What low, poor, paltry, hypocritical people an +argument on religion will make of the pure and chosen souls. Shuffle +they will and crow, crook and hide, feign to confess here, only that +they may brag and conquer there, and not a thought has enriched either +party, and not an emotion of bravery, modesty, or hope. So neither +should you put yourself in a false position to your contemporaries by +indulging a vein of hostility and bitterness. Though your views are in +straight antagonism[687] to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, +assume that you are saying precisely that which all think, and in the +flow of wit and love roll out your paradoxes in solid column, with not +the infirmity of a doubt. So at least shall you get an adequate +deliverance. The natural emotions of the soul are so much better than +the voluntary ones that you will never do yourself justice in dispute. +The thought is not then taken hold of by the right handle, does not +show itself proportioned and in its true bearings, but bears extorted, +hoarse, and half witness. But assume a consent and it shall presently +be granted, since really and underneath their all external +diversities, all men are of one heart and mind. + +Wisdom will never let us stand with any man or men on an unfriendly +footing. We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if we waited +for some better sympathy and intimacy to come. But whence and when? +To-morrow will be like to-day. Life wastes itself whilst we are +preparing to live. Our friends and fellow-workers die off from us. +Scarcely can we say we see new men, new women, approaching us. We are +too old to regard fashion, too old to expect patronage of any greater +or more powerful. Let us suck the sweetness of those affections and +consuetudes[688] that grow near us. These old shoes are easy to the +feet. Undoubtedly we can easily pick faults in our company, can easily +whisper names prouder and that tickle the fancy more. Every man's +imagination hath its friends; and pleasant would life be with such +companions. But if you cannot have them on good mutual terms, you +cannot have them. If not the Deity but our ambition hews and shapes +the new relations, their virtue escapes, as strawberries lose their +flavor in garden beds. + +Thus truth, frankness, courage, love, humility, and all the virtues +range themselves on the side of prudence, or the art of securing a +present well-being. I do not know if all matter will be found to be +made of one element, as oxygen or hydrogen, at last, but the world of +manners and actions is wrought of one stuff, and begin where we +will[689] we are pretty sure in a short space to be mumbling our ten +commandments. + + + + +CIRCLES.[690] + + +The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; +and throughout nature this primary picture is repeated without end. It +is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine[691] +described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere +and its circumference nowhere. We are all our lifetime reading the +copious sense of this first of forms. One moral we have already +deduced in considering the circular or compensatory character of every +human action. Another analogy we shall now trace, that every action +admits of being outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth +that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in +nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another +dawn risen on mid-noon,[692] and under every deep a lower deep opens. + +This fact, as far as it symbolizes the moral fact of the Unattainable, +the flying Perfect, around which the hands of man can never meet, at +once the inspirer and the condemner of every success, may conveniently +serve us to connect many illustrations of human power in every +department. + +There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. +Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a +transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and +holds its fluid. Our culture is the predominance of an idea which +draws after it all this train of cities and institutions. Let us rise +into another idea; they will disappear. The Greek sculpture[693] is +all melted away, as if it had been statues of ice: here and there a +solitary figure or fragment remaining, as we see flecks and scraps of +snow left in cold dells and mountain clefts in June and July. For the +genius that created it creates now somewhat else. The Greek +letters[694] last a little longer, but are already passing under the +same sentence and tumbling into the inevitable pit which the creation +of new thought opens for all that is old. The new continents are built +out of the ruins of an old planet; the new races fed out of the +decomposition of the foregoing. New arts destroy the old.[695] See the +investment of capital in aqueducts, made useless by hydraulics; +fortifications, by gunpowder; roads and canals, by railways; sails, by +steam; steam, by electricity. + +You admire this tower of granite, weathering the hurts of so many +ages. Yet a little waving hand built this huge wall, and that which +builds is better than that which is built. The hand that built can +topple it down much faster. Better than the hand and nimbler was the +invisible thought which wrought through it; and thus ever, behind the +coarse effect, is a fine cause, which, being narrowly seen, is itself +the effect of a finer cause. Everything looks permanent until its +secret is known. A rich estate appears to women and children a firm +and lasting fact; to a merchant, one easily created out of any +materials, and easily lost. An orchard, good tillage, good grounds, +seem a fixture, like a gold mine, or a river, to a citizen; but to a +large farmer, not much more fixed than the state of the crop. Nature +looks provokingly stable and secular, but it has a cause like all the +rest; and when once I comprehend that, will these fields stretch so +immovably wide, these leaves hang so individually considerable? +Permanence is a word of degrees. Every thing is medial. Moons are no +more bounds to spiritual power than bat-balls. + +The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, +he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his +facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea +which commands his own. The life of man is a self-evolving circle,[696] +which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to +new and larger circles, and that without end. The extent to which this +generation of circles, wheel without wheel, will go, depends on the +force or truth of the individual soul. For it is the inert effort of +each thought, having formed itself into a circular wave of circumstance, +as for instance an empire, rules of an art, a local usage, a religious +rite, to heap itself on that ridge and to solidify and hem in the life. +But if the soul is quick and strong it bursts over that boundary on all +sides and expands another orbit on the great deep, which also runs up +into a high wave, with attempt again to stop and to bind. But the heart +refuses to be imprisoned;[697] in its first and narrowest pulses it +already tends outward with a vast force and to immense and innumerable +expansions. + +Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series. Every general +law only a particular fact of some more general law presently to +disclose itself. There is no outside, no inclosing wall, no +circumference to us. The man finishes his story,--how good! how final! +how it puts a new face on all things! He fills the sky. Lo, on the +other side rises also a man and draws a circle around the circle we +had just pronounced the outline of the sphere. Then already is our +first speaker not man, but only a first speaker. His only redress is +forthwith to draw a circle outside of his antagonist. And so men do by +themselves. The result of to-day, which haunts the mind and cannot be +escaped will presently be abridged into a word, and the principle that +seemed to explain nature will itself be included as one example of a +bolder generalization. In the thought of to-morrow there is a power to +upheave all thy creed, all the creeds, all the literatures of the +nations, and marshal thee to a heaven which no epic dream has yet +depicted. Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a +suggestion of that he should be. Men walk as prophecies of the next +age. + +Step by step we scale this mysterious ladder; the steps are actions, +the new prospect is power. Every several result is threatened and +judged by that which follows. Every one seems to be contradicted by +the new; it is only limited by the new. The new statement is always +hated by the old, and, to those dwelling in the old, comes like an +abyss of scepticism. But the eye soon gets wonted to it, for the eye +and it are effects of one cause; then its innocency and benefit +appear, and presently, all its energy spent, it pales and dwindles +before the revelation of the new hour. + +Fear not the new generalization. Does the fact look crass[698] and +material, threatening to degrade thy theory of spirit? Resist it not; +it goes to refine and raise thy theory of matter just as much. + +There are no fixtures to men, if we appeal to consciousness. Every man +supposes himself not to be fully understood; and if there is any truth +in him, if he rests at last on the divine soul, I see not how it can +be otherwise. The last chamber, the last closet, he must feel was +never opened; there is always a residuum unknown, unanalyzable. That +is, every man believes that he has a greater possibility. + +Our moods do not believe in each other. To-day I am full of thoughts +and can write what I please. I see no reason why I should not have the +same thought, the same power of expression, to-morrow. What I write, +whilst I write it, seems the most natural thing in the world: but +yesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now I see +so much; and a month hence, I doubt not, I shall wonder who he was +that wrote so many continuous pages. Alas for this infirm faith, this +will not strenuous, this vast ebb of a vast flow! I am God in nature; +I am a weed by the wall. + +The continual effort to raise himself above himself,[699] to work a +pitch above his last height, betrays itself in a man's relations. We +thirst for approbation, yet cannot forgive the approver. The sweet of +nature is love; yet if I have a friend I am tormented by my +imperfections. The love of me accuses the other party. If he were high +enough[700] to slight me, then could I love him, and rise by my +affection to new heights. A man's growth is seen in the successive +choirs of his friends. For every friend whom he loses for truth, he +gains a better. I thought as I walked in the woods and mused on any +friends, why should I play with them this game of idolatry? I know and +see too well, when not voluntarily blind, the speedy limits of persons +called high and worthy. Rich, noble and great they are by the +liberality of our speech, but truth is sad. O blessed Spirit, whom I +forsake for these, they are not thee! Every personal consideration +that we allow costs us heavenly state. We sell the thrones of angels +for a short and turbulent pleasure. + +How often must we learn this lesson? Men cease to interest us when we +find their limitations. The only sin is limitation. As soon as you +once come up with a man's limitations, it is all over with him. Has +he talents? has he enterprises? has he knowledge? It boots not. +Infinitely alluring and attractive was he to you yesterday, a great +hope, a sea to swim in; now, you have found his shores, found it a +pond, and you care not if you never see it again. + +Each new step we take in thought reconciles twenty seemingly +discordant facts, as expressions of one law. Aristotle and Plato[701] +are reckoned the respective heads of two schools. A wise man will see +that Aristotle platonizes. By going one step farther back in thought, +discordant opinions are reconciled by being seen to be two extremes of +one principle, and we can never go so far back as to preclude a still +higher vision. + +Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then +all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out +in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. +There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; +there is not any literary reputation, not the so-called eternal names +of fame, that may not be revised and condemned. The very hopes of man, +the thoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and +morals of mankind are all at the mercy of a new generalization. +Generalization is always a new influx of the divinity into the mind. +Hence the thrill that attends it. + +Valor consists in the power of self-recovery, so that a man cannot +have his flank turned, cannot be out-generalled, but put him where you +will, he stands. This can only be by his preferring truth to his past +apprehension of truth, and his alert acceptance of it from whatever +quarter; the intrepid conviction that his laws, his relations to +society, his Christianity, his world, may at any time be superseded +and decease. + +There are degrees in idealism. We learn first to play with it +academically, as the magnet was once a toy. Then we see in the heyday +of youth and poetry that it may be true, that it is true in gleams and +fragments. Then, its countenance waxes stern and grand, and we see +that it must be true. It now shows itself ethical and practical. We +learn that God is; that he is in me; and that all things are shadows +of him. The idealism of Berkeley[702] is only a crude statement of the +idealism of Jesus, and that again is a crude statement of the fact +that all nature is the rapid efflux of goodness executing and +organizing itself. Much more obviously is history and the state of the +world at any one time directly dependent on the intellectual +classification then existing in the minds of men. The things which are +dear to men at this hour are so on account of the ideas which have +emerged on their mental horizon, and which cause the present order of +things, as a tree bears its apples. A new degree of culture would +instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits. + +Conversation is a game of circles. In conversation we pluck up the +_termini_[703] which bound the common of silence on every side. The +parties are not to be judged by the spirit they partake and even +express under this Pentecost.[704] To-morrow they will have receded +from this high-water mark. To-morrow you shall find them stooping +under the old pack-saddles. Yet let us enjoy the cloven flame whilst +it glows on our walls. When each new speaker strikes a new light, +emancipates us from the oppression of the last speaker to oppress us +with the greatness and exclusiveness of his own thought, then yields +us to another redeemer, we seem to recover our rights, to become men. +O, what truths profound and executable only in ages and orbs, are +supposed in the announcement of every truth! In common hours, society +sits cold and statuesque. We all stand waiting, empty,--knowing, +possibly, that we can be full, surrounded by mighty symbols which are +not symbols to us, but prose and trivial toys. Then cometh the god and +converts the statues into fiery men, and by a flash of his eye burns +up the veil which shrouded all things, and the meaning of the very +furniture, of cup and saucer, of chair and clock and tester, is +manifest. The facts which loomed so large in the fogs of +yesterday,--property, climate, breeding, personal beauty and the like, +have strangely changed their proportions. All that we reckoned settled +shakes and rattles; and literatures, cities, climates, religions, +leave their foundations and dance before our eyes. And yet here again +see the swift circumscription! Good as is discourse, silence is +better, and shames it. The length of the discourse indicates the +distance of thought betwixt the speaker and the hearer. If they were +at a perfect understanding in any part, no words would be necessary +thereon. If at one in all parts, no words would be suffered. + +Literature is a point outside of our hodiernal[705] circle through +which a new one may be described. The use of literature is to afford +us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a +purchase by which we may move it. We fill ourselves with ancient +learning, install ourselves the best we can in Greek, in Punic,[706] +in Roman houses, only that we may wiselier see French, English and +American houses and modes of living. In like manner[707] we see +literature best from the midst of wild nature, or from the din of +affairs, or from a high religion. The field cannot be well seen from +within the field. The astronomer must have his diameter of the earth's +orbit as a base to find the parallax of any star. + +Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is +not in the encyclopædia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body +of Divinity, but in the sonnet or the play. In my daily work I incline +to repeat my old steps, and do not believe in remedial force, in the +power of change and reform. But some Petrarch[708] or Ariosto,[709] +filled with the new wine of his imagination, writes me an ode or a +brisk romance, full of daring thought and action. He smites and +arouses me with his shrill tones, breaks up my whole chain of habits, +and I open my eye on my own possibilities. He claps wings to the sides +of all the solid old lumber of the world, and I am capable once more +of choosing a straight path in theory and practice. + +We have the same need to command a view of the religion of the world. +We can never see Christianity from the catechism:--from the pastures, +from a boat in the pond, from amidst the songs of wood-birds we +possibly may. Cleansed by the elemental light and wind, steeped in the +sea of beautiful forms which the field offers us, we may chance to +cast a right glance back upon biography. Christianity is rightly dear +to the best of mankind; yet was there never a young philosopher whose +breeding had fallen into the Christian church by whom that brave text +of Paul's was not specially prized, "Then shall also the Son be +subject unto Him who put all things under him, that God may be all in +all."[710] Let the claims and virtues of persons be never so great and +welcome, the instinct of man presses eagerly onward to the impersonal +and illimitable, and gladly arms itself against the dogmatism of +bigots with this generous word out of the book itself. + +The natural world may be conceived of as a system of concentric +circles, and we now and then detect in nature slight dislocations +which apprize us that this surface on which we now stand is not fixed, +but sliding. These manifold tenacious qualities,[711] this chemistry +and vegetation, these metals and animals, which seem to stand there +for their own sake, are means and methods only, are words of God, and +as fugitive as other words. Has the naturalist or chemist learned his +craft, who has explored the gravity of atoms and the elective +affinities, who has not yet discerned the deeper law whereof this is +only a partial or approximate statement, namely that like draws to +like, and that the goods which belong to you gravitate to you and need +not be pursued with pains and cost? Yet is that statement approximate +also, and not final. Omnipresence is a higher fact. Not through subtle +subterranean channels need friend and fact be drawn to their +counterpart, but, rightly considered, these things proceed from the +eternal generation of the soul. Cause and effect are two sides of one +fact. + +The same law of eternal procession ranges all that we call the +virtues, and extinguishes each in the light of a better. The great man +will not be prudent in the popular sense; all his prudence will be so +much deduction from his grandeur. But it behooves each to see, when he +sacrifices prudence, to what god he devotes it; if to ease and +pleasure, he had better be prudent still; if to a great trust, he can +well spare his mule and panniers who has a winged chariot instead. +Geoffrey draws on his boots to go through the woods, that his feet may +be safer from the bite of snakes; Aaron never thinks of such a peril. +In many years neither is harmed by such an accident. Yet it seems to +me that with every precaution you take against such an evil you put +yourself into the power of the evil. I suppose that the highest +prudence is the lowest prudence. Is this too sudden a rushing from +the centre to the verge of our orbit? Think how many times we shall +fall back into pitiful calculations before we take up our rest in the +great sentiment, or make the verge of to-day the new centre. Besides, +your bravest sentiment is familiar to the humblest men. The poor and +the low have their way of expressing the last facts of philosophy as +well as you. "Blessed be nothing" and "The worse things are, the +better they are" are proverbs which express the transcendentalism of +common life. + +One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's +ugliness; one man's wisdom another's folly; as one beholds the same +objects from a higher point of view. One man thinks justice consists +in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who +is very remiss in this duty and makes the creditor wait tediously. But +that second man has his own way of looking at things; asks himself +which debt must I pay first, the debt to the rich, or the debt to the +poor? the debt of money, or the debt of thought to mankind, of genius +to nature? For you, O broker, there is no other principle but +arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth +of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I +detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my +forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. Let me live onward; you +shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will +liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a +man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this be +injustice? Owes he no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be +postponed to a landlord's or a banker's? + +There is no virtue which is final; all are initial. The virtues of +society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery +that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed +such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices. + + Forgive his crimes, forgive his virtues too, + Those smaller faults, half converts to the right.[712] + +It is the highest power of divine moments that they abolish our +contritions also. I accuse myself of sloth and unprofitableness day by +day; but when these waves of God flow into me I no longer reckon lost +time. I no longer poorly compute my possible achievement by what +remains to me of the month or the year; for these moments confer a +sort of omnipresence and omnipotence which asks nothing of duration, +but sees that the energy of the mind is commensurate with the work to +be done, without time. + +And thus, O circular philosopher, I hear some reader exclaim, you have +arrived at a fine pyrrhonism,[713] at an equivalence and indifferency +of all actions, and would fain teach us that _if we are true_, +forsooth, our crimes may be lively stones out of which we shall +construct the temple of the true God. + +I am not careful to justify myself. I own I am gladdened[714] by +seeing the predominance of the saccharine principle throughout +vegetable nature, and not less by beholding in morals that +unrestrained inundation of the principle of good into every chink and +hole that selfishness has left open, yea into selfishness and sin +itself; so that no evil is pure, nor hell itself without its extreme +satisfactions. But lest I should mislead any when I have my own head +and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an +experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least +discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as +true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none +are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no Past at my +back. + +Yet this incessant movement and progression which all things partake +could never become sensible to us but by contrast to some principle of +fixture or stability in the soul. Whilst the eternal generation of +circles proceeds, the eternal generator abides. That central life is +somewhat superior to creation, superior to knowledge and thought, and +contains all its circles. For ever it labors to create a life and +thought as large and excellent as itself; but in vain; for that which +is made instructs how to make a better. + +Thus there is no sleep, no pause, no preservation, but all things +renew, germinate and spring. Why should we import rags and relics into +the new hour? Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only +disease: all others run into this one. We call it by many +names,--fever, intemperance, insanity, stupidity and crime: they are +all forms of old age: they are rest, conservatism, appropriation, +inertia; not newness, not the way onward. We grizzle every day. I see +no need of it. Whilst we converse with what is above us, we do not +grow old, but grow young. Infancy, youth, receptive, aspiring, with +religious eye looking upward, counts itself nothing and abandons +itself to the instruction flowing from all sides. But the man and +woman of seventy assume to know all; throw up their hope; renounce +aspiration; accept the actual for the necessary and talk down to the +young. Let them then become organs of the Holy Ghost; let them be +lovers; let them behold truth; and their eyes are uplifted, their +wrinkles smoothed, they are perfumed again with hope and power. This +old age ought not to creep on a human mind. In nature every moment is +new; the past is always swallowed and forgotten; the coming only is +sacred. Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit. +No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher +love. No truth so sublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light +of new thoughts. People wish to be settled: only as far as they are +unsettled is there any hope for them. + +Life is a series of surprises. We do not guess to-day the mood, the +pleasure, the power of to-morrow, when we are building up our being. +Of lower states,--of acts of routine and sense, we can tell somewhat, +but the masterpieces of God, the total growths and universal movements +of the soul, he hideth; they are incalculable. I can know that truth +is divine and helpful; but how it shall help me I can have no guess, +for _so to be_ is the sole inlet of _so to know_. The new position of +the advancing man has all the powers of the old, yet has them all new. +It carries in its bosom all the energies of the past, yet is itself an +exhalation of the morning. I cast away in this new moment all my once +hoarded knowledge, as vacant and vain. Now for the first time seem I +to know any thing rightly. The simplest words,--we do not know what +they mean except when we love and aspire. + +The difference between talents and character is adroitness to keep the +old and trodden round, and power and courage to make a new road to new +and better goals. Character makes an overpowering present, a cheerful, +determined hour, which fortifies all the company by making them see +that much is possible and excellent that was not thought of. Character +dulls the impression of particular events. When we see the conqueror +we do not think much of any one battle or success. We see that we had +exaggerated the difficulty. It was easy to him. The great man is not +convulsible or tormentable. He is so much that events pass over him +without much impression. People say sometimes, "See what I have +overcome; see how cheerful I am; see how completely I have triumphed +over these black events." Not if they still remind me of the black +event,--they have not yet conquered. Is it conquest to be a gay and +decorated sepulchre, or a half-crazed widow, hysterically laughing? +True conquest is the causing the black event to fade and disappear as +an early cloud of insignificant result in a history so large and +advancing. + +The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget +ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our +sempiternal[715] memory and to do something without knowing how or +why; in short to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved +without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful. It is by +abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of +performance through the strength of ideas, as the works of genius and +religion. "A man," said Oliver Cromwell,[716] "never rises so high as +when he knows not whither he is going." Dreams and drunkenness, the +use of opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this +oracular genius, and hence their dangerous attraction for men. For the +like reason they ask the aid of wild passions, as in the gaming and +war, ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart. + + + + +NOTES + +THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR + + +[Footnote 1: Games of strength. The public games of Greece were +athletic and intellectual contests of various kinds. There were four +of importance: the Olympic, held every four years; the Pythian, held +every third Olympic year; and the Nemean and Isthmian, held alternate +years between the Olympic periods. These great national festivals +exercised a strong influence in Greece. They were a secure bond of +union between the numerous independent states and did much to help the +nation to repel its foreign invaders. In Greece the accomplished +athlete was reverenced almost as a god, and cases have been recorded +where altars were erected and sacrifices made in his honor. The +extreme care and cultivation of the body induced by this national +spirit is one of the most significant features of Greek culture, and +one which might wisely be imitated in the modern world.] + +[Footnote 2: Troubadours. In southern France during the eleventh +century, wandering poets went from castle to castle reciting or +singing love-songs, composed in the old Provençal dialect, a sort of +vulgarized Latin. The life in the great feudal chateaux was so dull +that the lords and ladies seized with avidity any amusement which +promised to while away an idle hour. The troubadours were made much of +and became a strong element in the development of the Southern spirit. +So-called Courts of Love were formed where questions of an amorous +nature were discussed in all their bearings; learned opinions were +expressed on the most trivial matters, and offenses were tried. + +Some of the Provençal poetry is of the highest artistic significance, +though the mass of it is worthless high-flown trash.] + +[Footnote 3: At the time this oration was delivered (1837), many of +the authors who have since given America a place in the world's +literature were young men writing their first books. "We were," says +James Russell Lowell, "still socially and intellectually moored to +English thought, till Emerson cut the cable and gave us a chance at +the dangers and glories of blue water."] + +[Footnote 4: Pole-star. Polaris is now the nearest conspicuous star to +the north pole of the celestial equator. Owing to the motion of the +pole of the celestial equator around that of the ecliptic, this star +will in course of time recede from its proud position, and the +brilliant star Vega in the constellation Harp will become the +pole-star.] + +[Footnote 5: It is now a well-recognized fact in the development of +animal life that as any part of the body falls into disuse it in time +disappears. Good examples of this are the disappearance of powerful +fangs from the mouth of man, the loss of power in the wings of +barnyard fowls; and, _vice versa_, as new uses for a member arise, its +structure changes to meet the new needs. An example of this is the +transformation from the hoof of a horse through the cloven hoofs of +the cow to the eventual development of highly expert fingers in the +monkey and man. Emerson assumed the doctrine of evolution to be +sufficiently established by the anatomical evidence of gradual +development. In his own words: "Man is no up-start in the creation. +His limbs are only a more exquisite organization--say rather the +finish--of the rudimental forms that have been already sweeping the +sea and creeping in the mud. The brother of his hand is even now +cleaving the arctic sea in the fin of the whale, and innumerable ages +since was pawing the marsh in the flipper of the saurian." A view +afterwards condensed into his memorable couplet: + + "Striving to be man, the worm + Mounts through all the spires of form." +] + +[Footnote 6: Stint. A prescribed or allotted task, a share of labor.] + +[Footnote 7: Ridden. Here used in the sense of dominated.] + +[Footnote 8: Monitory pictures. Instructive warning pictures.] + +[Footnote 9: The Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus is the author of +this saying, not "the old oracle." It occurs in the Encheiridion, or +manual, a work put together by a pupil of Epictetus. The original +saying of Epictetus is as follows: "Every thing has two handles, the +one by which it may be borne, the other by which it may not. If your +brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold of the act by that handle +wherein he acts unjustly, for this is the handle which cannot be +borne: but lay hold of the other, that he is your brother, that he was +nurtured with you, and you will lay hold of the thing by that handle +by which it can be borne."] + +[Footnote 10: Every day, the sun (shines).] + +[Footnote 11: Beholden. Emerson here uses this past participle with +its original meaning instead of in its present sense of "indebted."] + +[Footnote 12: Here we have a reminder of Emerson's pantheism. He means +the inexplicable continuity "of what I call God, and fools nature," as +Browning expressed it.] + +[Footnote 13: His expanding knowledge will become a creator.] + +[Footnote 14: Know thyself. Plutarch ascribes this saying to Plato. It +is also ascribed to Pythagoras, Chilo, Thales, Cleobulus, Bias, and +Socrates; also to Phemonië, a mythical Greek poetess of the +ante-Homeric period. Juvenal (Satire XI. 27) says that this precept +descended from heaven. "Know thyself" and "Nothing too much" were +inscribed upon the Delphic oracle. + + "Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; + The proper study of mankind is man." + +] + +[Footnote 15: Observe the brisk movement of these sentences. How they +catch and hold the attention, giving a new impulse to the reader's +interest!] + +[Footnote 16: Nature abhors a vacuum.] + +[Footnote 17: Noxious. Harmful.] + +[Footnote 18: John Locke (1632-1704), an English philosopher whose +work was of especial significance in the development of modern +philosophy. The work he is best known by is the exhaustive "Essay on +the Human Understanding," in which he combated the theory of +Descartes, that every man has certain "innate ideas." The innate-idea +theory was first proved by the philosopher Descartes in this way. +Descartes began his speculations from a standpoint of absolute doubt. +Then he said, "I think, therefore I am," and from this formula he +built up a number of ideas innate to the human mind, ideas which we +cannot but hold. Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding" did much +to discredit Descartes' innate ideas, which had been very generally +accepted in Europe before.] + +[Footnote 19: Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount Saint Alban's +(1561-1626), a famous English statesman and philosopher. He occupied +high public offices, but in 1621 was convicted of taking bribes in his +office of Lord Chancellor. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to +imprisonment and a fine of forty thousand pounds. Both these sentences +were remitted, however. In the seventeenth century, judicial +corruption was so common that Bacon's offence was not considered so +gross as it would now be. As a philosopher Bacon's rank has been much +disputed. While some claim that to his improved method of studying +nature are chiefly to be attributed the prodigious strides taken by +modern science, others deny him all merit in this respect. His best +known works are: "The Novum Organum," a philosophical treatise; "The +Advancement of Learning," a remarkable argument in favor of +scholarship; and the short essays on subjects of common interest, +usually printed under the simple title "Bacon's Essays."] + +[Footnote 20: Third Estate. The thirteenth century was the age when +the national assemblies of most European countries were putting on +their definite shape. In most of them the system of _estates_ +prevailed. These in most countries were three--nobles, clergy, and +commons, the commons being the third estate. During the French +Revolution the Third Estate, or Tiers Etat, asserted its rights and +became a powerful factor in French politics, choosing its own leaders +and effecting the downfall of its oppressors.] + +[Footnote 21: Restorers of readings. Men who spend their lives trying +to improve and correct the texts of classical authors, by comparing +the old editions with each other and picking out the version which +seem most in accordance with the authors' original work.] + +[Footnote 22: Emendators. The same as restorers of readings.] + +[Footnote 23: Bibliomaniacs. Men with a mania for collecting rare and +beautiful books. Not a bad sort of mania, though Emerson never had any +sympathy for it.] + +[Footnote 24: To many readers Emerson's own works richly fulfill this +obligation. He himself lived continually in such a lofty mental +atmosphere that no one can come within the circle of his influence +without being stimulated and elevated.] + +[Footnote 25: Genius, the possession of a thoroughly active soul, +ought not to be the special privilege of favorites of fortune, but the +right of every sound man.] + +[Footnote 26: They stunt my mental growth. A man should not accept +another man's conclusions, but merely use them as steps on his upward +path.] + +[Footnote 27: If you do not employ such talent as you have in original +labor, in bearing the mental fruit of which you are capable, then you +do not vindicate your claim to a share in the divine nature.] + +[Footnote 28: Disservice. Injury.] + +[Footnote 29: In original composition of any sort our efforts +naturally flow in the channels worn for us by the first dominating +streams of early genius. The conventional is the continual foe of all +true art.] + +[Footnote 30: Emerson is continually stimulating us to look at things +in new ways. Here, for instance, at once the thought comes: "Is it not +perhaps possible that the transcendent genius of Shakespeare has been +rather noxious than beneficent in its influence on the mind of the +world? Has not the all-pervading Shakespearian influence flooded and +drowned out a great deal of original genius?"] + +[Footnote 31: That is,--when in his clear, seeing moments he can +distil some drops of truth from the world about him, let him not waste +his time in studying other men's records of what they have seen.] + +[Footnote 32: While Emerson's verse is frequently unmusical, in his +prose we often find passages like this instinct with the fairest +poetry.] + +[Footnote 33: Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400). The father of English +poetry. Chaucer's chief work is the "Canterbury Tales," a series of +stories told by pilgrims traveling in company to Canterbury. +Coleridge, the poet, wrote of Chaucer: "I take unceasing delight in +Chaucer; his manly cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my +old age. How exquisitely tender he is, yet how free from the least +touch of sickly melancholy or morbid drooping." Chaucer's poetry is +above all things fresh. It breathes of the morning of literature. Like +Homer he had at his command all the riches of a new language undefiled +by usage from which to choose. + + "Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, + On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled." + +] + +[Footnote 34: Andrew Marvell (1620-1678). An eminent English patriot +and satirist. As a writer he is chiefly known by his "Rehearsal +Transposed," written in answer to a fanatical defender of absolute +power. When a young man he was assistant to the poet Milton, who was +then Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell. Marvell's wit and +distinguished abilities rendered him formidable to the corrupt +administration of Charles II., who attempted without success to buy +his friendship. Emerson's literary perspective is a bit unusual when +he speaks of Marvell as "one of the great English poets." Marvell +hardly ranks with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton.] + +[Footnote 35: John Dryden (1631-1700). A celebrated English poet. +Early in life he wrote almost entirely for the stage and achieved +great success. In the latter part of his life, however, according to +Macaulay, he "turned his powers in a new direction with success the +most splendid and decisive. The first rank in poetry was beyond his +reach, but he secured the most honorable place in the second.... With +him died the secret of the old poetical diction of England,--the art +of producing rich effects by familiar words."] + +[Footnote 36: Plato (429-347 B.C.). One of the most illustrious +philosophers of all time. Probably no other philosopher has +contributed so much as Plato to the moral and intellectual training of +the human race. This pre-eminence is due not solely to his +transcendent intellect, but also in no small measure to his poetic +power and to that unrivaled grace of style which led the ancients to +say that if Jove should speak Greek he would speak like Plato. He was +a remarkable example of that universal culture of body and mind which +characterized the last period of ancient Greece. He was proficient in +every branch of art and learning and was such a brilliant athlete that +he contended in the Isthmian and Pythian games.] + +[Footnote 37: Gowns. The black gown worn occasionally in America and +always in England at the universities; the distinctive academic dress +is a cap and gown.] + +[Footnote 38: Pecuniary foundations. Gifts of money for the support of +institutions of learning.] + +[Footnote 39: Wit is here used in its early sense of intellect, good +understanding.] + +[Footnote 40: Valetudinarian. A person of a weak, sickly +constitution.] + +[Footnote 41: Mincing. Affected.] + +[Footnote 42: Preamble. A preface or introduction.] + +[Footnote 43: Dumb abyss. That vast immensity of the universe about us +which we can never understand.] + +[Footnote 44: I comprehend its laws; I lose my fear of it.] + +[Footnote 45: Silkworms feed on mulberry-leaves. Emerson describes +what science calls "unconscious cerebration."] + +[Footnote 46: Ripe fruit. Emerson's ripe fruit found its way into his +diary, where it lay until he needed it in the preparation of some +lecture or essay.] + +[Footnote 47: I. Corinthians xv. 53.] + +[Footnote 48: Empyrean. The region of pure light and fire; the ninth +heaven of ancient astronomy. + + "The deep-domed empyrean + Rings to the roar of an angel onset." + +] + +[Footnote 49: Ferules. According to the methods of education fifty +years ago, it was quite customary for the teacher to punish a +school-child with his ferule or ruler.] + +[Footnote 50: Oliver Wendell Holmes cites this last sentence as the +most extreme development of the distinctively Emersonian style. Such +things must be read not too literally but rapidly, with alert +attention to what the previous train of thought has been.] + +[Footnote 51: Savoyards. The people of Savoy, south of Lake Geneva in +Switzerland.] + +[Footnote 52: Emerson's style is characterized by the frequent use of +pithy epigrams like this.] + +[Footnote 53: Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). A great English +philosopher and mathematician. He is famous as having discovered the +law of gravitation.] + +[Footnote 54: Unhandselled. Uncultivated, without natural advantages. +A handsel is a gift.] + +[Footnote 55: Druids. The ancient priesthood of the Britons in Cæsar's +time. They had immense power among these primitive peoples. They were +the judges as well as the priests and decided all questions. It is +believed that they made human sacrifices to their gods in the depths +of the primeval forest, but not much is known of their rites.] + +[Footnote 56: Berserkers. Berserker was a redoubtable hero in +Scandinavian mythology, the grandson of the eight-handed Starkodder +and the beautiful Alfhilde. He had twelve sons who inherited the +wild-battle frenzy, or berserker rage. The sagas, the great +Scandinavian epics, are full of stories of heroes who are seized with +this fierce longing for battle, murder, and sudden death. The name +means bear-shirt and has been connected with the old _were-wolf_ +tradition, the myth that certain people were able to change into +man-devouring wolves with a wolfish mad desire to rend and kill.] + +[Footnote 57: Alfred, surnamed the Great (848-901), king of the West +Saxons in England. When he ascended the throne his country was in a +deplorable condition from the repeated inroads of northern invaders. +He eventually drove them out and established a secure government. +England owes much to the efforts of Alfred. He not only fought his +country's battles, but also founded schools, translated Latin books +into his native tongue, and did much for the intellectual improvement +of his people.] + +[Footnote 58: The hoe and the spade. "In spite of Emerson's habit of +introducing the names of agricultural objects into his writing ('Hay, +corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool, and wood' is a line from one of +his poems), his familiarity therewith is evidently not so great as he +would lead one to imagine. 'Take care, papa,' cried his little son, +seeing him at work with a spade, 'you will dig your leg.'"] + +[Footnote 59: John Flamsteed (1646-1719). An eminent English +astronomer. He appears to have been the first to understand the theory +of the equation of time. He passed his life in patient observation and +determined the position of 2884 stars.] + +[Footnote 60: Sir William Herschel (1738-1822). One of the greatest +astronomers that any age or nation has produced. Brought up to the +profession of music, it was not until he was thirty years old that he +turned his attention to astronomy. By rigid economy he obtained a +telescope, and in 1781 discovered the planet Uranus. This great +discovery gave him great fame and other substantial advantages. He was +made private astronomer to the king and received a pension. His +discoveries were so far in advance of his time, they had so little +relation with those of his predecessors, that he may almost be said +to have created a new science by revealing the immensity of the scale +on which the universe is constructed.] + +[Footnote 61: Nebulous. In astronomy a nebula is a luminous patch in +the heavens far beyond the solar system, composed of a mass of stars +or condensed gases.] + +[Footnote 62: Fetich. The word seems to have been applied by +Portuguese sailors and traders on the west coast of Africa to objects +worshiped by the natives, which were regarded as charms or talismans. +Of course the word here means an object of blind admiration and +devotion.] + +[Footnote 63: Cry up, to praise, extol.] + +[Footnote 64: Ancient and honorable. Isaiah ix. 15.] + +[Footnote 65: Complement. What is needed to complete or fill up some +quantity or thing.] + +[Footnote 66: Signet. Seal. Emerson is not always felicitous in his +choice of metaphors.] + +[Footnote 67: Macdonald. In Cervantes' "Don Quixote," Sancho Panza, +the squire to the "knight of the metaphysical countenance," tells a +story of a gentleman who had asked a countryman to dine with him. The +farmer was pressed to take his seat at the head of the table, and when +he refused out of politeness to his host, the latter became impatient +and cried: "Sit there, clod-pate, for let me sit wherever I will, that +will still be the upper end, and the place of worship to thee." This +saying is commonly attributed to Rob Roy, but Emerson with his usual +inaccuracy in such matters places it in the mouth of Macdonald,--which +Macdonald is uncertain.] + +[Footnote 68: Carolus Linnæus (1707-1778). A great Swedish botanist. +He did much to make botany the orderly science it now is.] + +[Footnote 69: Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829). The most famous of English +chemists. The most important to mankind of his many discoveries was +the safety-lamp to be used in mines where there is danger of explosion +from fire-damp.] + +[Footnote 70: Baron George Cuvier (1769-1832). An illustrious French +philosopher, statesman, and writer who made many discoveries in the +realm of natural history, geology and philosophy.] + +[Footnote 71: The moon. The tides are caused by the attraction of the +moon and the sun. The attraction of the moon for the water nearest the +moon is somewhat greater than the attraction of the earth's center. +This causes a slight bulging of the water toward the moon and a +consequent high tide.] + +[Footnote 72: Emerson frequently omits the principal verb of his +sentences as here: "In a century _there may exist_ one or two men."] + +[Footnote 73: This obscurely constructed sentence means: "For their +acquiescence in a political and social inferiority the poor and low +find some compensation in the immense moral capacity thereby gained."] + +[Footnote 74: "They" refers to the hero or poet mentioned some twenty +lines back.] + +[Footnote 75: Comprehendeth. Here used in the original sense _to +include_. The perfect man should be so thoroughly developed at every +point that he will possess a share in the nature of every man.] + +[Footnote 76: By the Classic age is generally meant the age of Greece +and Rome; and by the Romantic is meant the middle ages.] + +[Footnote 77: Introversion. Introspection is the more usual word to +express the analytic self-searching so common in these days.] + +[Footnote 78: Second thoughts. Emerson uses the word here in the same +sense as the French _arrière-pensée_, a mental reservation.] + +[Footnote 79: + + "And thus the native hue of resolution + Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." + _Hamlet_, Act III, Sc. 1. + +] + +[Footnote 80: Movement. The French Revolution.] + +[Footnote 81: Let every common object be credited with the diviner +attributes which will class it among others of the same importance.] + +[Footnote 82: Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774). An eminent English poet +and writer. He is best known by the comedy "She Stoops to Conquer," +the poem "The Deserted Village," and the "Vicar of Wakefield." "Of all +romances in miniature," says Schlegel, the great German critic, "the +'Vicar of Wakefield' is the most exquisite." It is probably the most +popular English work of fiction in Germany.] + +[Footnote 83: Robert Burns (1759-1796). A celebrated Scottish poet. +The most striking characteristics of Burns' poetry are simplicity and +intensity, in which he is scarcely, if at all, inferior to any of the +greatest poets that have ever lived.] + +[Footnote 84: William Cowper (1731-1800). One of the most popular of +English poets. His poem "The Task" was probably more read in his day +than any poem of equal length in the language. Cowper also made an +excellent translation of Homer.] + +[Footnote 85: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). The most +illustrious name in German literature; a great poet, dramatist, +novelist, philosopher, and critic. The Germans regard Goethe with the +same veneration we accord to Shakespeare. The colossal drama "Faust" +is the most splendid product of his genius, though he wrote a large +number of other plays and poems.] + +[Footnote 86: William Wordsworth (1770-1850). By many considered the +greatest of modern English poets. His descriptions of the ever-varying +moods of nature are the most exquisite in the language. Matthew Arnold +in his essay on Emerson says: "As Wordsworth's poetry is, in my +judgment, the most important work done in verse in our language during +the present century, so Emerson's 'Essays' are, I think, the most +important work done in prose."] + +[Footnote 87: Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). A famous English essayist, +historian, and speculative philosopher. It is scarcely too much to say +that no other author of this century has exerted a greater influence +not merely upon the literature but upon the mind of the English nation +than Carlyle. Emerson was an intimate friend of Carlyle, and during +the greater part of his life maintained a correspondence with the +great Englishman. An interesting description of their meeting will be +found among the "Critical Opinions" at the beginning of the work.] + +[Footnote 88: Alexander Pope (1688-1744). The author of the "Essay on +Criticism," "Rape of the Lock," the "Essay on Man," and other famous +poems. Pope possessed little originality or creative imagination, but +he had a vivid sense of the beautiful and an exquisite taste. He owed +much of his popularity to the easy harmony of his verse and the +keenness of his satire.] + +[Footnote 89: Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). One of the eminent writers +of the eighteenth century. He wrote "Lives of the Poets," poems, and +probably the most remarkable work of the kind ever produced by a +single person, an English dictionary.] + +[Footnote 90: Edward Gibbon (1737-1794). One of the most distinguished +of English historians. His great work is the "Decline and Fall of the +Roman Empire." Carlyle called Gibbon, "the splendid bridge from the +old world to the new."] + +[Footnote 91: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). A great Swedish +theologian, naturalist, and mathematician, and the founder of a +religious sect which has since his death become prominent among the +philosophical schools of Christianity.] + +[Footnote 92: Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827). A Swiss teacher +and educational reformer of great influence in his time.] + + +COMPENSATION + +[Footnote 93: These lines are printed under the title of +_Compensation_ in Emerson's collected poems. He has also another poem +of eight lines with the same title.] + +[Footnote 94: Documents, data, facts.] + +[Footnote 95: This doctrine, which a little observation would confute, +is still taught by some.] + +[Footnote 96: Doubloons, Spanish and South American gold coins of the +value of about $15.60 each.] + +[Footnote 97: Polarity, that quality or condition of a body by virtue +of which it exhibits opposite or contrasted properties in opposite or +contrasted directions.] + +[Footnote 98: Systole and diastole, the contraction and dilation of +the heart and arteries.] + +[Footnote 99: They are increased and consequently want more.] + +[Footnote 100: Intenerate, soften.] + +[Footnote 101: White House, the popular name of the presidential +mansion at Washington.] + +[Footnote 102: Explain the phrase _eat dust_.] + +[Footnote 103: Overlook, oversee, superintend.] + +[Footnote 104: Res nolunt, etc. Translated in the previous sentence.] + +[Footnote 105: The world ... dew. Explain the thought. What gives the +earth its shape?] + +[Footnote 106: The microscope ... little. This statement is not in +accordance with the facts, if we are to understand _perfect_ in the +sense which the next sentence would suggest.] + +[Footnote 107: Emerson has been considered a pantheist.] + +[Footnote 108: _[Greek: Hoi kyboi]_, etc. The translation follows in +the text. This old proverb is quoted by Sophocles, (Fragm. LXXIV.2) in +the form: + + [Greek: Aei gar eu piptousin oi Dios kyboi], + +Emerson uses it in _Nature_ in the form "Nature's dice are always +loaded."] + +[Footnote 109: Amain, with full force, vigorously.] + +[Footnote 110: The proverb is quoted by Horace, Epistles, I, X.24: + + "Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret." + +A similar thought is expressed by Juvenal, Seneca, Cicero, and +Aristophanes.] + +[Footnote 111: Augustine, Confessions, B. I.] + +[Footnote 112: Jupiter, the supreme god of the Romans, the Zeus of the +Greeks.] + +[Footnote 113: Tying up the hands. The expression is used +figuratively, of course.] + +[Footnote 114: The supreme power in England is vested in Parliament.] + +[Footnote 115: Prometheus stole fire from heaven to benefit the race +of men. In punishment for this Jupiter chained him to a rock and set +an eagle to prey upon his liver. Some unknown and terrible danger +threatened Jupiter, the secret of averting which only Prometheus knew. +For this secret Jupiter offered him his freedom.] + +[Footnote 116: Minerva, goddess of wisdom, who sprang full-armed from +the brain of Jupiter. The secret which she held is told in the +following lines.] + +[Footnote 117: Aurora, goddess of the dawn. Enamored of Tithonus, she +persuaded Jupiter to grant him immortality, but forgot to ask for him +immortal youth. Read Tennyson's poem on _Tithonus_.] + +[Footnote 118: Achilles, the hero of Homer's _Iliad_. His mother +Thetis, to render him invulnerable, plunged him into the waters of the +Styx. The heel by which she held him was not washed by the waters and +remained vulnerable. Here he received a mortal wound.] + +[Footnote 119: Siegfried, hero of the Nibelungenlied, the old German +epic poem. Having slain a dragon, he bathed in its blood and became +covered with an invulnerable horny hide, only one small spot between +his shoulders which was covered by a leaf remaining vulnerable. Into +this spot the treacherous Hagen plunged his lance.] + +[Footnote 120: Nemesis, a Greek female deity, goddess of retribution, +who visited the righteous anger of the gods upon mortals.] + +[Footnote 121: The Furies or Eumenides, stern and inexorable ministers +of the vengeance of the gods.] + +[Footnote 122: Ajax and Hector, Greek and Trojan heroes in the Trojan +War. See Homer's _Iliad_. Achilles slew Hector and, lashing him to his +chariot with the belt which Ajax had given Hector, dragged him round +the walls of Troy. Ajax committed suicide with the sword which Hector +had presented to him.] + +[Footnote 123: Thasians, inhabitants of the island of Thasus. The +story here told of the rival of the athlete Theagenes is found in +Pausanias' _Description of Greece_, Book VI. chap. XI.] + +[Footnote 124: Shakespeare, the greatest of English writers, seems to +have succeeded entirely or almost entirely in removing the personal +element from his writings.] + +[Footnote 125: Hellenic, Greek.] + +[Footnote 126: Tit for tat, etc. This paragraph is composed of a +series of proverbs.] + +[Footnote 127: Edmund Burke (1729?-1797), illustrious Irish statesman, +orator, and author.] + +[Footnote 128: Pawns, the pieces of lowest rank in chess.] + +[Footnote 129: What is the meaning of _obscene_ here? Compare the +Latin.] + +[Footnote 130: Polycrates, a tyrant of Samos, who was visited with +such remarkable prosperity that he was advised by a friend to break +the course of it by depriving himself of some valued possession. In +accordance with this advice he cast into the sea an emerald ring which +he considered his rarest treasure. A few days later a fisherman +presented the monarch with a large fish inside of which the ring was +found. Soon after this Polycrates fell into the power of an enemy and +was nailed to a cross.] + +[Footnote 131: Scot and lot, "formerly, a parish assessment laid on +subjects according to their ability. Now, a phrase for obligations of +every kind regarded collectively." (Webster.)] + +[Footnote 132: Read Emerson's essay on _Gifts_.] + +[Footnote 133: Worm worms, breed worms.] + +[Footnote 134: Compare the old proverb "Murder will out." See Chaucer, +_N.P.T._, 232 and 237, and _Pr. T._, 124.] + +[Footnote 135: + +"Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum." + HORACE, _EPIST._, I. XVIII. 65. + +] + +[Footnote 136: Stag in the fable. See _Æsop_, LXVI. 184, _Cerva et +Leo_; Phædrus I. 12. _Cervus ad fontem_; La Fontaine, vi. 9, _Le Cerf +se Voyant dans l'eau_.] + +[Footnote 137: See the quotation from St. Bernard farther on.] + +[Footnote 138: Withholden, old participle of _withhold_, now +_withheld_.] + +[Footnote 139: What is the etymology of the word _mob_?] + +[Footnote 140: Optimism and Pessimism. The meanings of these two +opposites are readily made out from the Latin words from which they +come.] + +[Footnote 141: St. Bernard de Clairvaux (1091-1153), French +ecclesiastic.] + +[Footnote 142: Jesus. Holmes writes of Emerson: "Jesus was for him a +divine manifestation, but only as other great human souls have been in +all ages and are to-day. He was willing to be called a Christian just +as he was willing to be called a Platonist.... If he did not worship +the 'man Christ Jesus' as the churches of Christendom have done, he +followed his footsteps so nearly that our good Methodist, Father +Taylor, spoke of him as more like Christ than any man he had known."] + +[Footnote 143: The first _his_ refers to Jesus, the second to +Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 144: Banyan. What is the characteristic of this tree that +makes it appropriate for this figure?] + + +SELF-RELIANCE + +[Footnote 145: Ne te, etc. "Do not seek for anything outside of +thyself." From Persius, _Sat._ I. 7. Compare Macrobius, _Com. in Somn. +Scip._, I. ix. 3, and Boethius, _De Consol. Phil._, IV. 4.] + +[Footnote 146: _Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's +Fortune_.] + +[Footnote 147: These lines appear in Emerson's _Quatrains_ under the +title _Power_.] + +[Footnote 148: Genius. See the paragraph on genius in Emerson's +lecture on _The Method of Nature_, one sentence of which runs: "Genius +is its own end, and draws its means and the style of its architecture +from within, going abroad only for audience, and spectator."] + +[Footnote 149: "The man that stands by himself, the universe stands by +him also."--EMERSON, _Behavior_.] + +[Footnote 150: Plato (429-347 B.C.), (See note 36.)] + +[Footnote 151: Milton (1608-1674), the great English epic poet, author +of _Paradise Lost._ + + "O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies, + O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity, + God-gifted organ-voice of England, + Milton, a name to resound for ages."--TENNYSON. + +] + +[Footnote 152: "The great poet makes feel our own wealth."--EMERSON, +_The Over-Soul_.] + +[Footnote 153: Then most when, most at the time when.] + +[Footnote 154: "The imitator dooms himself to hopeless +mediocrity."--EMERSON, _Address to the Senior Class in Divinity +College, Cambridge_.] + +[Footnote 155: + + "For words, like Nature, half reveal + And half conceal the soul within." + TENNYSON, _In Memoriam_, V. I. + +] + +[Footnote 156: Trust thyself. This is the theme of the present essay, +and is a lesson which Emerson is never tired of teaching. In _The +American Scholar_ he says: + +"In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended." In the essay on +_Greatness_: + +"Self-respect is the early form in which greatness appears.... Stick +to your own.... Follow the path your genius traces like the galaxy of +heaven for you to walk in." + +Carlyle says: + + "The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself." + +] + +[Footnote 157: Chaos ([Greek: Chaos]), the confused, unorganized +condition in which the world was supposed to have existed before it +was reduced to harmony and order; hence, utter confusion and +disorder.] + +[Footnote 158: These, _i.e._, children, babes, and brutes.] + +[Footnote 159: Four or five. Supply the noun.] + +[Footnote 160: Nonchalance, a French word meaning _indifference_, +_coolness_.] + +[Footnote 161: Pit in the playhouse, formerly, the seats on the floor +below the level of the stage. These cheap seats were occupied by a +class who did not hesitate to express their opinions of the +performances.] + +[Footnote 162: Eclat, a French word meaning _brilliancy of success_, +_striking effect_.] + +[Footnote 163: "Lethe, the river of oblivion."--_Paradise Lost_. +Oblivion, forgetfulness.] + +[Footnote 164: Who. What is the construction?] + +[Footnote 165: Nonconformist, one who does not conform to established +usages or opinions. Emerson considers conformity and consistency as +the two terrors that scare us from self-trust. (See note 182.)] + +[Footnote 166: Explore if it be goodness, investigate for himself and +see if it be really goodness. + + "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." + PAUL, _I. Thes._ v. 21. + +] + +[Footnote 167: Suffrage, approval. + + "What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted? + Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just; + And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, + Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted." + SHAKESPEARE, _II. Henry VI._, III. 2. + +] + +[Footnote 168: "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking +makes it so." _Hamlet_, II. 2.] + +[Footnote 169: Barbadoes, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, one of the +Lesser Antilles. The negroes, composing by far the larger part of the +population, were formerly slaves.] + +[Footnote 170: He had rather have his actions ascribed to whim and +caprice than to spend the day in explaining them.] + +[Footnote 171: Diet and bleeding, special diet and medical care, used +figuratively, of course.] + +[Footnote 172: Read Emerson's essay on _Greatness_.] + +[Footnote 173: The precise man, precisely what kind of man.] + +[Footnote 174: "By their fruits ye shall know them."--_Matthew_, vii. +16 and 20.] + +[Footnote 175: With, notwithstanding, in spite of.] + +[Footnote 176: Of the bench, of an impartial judge.] + +[Footnote 177: Bound their eyes with ... handkerchief, in this game of +blindman's-buff.] + +[Footnote 178: "Pin thy faith to no man's sleeve; hast thou not two +eyes of thy own?"--CARLYLE.] + +[Footnote 179: Give examples of men who have been made to feel the +displeasure of the world for their nonconformity.] + +[Footnote 180: "Nihil tam incertum nec tam inæstimabile est quam animi +multitudinis."--LIVY, xxxi. 34. + + "Mobile mutatur semper cum principe vulgus." + CLAUDIANUS, _De IV. Consul. Honorii_, 302. + +] + +[Footnote 181: _The other terror._ The first, conformity, has just +been treated.] + +[Footnote 182: Consistency. Compare, on the other hand, the well-known +saying, "Consistency, thou art a jewel."] + +[Footnote 183: Orbit, course in life.] + +[Footnote 184: Somewhat, something.] + +[Footnote 185: See _Genesis_, xxxix. 12.] + +[Footnote 186: Pythagoras (fl. about 520 B.C.), a Greek philosopher. +His society was scattered and persecuted by the fury of the populace.] + +[Footnote 187: Socrates (470?-399 B.C.), the great Athenian +philosopher, whose teachings are the subject of most of Plato's +writings, was accused of corrupting the youth, and condemned to drink +hemlock.] + +[Footnote 188: Martin Luther (1483-1546) preached against certain +abuses of the Roman Catholic Church and was excommunicated by the +Pope. He became the leader of the Protestant Reformation.] + +[Footnote 189: Copernicus (1473-1543) discovered the error of the old +Ptolemaic system of astronomy and showed that the sun is the centre of +our planetary system. Fearing the persecution of the church, he +hesitated long to publish his discovery, and it was many years after +his death before the world accepted his theory.] + +[Footnote 190: Galileo (1564-1642), the famous Italian astronomer and +physicist, discoverer of the satellites of Jupiter and the rings of +Saturn, was thrown into prison by the Inquisition.] + +[Footnote 191: Sir Isaac Newton. (See note 53.)] + +[Footnote 192: Andes, the great mountain system of South America.] + +[Footnote 193: Himmaleh, Himalaya, the great mountain system of Asia.] + +[Footnote 194: Alexandrian stanza. The Alexandrian line consists of +twelve syllables (iambic hexameter). Neither the acrostic nor the +Alexandrine has the property assigned to it here. A palindrame reads +the same forward as backward, as: + + "Madam, I'm Adam"; + "Signa te signa; temere me tangis et angis"; + +or the inscription on the church of St. Sophia, Constantinople: + + [Greek: "Nipson anomêmata mê monan opsin,"] + +] + +[Footnote 195: The reference is to sailing vessels, of course.] + +[Footnote 196: Scorn eyes, scorn observers.] + +[Footnote 197: Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), +this distinguished statesman and orator. He became very popular as a +statesman and was known as "The Great Commoner."] + +[Footnote 198: Adams. The reference is presumably to Samuel Adams +(1722-1803), a popular leader and orator in the cause of American +freedom. He was a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of +the Declaration of Independence. Emerson may have in mind, however, +John Adams (1735-1826), second president of the United States.] + +[Footnote 199: Spartan. The ancient Spartans were noted for their +courage and fortitude.] + +[Footnote 200: Julius Cæsar (100-44 B.C.), the great Roman general, +statesman, orator, and author.] + +[Footnote 201: St. Anthony (251-356), Egyptian founder of monachism, +the system of monastic seclusion.] + +[Footnote 202: George Fox (1624-1691), English founder of the Society +of Friends or Quakers.] + +[Footnote 203: John Wesley (1703-1791), English founder of the +religious sect known as Methodists.] + +[Footnote 204: Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846), English philanthropist and +abolitionist.] + +[Footnote 205: Scipio (235-184 B.C.), the great Roman general who +defeated Hannibal and decided the fate of Carthage. The quotation is +from _Paradise Lost_, Book IX., line 610.] + +[Footnote 206: In the story of _Abou Hassan_ or _The Sleeper Awakened_ +in the _Arabian Nights_ Abou Hassan awakes and finds himself treated +in every respect as the Caliph Haroun Al-raschid. Shakespeare has made +use of a similar trick in _Taming of the Shrew_, where Christopher Sly +is put to bed drunk in the lord's room and on awaking is treated as a +lord.] + +[Footnote 207: Alfred the Great (849-901), King of the West Saxons. He +was a wise king, a great scholar, and a patron of learning.] + +[Footnote 208: Scanderbeg, George Castriota (1404-1467), an Albanian +chief who embraced Christianity and carried on a successful war +against the Turks.] + +[Footnote 209: Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632), King of Sweden, the hero +of Protestantism in the Thirty Years' War.] + +[Footnote 210: Hieroglyphic, a character in the picture-writing of the +ancient Egyptian priests; hence, hidden sign.] + +[Footnote 211: Parallax, an angle used in astronomy in calculating the +distance of a heavenly body. The parallax decreases as the distance of +the body increases.] + +[Footnote 212: The child has the advantage of the experience of all +his ancestors. Compare Tennyson's line in _Locksley Hall_: + + "I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time." + +] + +[Footnote 213: "Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, +or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded +wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also."--EMERSON, _Introd. to Nature, +Addresses, etc._] + +[Footnote 214: Explain the thought in this sentence.] + +[Footnote 215: Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.] + +[Footnote 216: Agent, active, acting.] + +[Footnote 217: An allusion to the Mohammedan custom of removing the +shoes before entering a mosque.] + +[Footnote 218: Of a truth, men are mystically united; a mystic bond of +brotherhood makes all men one.] + +[Footnote 219: Thor and Woden. Woden or Odin was the chief god of +Scandinavian mythology. Thor, his elder son, was the god of thunder. +From these names come the names of the days Wednesday and Thursday.] + +[Footnote 220: Explain the meaning of this sentence.] + +[Footnote 221: You, or you, addressing different persons.] + +[Footnote 222: "The truth shall make you free."--_John_, viii. 32.] + +[Footnote 223: Antinomianism, the doctrine that the moral law is not +binding under the gospel dispensation, faith alone being necessary to +salvation.] + +[Footnote 224: "There is no sorrow I have thought more about than +that--to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail." + GEORGE ELIOT, _Middlemarch_, lxxvi.] + +[Footnote 225: Explain the use of _it_ in these expressions.] + +[Footnote 226: Stoic, a disciple of the Greek philosopher Zeno, who +taught that men should be free from passion, unmoved by joy and grief, +and should submit without complaint to the inevitable.] + +[Footnote 227: Word made flesh, see _John_, i. 14.] + +[Footnote 228: Healing to the nations, see _Revelation_, xxii. 2.] + +[Footnote 229: In what prayers do men allow themselves to indulge?] + +[Footnote 230: + + "Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, + Uttered or unexpressed, + The motion of a hidden fire + That trembles in the breast." + MONTGOMERY, _What is Prayer?_ +] + +[Footnote 231: Caratach (Caractacus) is a historical character in +Fletcher's (1576-1625) tragedy of _Bonduca_(Boadicea).] + +[Footnote 232: Zoroaster, a Persian philosopher, founder of the +ancient Persian religion. He flourished long before the Christian +era.] + +[Footnote 233: "Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God +speak with us, lest we die."--_Exodus_, xx. 19. Compare also the +parallel passage in _Deuteronomy_, v. 25-27.] + +[Footnote 234: John Locke. (See note 18.)] + +[Footnote 235: Lavoisier (1743-1794), celebrated French chemical +philosopher, discoverer of the composition of water.] + +[Footnote 236: James Hutton (1726-1797), great Scotch geologist, +author of the _Theory of the Earth_.] + +[Footnote 237: Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), English philosopher, +jurist, and legislative reformer.] + +[Footnote 238: Fourier (1772-1837), French socialist, founder of the +system of Fourierism.] + +[Footnote 239: Calvinism, the doctrines of John Calvin (1509-1564). +French theologian and Protestant reformer. A cardinal doctrine of +Calvinism is predestination.] + +[Footnote 240: Quakerism, the doctrines of the Quakers or Friends, a +society founded by George Fox (1624-1691).] + +[Footnote 241: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), Swedish theosophist, +founder of the New Jerusalem Church. He is taken by Emerson in his +_Representative Men_ as the type of the mystic, and is often mentioned +in his other works.] + +[Footnote 242: "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, +we must carry it with us, or we find it not."--EMERSON, _Art_.] + +[Footnote 243: Thebes, a celebrated ruined city of Upper Egypt.] + +[Footnote 244: Palmyra, a ruined city of Asia situated in an oasis of +the Syrian desert, supposed to be the Tadmor built by Solomon in the +wilderness (_II. Chr._, viii. 4).] + +[Footnote 245: + + "Vain, very vain, my weary search to find + That bliss which only centers in the mind.... + Still to ourselves in every place consign'd, + Our own felicity we make or find." + GOLDSMITH (and JOHNSON), + _The Traveler_, 423-32. + + "He that has light within his own clear breast + May sit i' th' center, and enjoy bright day; + But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, + Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; + Himself in his own dungeon." + MILTON, _Comus_, 381-5. + +Compare also _Paradise Lost_, I, 255-7.] + +[Footnote 246: Vatican, the palace of the pope in Rome, with its +celebrated library, museum, and art gallery.] + +[Footnote 247: Doric, the oldest, strongest, and simplest of the three +styles of Grecian architecture.] + +[Footnote 248: Gothic, a pointed style of architecture, prevalent in +western Europe in the latter part of the middle ages.] + +[Footnote 249: Never imitate. Emerson insists on this doctrine.] + +[Footnote 250: Shakespeare (1564-1616), the great English poet and +dramatist. He is mentioned in Emerson's writings more than any other +character in history, and is taken as the type of the poet in his +_Representative Men_. + +"O mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and +merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, +like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,--like frost and +snow, rain and dew, hailstorm and thunder, which are to be studied +with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith +that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless +or inert,--but that, the further we press in our discoveries, the more +we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where +the careless eye had seen nothing but accident!"--DE QUINCY.] + +[Footnote 251: Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), American philosopher, +statesman, diplomatist, and author. He discovered the identity of +lightning with electricity, invented the lightning-rod, went on +several diplomatic missions to Europe, was one of the committee that +drew up the Declaration of Independence, signed the treaty of Paris, +and compiled _Poor Richard's Almanac_.] + +[Footnote 252: Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a famous English philosopher +and statesman. He became Lord Chancellor under Elizabeth. He is best +known by his _Essays_; he wrote also the _Novum Organum_ and the +_Advancement of Learning_.] + +[Footnote 253: Sir Isaac Newton. (See note 53.)] + +[Footnote 254: Scipio. (See note 205.)] + +[Footnote 255: Phidias (500?-432? B.C.), famous Greek sculptor.] + +[Footnote 256: Egyptians. He has in mind the pyramids.] + +[Footnote 257: The Pentateuch is attributed to Moses.] + +[Footnote 258: Dante (1265-1321), the greatest of Italian poets, +author of the _Divina Commedia_.] + +[Footnote 259: Foreworld, a former ideal state of the world.] + +[Footnote 260: New Zealander, inhabitant of New Zealand, a group of +two islands lying southeast of Australia.] + +[Footnote 261: Geneva, a city of Switzerland, situated at the +southwestern extremity of Lake Geneva.] + +[Footnote 262: Greenwich nautical almanac. The meridian of the Royal +Observatory at Greenwich, near London, is the prime meridian for +reckoning the longitude of the world. The nautical almanac is a +publication containing astronomical data for the use of navigators and +astronomers. What is the name of the corresponding publication of the +U.S. Observatory at Washington?] + +[Footnote 263: Get the meaning of these astronomical terms.] + +[Footnote 264: Plutarch. (50?-120? A.D.), Greek philosopher and +biographer, author of _Parallel Lives_, a series of Greek and Roman +biographies. Next after Shakespeare and Plato he is the author most +frequently mentioned by Emerson. Read the essay of Emerson on +Plutarch.] + +[Footnote 265: Phocion (402-317 B.C.), Athenian statesman and general. +(See note 364.)] + +[Footnote 266: Anaxagoras (500-426 B.C.), Greek philosopher of +distinction.] + +[Footnote 267: Diogenes (400?-323?), Greek cynic philosopher who +affected great contempt for riches and honors and the comforts of +civilized life, and is said to have taken up his residence in a tub.] + + +[Footnote 268: Henry Hudson (---- - 1611), English navigator and +explorer, discoverer of the bay and river which bear his name.] + +[Footnote 269: Bering or Behring (1680-1741), Danish navigator, +discoverer of Behring Strait.] + +[Footnote 270: Sir William Edward Parry (1790-1855), English navigator +and Arctic explorer.] + +[Footnote 271: Sir John Franklin (1786-1846?), celebrated English +navigator and Arctic explorer, lost in the Arctic seas.] + +[Footnote 272: Christopher Columbus (1445?-1506), Genoese navigator +and discoverer of America. His ship, the Santa Maria, appears small +and insignificant in comparison with the modern ocean ship.] + +[Footnote 273: Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), Emperor of France, one +of the greatest military geniuses the world has ever seen. He was +defeated in the battle of Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington, and died +in exile on the isle of St. Helena. Emerson takes him as a type of the +man of the world in his _Representative Men_: "I call Napoleon the +agent or attorney of the middle class of modern society.... He was the +agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the internal improver, the +liberal, the radical, the inventor of means, the opener of doors and +markets, the subverter of monopoly and abuse.... He had the virtues of +the masses of his constituents: he had also their vices. I am sorry +that the brilliant picture has its reverse."] + +[Footnote 274: Comte de las Cases (not Casas) (1766-1842), author of +_Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène_.] + +[Footnote 275: Ali, Arabian caliph, surnamed the "Lion of God," cousin +and son-in-law of Mohammed. He was assassinated about 661.] + +[Footnote 276: The county of Essex in England has several namesakes in +America.] + +[Footnote 277: Fortune. In Roman mythology Fortune, the goddess of +fortune or chance, is represented as standing on a ball or wheel. + + "Nec metuis dubio Fortunæ stantis in orbe + Numen, et exosæ verba superba deæ?" + OVID, _Tristia_, v., 8, 8. + +] + + +FRIENDSHIP + +[Footnote 278: Most of Emerson's _Essays_ were first delivered as +lectures, in practically the form in which they afterwards appeared in +print. The form and style, it is true, were always carefully revised +before publication; this Emerson called 'giving his thoughts a Greek +dress.' His essay on _Friendship_, published in the First Series of +_Essays_ in 1841 was not, so far as we know, delivered as a lecture; +parts of it, however, were taken from lectures which Emerson delivered +on _Society_, _The Heart_, and _Private Life_. + +In connection with his essay on _Friendship_, the student should read +the two other notable addresses on the same subject, one the speech by +Cicero, the famous Roman orator, and the other the essay by Lord +Bacon, the great English author.] + +[Footnote 279: Relume. Is this a common word? Define it.] + +[Footnote 280: Pass my gate. The walk opposite Emerson's house on the +'Great Road' to Boston was a favorite winter walk for Concord people. +Along it passed the philosophic Alcott and the imaginative Hawthorne, +as well as famous townsmen, and school children.] + +[Footnote 281: My friends have come to me, etc.: Compare with +Emerson's views here expressed the noble passage in his essay on _The +Over-Soul_: "Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great +and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And +this because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a +wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood +rolls uninterruptedly in endless circulation through all men, as the +water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one."] + +[Footnote 282: Bard. Poet: originally one who composed and sang to the +music of a harp verses in honor of heroes and heroic deeds.] + +[Footnote 283: Hymn, ode, and epic. Define each of these three kinds +of poetry.] + +[Footnote 284: Apollo. In classic mythology, the sun god who presided +over music, poetry, and art; he was the guardian and leader of the +Muses.] + +[Footnote 285: Muses. In classic mythology, the nine sisters who +presided over music, poetry, art, and science. They were Clio the muse +of history, Euterpe of music, especially the flute, Thalia of comedy, +Melpomene of tragedy, Terpsichore of dancing, Erato of erotic poetry, +mistress of the lyre, Polyhymnia of sacred poetry, Urania of +astronomy, Calliope of eloquence and epic poetry.] + +[Footnote 286: Genius. According to an old belief, a spirit that +watched over a person to control, guide and aid him.] + +[Footnote 287: "Crush the sweet poison," etc. This is a quotation from +_Comus_, a poem by Milton.] + +[Footnote 288: Systole and diastole. (See note 98.)] + +[Footnote 289: Friendship, like the immortality, etc. See on what a +high plane Emerson places this relation of friendship. In 1840 he +wrote in a letter: "I am a worshiper of friendship, and cannot find +any other good equal to it. As soon as any man pronounces the words +which approve him fit for that great office, I make no haste; he is +holy; let me be holy also; our relations are eternal; why should we +count days and weeks?"] + +[Footnote 290: Elysian temple. Temple of bliss. In Greek mythology, +Elysium was the abode of the blessed after death.] + +[Footnote 291: An Egyptian skull. Plutarch says that at an Egyptian +feast a skull was displayed, either as a hint to make the most of the +pleasure which can be enjoyed but for a brief space, or as a warning +not to set one's heart upon transitory things.] + +[Footnote 292: Conscious of a universal success, etc. Emerson wrote in +his journal: "My entire success, such as it is, is composed wholly of +particular failures."] + +[Footnote 293: Extends the old leaf. Compare Emerson's lines: + + "When half-gods go + The gods arrive." + +] + +[Footnote 294: A texture of wine and dreams. What does Emerson mean by +this phrase? Explain the whole sentence.] + +[Footnote 295: "The valiant warrior," etc. The quotation is from +Shakespeare's _Sonnet_, XXV.] + +[Footnote 296: Naturlangsamkeit. A German word meaning slowness. The +slowness of natural development.] + +[Footnote 297: Olympian. One who took part in the great Greek games +held every four years on the plain of Olympia. The racing, wrestling +and other contests of strength and skill were accompanied by +sacrifices to the gods, processions, and banquets. There was a sense +of dignity and almost of worship about the games. The Olympic games +have been recently revived, and athletes from all countries of the +world contest for the prizes--simple garlands of wild olive.] + +[Footnote 298: I knew a man who, etc. The allusion is to Jonas Very, a +mystic and poet, who lived at Salem, Massachusetts.] + +[Footnote 299: Paradox. Define this word. Explain its application to a +friend.] + +[Footnote 300: My author says, etc. The quotation is from _A +Consideration upon Cicero_, by the French author, Montaigne. Montaigne +was one of Emerson's favorite authors from his boyhood: of the essays +he says, "I felt as if I myself, had written this book in some former +life, so sincerely it spoke my thoughts."] + +[Footnote 301: Cherub. What is the difference between a cherub and a +seraph?] + +[Footnote 302: Curricle. A two-wheeled carriage, especially popular in +the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 303: This law of one to one. Emerson felt that this same law +applied to nature. He wrote in his journal: "Nature says to man, 'one +to one, my dear.'"] + +[Footnote 304: Crimen quos, etc. The Latin saying is translated in +the preceding sentence.] + +[Footnote 305: Nonage. We use more commonly the word, "minority."] + +[Footnote 306: Janus-faced. The word here means simply two-faced, +without the idea of deceit usually attached to it. In Roman mythology, +Janus, the doorkeeper of heaven was the protector of doors and +gateways and the patron of the beginning and end of undertakings. He +was the god of the rising and setting of the sun, and was represented +with two faces, one looking to the east and the other to the west. His +temple at Rome was kept open in time of war and closed in time of +peace.] + +[Footnote 307: Harbinger. A forerunner; originally an officer who rode +in advance of a royal person to secure proper lodgings and +accommodations.] + +[Footnote 308: Empyrean. Highest and purest heaven; according to the +ancients, the region of pure light and fire.] + + +HEROISM + +[Footnote 309: Title. Probably this essay is, essentially at least, +the lecture on _Heroism_ delivered in Boston in the winter of 1837, in +the course of lectures on _Human Culture_.] + +[Footnote 310: Motto. This saying of Mahomet's was the only motto +prefixed to the essay in the first edition. In later editions, Emerson +prefixed, according to his custom, some original lines; + + "Ruby wine is drunk by knaves, + Sugar spends to fatten slaves, + Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons, + Thunder clouds are Jove's festoons, + Drooping oft in wreaths of dread + Lightning-knotted round his head: + The hero is not fed on sweets, + Daily his own heart he eats; + Chambers of the great are jails, + And head-winds right for royal sails." + +] + +[Footnote 311: Elder English dramatists. The dramatists who preceded +Shakespeare. In his essay on _Shakespeare; or, the Poet_, Emerson +enumerates the foremost of these,--"Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, Jonson, +Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Peele, Ford, Massinger, +Beaumont and Fletcher."] + +[Footnote 312: Beaumont and Fletcher. Francis Beaumont and John +Fletcher were two dramatists of the Elizabethan age. They wrote +together and their styles were so similar that critics are unable to +identify the share of each in their numerous plays.] + +[Footnote 313: Rodrigo, Pedro, or Valerio. Favorite names for heroes +among the dramatists. Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, known usually by the +title of the Cid, was the national hero of Spain, famous for his +exploits against the Moors. Don Pedro was the Prince of Arragon in +Shakespeare's play, _Much Ado About Nothing_.] + +[Footnote 314: Bonduca, Sophocles, the Mad Lover, and Double Marriage. +The first, third and fourth are names of plays by Beaumont and +Fletcher. In the case of the second, Emerson, by a lapse of memory, +gives the name of one of the chief characters instead of the name of +the play--_The Triumph of Honor_ in a piece called _Four Plays in +One_. It is from this play by Beaumont and Fletcher that the passage +in the essay is quoted.] + +[Footnote 315: Adriadne's crown. According to Greek mythology, the +crown of Adriadne was, for her beauty and her sufferings, put among +the stars. She was the daughter of Minos, King of Crete; she gave +Theseus the clue by means of which he escaped from the labyrinth and +she was afterwards abandoned by him.] + +[Footnote 316: Romulus. The reputed founder of the city of Rome.] + +[Footnote 317: Laodamia, Dion. Read these two poems by Wordsworth, the +great English poet, and tell why you think Emerson mentioned them +here.] + +[Footnote 318: Scott. Sir Walter Scott, a famous Scotch author.] + +[Footnote 319: Lord Evandale, Balfour of Burley. These are characters +in Scott's novel, _Old Mortality_. The passage referred to by Emerson +is in the forty-second chapter.] + +[Footnote 320: Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle was a great admirer of heroes, +asserting that history is the biography of great men. One of his most +popular books is _Heroes and Hero-Worship_, on a plan similar to that +of Emerson's _Representative Men_.] + +[Footnote 321: Robert Burns. A Scotch lyric poet. Emerson was probably +thinking of the patriotic song, _Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled_.] + +[Footnote 322: Harleian Miscellanies. A collection of manuscripts +published in the eighteenth century, and named for Robert Harley, the +English statesman who collected them.] + +[Footnote 323: Lutzen. A small town in Prussia. The battle referred to +was fought in 1632 and in it the Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus gained +a great victory over vastly superior numbers. Nearly two hundred years +later another battle was fought at Lutzen, in which Napoleon gained a +victory over the allied Russians and Prussians.] + +[Footnote 324: Simon Ockley. An English scholar of the seventeenth +century whose chief work was a _History of the Saracens_.] + +[Footnote 325: Oxford. One of the two great English universities.] + +[Footnote 326: Plutarch. (See note 264.)] + +[Footnote 327: Brasidas. This hero, described by Plutarch, was a +Spartan general who lived about four hundred years before Christ.] + +[Footnote 328: Dion. A Greek philosopher who ruled the city of +Syracuse in the fourth century before Christ.] + +[Footnote 329: Epaminondas. A Greek general and statesman of the +fourth century before Christ.] + +[Footnote 330: Scipio. (See note 205.)] + +[Footnote 331: Stoicism. The stern and severe philosophy taught by the +Greek philosopher Zeno; he taught that men should always seek virtue +and be indifferent to pleasure and happiness. This belief, carried to +the extreme of severity, exercised a great influence on many noble +Greeks and Romans.] + +[Footnote 332: Heroism is an obedience, etc. In one of his poems +Emerson says: + + "So nigh is grandeur to our dust, + So near is God to man, + When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' + The youth replies, 'I can.'" + +] + +[Footnote 333: Plotinus. An Egyptian philosopher who taught in Rome +during the third century. It was said that he so exalted the mind that +he was ashamed of his body.] + +[Footnote 334: Indeed these humble considerations, etc. The passage, +like many which Emerson quotes, is rendered inexactly. The Prince says +to Poins: "Indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with +my greatness. What a disgrace it is to me to remember thy name! or to +know thy face to-morrow! or to take note how many pairs of silk +stockings thou hast, that is, these and those that were thy +peach-colored ones! or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as, one +for superfluity and another for use!" Shakespeare's _Henry IV._, Part +II. 2, 2.] + +[Footnote 335: Ibn Hankal. Ibn Hankul, an Arabian geographer and +traveler of the tenth century. He wrote an account of his twenty +years' travels in Mohammedan countries; in 1800 this was translated +into English by Sir William Jones under the title of _The Oriental +Geography of Ibn Hankal_. In that volume this anecdote is told in +slightly different words.] + +[Footnote 336: Bokhara. Where is Bokhara? It corresponds to the +ancient Sogdiana.] + +[Footnote 337: Bannocks. Thick cakes, made usually of oatmeal. What +does Emerson mean by this sentence? Probably no person ever met his +visitors, many of whom were "exacting and wearisome," and must have +been unwelcome, with more perfect courtesy and graciousness than +Emerson.] + +[Footnote 338: John Eliot. Give as full an account as you can of the +life and works of this noble Apostle to the Indians of the seventeenth +century.] + +[Footnote 339: King David, etc. See First Chronicles, 11, 15-19.] + +[Footnote 340: Brutus. Marcus Junius Brutus, a Roman patriot of the +first century before Christ, who took part in the assassination of +Julius Cæsar.] + +[Footnote 341: Philippi. A city of Macedonia near which in the year 42 +B.C. were fought two battles in which the republican army under Brutus +and Cassius was defeated by Octavius and Antony, friends of Cæsar.] + +[Footnote 342: Euripides. A Greek tragic poet of the fifth century +before Christ.] + +[Footnote 343: Scipio. (See note 205.) Plutarch in his _Morals_ gives +another version of the story: "When Paetilius and Quintus accused him +of many crimes before the people; 'on this very day,' he said, 'I +conquered Hannibal and Carthage. I for my part am going with my crown +on to the Capitol to sacrifice; and let him that pleaseth stay and +pass his vote upon me.' Having thus said, he went his way; and the +people followed him, leaving his accusers declaiming to themselves."] + +[Footnote 344: Socrates. (See note 187.)] + +[Footnote 345: Prytaneum. A public hall at Athens.] + +[Footnote 346: Sir Thomas More. An English statesman and author who +was beheaded in 1535 on a charge of high treason. The incident to +which Emerson refers is one which showed his "pleasant wit" +undisturbed by the prospect of death. As the executioner was about to +strike, More moved his head carefully out of reach of the ax. "Pity +that should be cut," he said, "that has never committed treason."] + +[Footnote 347: Blue Laws. Any rigid Sunday laws or religious +regulations. The term is usually applied to the early laws of New +Haven and Connecticut which regulated personal and religious conduct.] + +[Footnote 348: Epaminondas. (See note 329.)] + +[Footnote 349: Olympus. A mountain of Greece, the summit of which, +according to Greek mythology, was the home of the gods.] + +[Footnote 350: Jerseys. Consult a history of the United States for a +full account of Washington's campaign in New Jersey.] + +[Footnote 351: Milton. (See note 151.)] + +[Footnote 352: Pericles. A famous Greek statesman of the fifth century +before Christ, in whose age Athens was preëminent in naval and +military affairs and in letters and art.] + +[Footnote 353: Xenophon. A Greek historian of the fourth century +before Christ.] + +[Footnote 354: Columbus. Give an account of his life.] + +[Footnote 355: Bayard. Chevalier de Bayard was a French gentleman of +the fifteenth century. He is the French national hero, and is called +"The Knight without fear and without reproach."] + +[Footnote 356: Sidney. Probably Sir Philip Sidney, an English +gentleman and scholar of the sixteenth century who is the English +national hero as Bayard is the French; another brave Englishman was +Algernon Sidney, a politician and patriot of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 357: Hampden. John Hampden was an English statesman and +patriot who was killed in the civil war of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 358: Colossus. The Colossus of Rhodes was a gigantic +statue--over a hundred feet in height--of the Rhodian sun god. It was +one of the seven wonders of the world; it was destroyed by an +earthquake about two hundred years before Christ.] + +[Footnote 359: Sappho. A Greek poet of the seventh century before +Christ. Her fame remains, though most of her poems have been lost.] + +[Footnote 360: Sevigné. Marquise de Sevigné was a French author of the +seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 361: De Staël. Madame de Staël was a French writer whose +books and political opinions were condemned by Napoleon.] + +[Footnote 362: Themis. A Greek goddess. The personification of law, +order, and justice.] + +[Footnote 363: A high counsel, etc. Such was the advice given to the +Emerson boys by their aunt, Miss. Mary Moody Emerson: "Scorn trifles, +lift your aims; do what you are afraid to do; sublimity of character +must come from sublimity of motive." Upon her monument are inscribed +Emerson's words about her: "She gave high counsels. It was the +privilege of certain boys to have this immeasurably high standard +indicated to their childhood, a blessing which nothing else in +education could supply."] + +[Footnote 364: Phocion. A Greek general and statesman of the fourth +century before Christ who advised the Athenians to make peace with +Philip of Macedon. He was put to death on a charge of treason.] + +[Footnote 365: Lovejoy. Rev. Elijah Lovejoy, a Presbyterian clergyman +of Maine who published a periodical against slavery. In 1837 an +Illinois mob demanded his printing press, which he refused to give up. +The building containing it was set on fire and when Lovejoy came out +he was shot.] + +[Footnote 366: Let them rave, etc. These lines are misquoted, being +evidently given from memory, from Tennyson's _Dirge_. In the poem +occur these lines: + + "Let them rave. + Thou wilt never raise thine head + From the green that folds thy grave-- + Let them rave." + +] + + +MANNERS + +[Footnote 367: The essay on _Manners_ is from the Second Series of +_Essays_, published in 1844, three years after the First Series. The +essays in this volume, like those in the first, were, for the most +part, made up of Emerson's lectures, rearranged and corrected. The +lecture on _Manners_ had been delivered in the winter of 1841. He had +given another lecture on the same subject about four years before, and +several years later he treated of the same subject in his essay on +_Behavior_ in _The Conduct of Life_. You will find it interesting to +read _Behavior_ in connection with this essay.] + +[Footnote 368: Feejee islanders. Since this essay was written, the +people of the Feejee, or Fiji, Islands have become Christianized, and, +to a large extent, civilized.] + +[Footnote 369: Gournou. This description is found in _A Narrative of +the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids_, by +Belzoni, an Italian traveler and explorer.] + +[Footnote 370: Borgoo. A province of Africa.] + +[Footnote 371: Tibboos, Bornoos. Tribes of Central Africa, mentioned +in Heeren's _Historical Researches_.] + +[Footnote 372: Honors himself with architecture. Architecture was a +subject in which Emerson was deeply interested. Read his poem, _The +Problem_.] + +[Footnote 373: Chivalry. Chivalry may be considered "as embodying the +Middle Age conception of the ideal life of ... the Knights"; the word +is often used to express "the ideal qualifications of a knight, as +courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms." Fully to +understand the order of Knighthood and the ideals of chivalry, you +must read the history of Europe in the Middle Ages.] + +[Footnote 374: Sir Philip Sidney. (See note 356.)] + +[Footnote 375: Sir Walter Scott. (1771-1832). His historical novels +dealing with the Middle Ages have some fine pictures of the chivalrous +characters in which he delighted.] + +[Footnote 376: Masonic sign. A sign of secret brotherhood, like the +sign given by one Mason to another.] + +[Footnote 377: Correlative abstract. Corresponding abstract name. Sir +Philip Sidney, himself the ideal gentleman, used the word +"gentlemanliness." He said: "Gentlemanliness is high-erected thoughts +seated in a heart of courtesy."] + +[Footnote 378: Gentilesse. Gentle birth and breeding. Emerson was very +fond of the passage on "gentilesse" in Chaucer's _Wife of Bath's +Tale_.] + +[Footnote 379: Feudal Ages. The Middle Ages in Europe during which the +feudal system prevailed. According to this, land was held by its +owners on condition of certain duties, especially military service, +performed for a superior lord.] + +[Footnote 380: God knows, etc. Why is this particularly true of a +republic such as the United States?] + +[Footnote 381: The incomparable advantage of animal spirits. Why does +Emerson regard this as of such importance? In his journals he +frequently comments on his own lack of animal spirits, and says that +it unfits him for general society and for action.] + +[Footnote 382: The sense of power. "I like people who can do things," +wrote Emerson in his journal.] + +[Footnote 383: Lundy's Lane. Give a full account of this battle in the +War of 1812.] + +[Footnote 384: Men of the right Cæsarian pattern. Men versatile as was +Julius Cæsar, the Roman, famous as a general, statesman, orator, and +writer.] + +[Footnote 385: Timid maxim. Why does Emerson term this saying +"timid"?] + +[Footnote 386: Lord Falkland. Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland, was an +English politician who espoused the royalist side; he was killed in +battle in the Civil War.] + +[Footnote 387: Saladin. A famous sultan of Egypt and Syria who lived +in the twelfth century. Scott describes him as possessing an ideal +knightly character and introduces him, disguised as a physician and +also as a wandering soldier in his historical romance, _The +Talisman_.] + +[Footnote 388: Sapor. A Persian monarch of the fourth century who +defeated the Romans in battle.] + +[Footnote 389: The Cid. See "Rodrigo," in _Heroism_, 313.] + +[Footnote 390: Julius Cæsar. See note on "Cæsarian," 384.] + +[Footnote 391: Scipio. (See note 205.)] + +[Footnote 392: Alexander. Alexander, King of Macedon, surnamed the +Great. In the fourth century before Christ he made himself master of +the known world.] + +[Footnote 393: Pericles. See note on _Heroism_, 352.] + +[Footnote 394: Diogenes. (See note 267.)] + +[Footnote 395: Socrates. (See note 187.)] + +[Footnote 396: Epaminondas. (See note 329.)] + +[Footnote 397: My contemporaries. Emerson probably had in mind, among +others, his friend, the gentle philosopher, Thoreau.] + +[Footnote 398: Fine manners. "I think there is as much merit in +beautiful manners as in hard work," said Emerson in his journal.] + +[Footnote 399: Napoleon. (See note 273.)] + +[Footnote 400: Noblesse. Nobility. Why does Emerson use here the +French word?] + +[Footnote 401: Faubourg St. Germain. A once fashionable quarter of +Paris, on the south bank of the Seine; it was long the headquarters of +the French royalists.] + +[Footnote 402: Cortez. Consult a history of the United States for an +account of this Spanish soldier, the conqueror of Mexico.] + +[Footnote 403: Nelson. Horatio Nelson, an English admiral, who won +many great naval victories and was killed in the battle of Trafalgar +in 1805.] + +[Footnote 404: Mexico. The scene of Cortez's victories.] + +[Footnote 405: Marengo. The scene of a battle in Italy in 1800, in +which Napoleon defeated the Austrians with a larger army and made +himself master of northern Italy.] + +[Footnote 406: Trafalgar. A cape on the southern coast of Spain, the +scene of Nelson's last great victory, in which the allied French and +Spanish fleets were defeated.] + +[Footnote 407: Mexico, Marengo, and Trafalgar. Is this the order in +which you would expect these words to occur? Why not?] + +[Footnote 408: Estates of the realm. Orders or classes of people with +regard to political rights and powers. In modern times, the nobility, +the clergy, and the people are called "the three estates."] + +[Footnote 409: Tournure. Figure; turn of dress,--and so of mind.] + +[Footnote 410: Coventry. It is said that the people of Coventry, a +city in England, at one time so disliked soldiers that to send a +military man there meant to exclude him from social intercourse; hence +the expression "to send to Coventry" means to exclude from society.] + +[Footnote 411: "If you could see Vich Ian Vohr with his tail on." Vich +Ian Vohr is a Scotch chieftain in Scott's novel, _Waverley_. One of +his dependents says to Waverley, the young English officer: "If you +Saxon duinhé-wassal [English gentleman] saw but the Chief with his +tail on." "With his tail on?" echoed Edward in some surprise. +"Yes--that is, with all his usual followers when he visits those of +the same rank." See _Waverley_, chapter 16.] + +[Footnote 412: Mercuries. The word here means simply messengers. +According to Greek mythology, Mercury was the messenger of the gods.] + +[Footnote 413: Herald's office. In England the Herald's College, or +College of Arms, is a royal corporation the chief business of which is +to grant armorial bearings, or coats of arms, and to trace and +preserve genealogies. What does Emerson mean by comparing certain +circles of society to this corporation?] + +[Footnote 414: Amphitryon. Host; it came to have this meaning from an +incident in the story of Amphitryon, a character in Greek legend. At +one time Jupiter assumed the form of Amphitryon and gave a banquet. +The real Amphitryon came in and asserted that he was master of the +house. In the French play, founded on this story, the question is +settled by the assertion of the servants and guests that "he who gives +the feast is the host."] + +[Footnote 415: Tuileries. An old royal residence in Paris which was +burned in 1871.] + +[Footnote 416: Escurial, or escorial. A celebrated royal edifice near +Madrid in Spain.] + +[Footnote 417: Hide ourselves as Adam, etc. See Genesis iii. 8.] + +[Footnote 418: Cardinal Caprara. An Italian cardinal, Bishop of Milan, +who negotiated the famous concordat of 1801, an agreement between the +Church and State regulating the relations between civil and +ecclesiastical powers.] + +[Footnote 419: The pope. Pope Pius VII.] + +[Footnote 420: Madame de Staël. (See note 361.)] + +[Footnote 421: Mr. Hazlitt. William Hazlitt, an English writer.] + +[Footnote 422: Montaigne. A French essayist of the sixteenth century.] + +[Footnote 423: The hint of tranquillity and self-poise. It is +suggested that Emerson had here in mind a favorite passage of the +German author, Richter, in which Richter says of the Greek statues: +"The repose not of weariness but of perfection looks from their eyes +and rests upon their lips."] + +[Footnote 424: A Chinese etiquette. What does Emerson mean by this +expression?] + +[Footnote 425: Recall. In the first edition, Emerson had here the word +"signify." Which is the better word and why?] + +[Footnote 426: Measure. What meaning has this word here? Is this the +sense in which we generally use it?] + +[Footnote 427: Creole natures. What is a creole? What does Emerson +mean by "Creole natures"?] + +[Footnote 428: Mr. Fox. Charles James Fox, an English statesman and +orator of the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 429: Burke. Both Fox and Burke opposed the taxation of the +American colonies and sympathized with their resistance; it was on the +subject of the French Revolution that the two friends clashed.] + +[Footnote 430: Sheridan. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, an Irish +dramatist, member of the famous Literary Club to which both Fox and +Burke belonged.] + +[Footnote 431: Circe. According to Greek legend, Circe was a beautiful +enchantress. Men who partook of the draught she offered, were turned +to swine.] + +[Footnote 432: Captain Symmes. The only real personage of this group. +He asserted that there was an opening to the interior of the earth +which was stocked with plants and animals.] + +[Footnote 433: Clerisy. What word would we be more apt to use here?] + +[Footnote 434: St. Michael's (Square). St. Michael's was an order +instituted by Louis XI. of France.] + +[Footnote 435: Cologne water. A perfumed water first made at the city +of Cologne in Germany, from which it took its name.] + +[Footnote 436: Poland. This kingdom of Europe was, in the eighteenth +century, taken possession of and divided among its powerful neighbors, +Russia, Prussia, and Austria.] + +[Footnote 437: Philhellene. Friend of Greece.] + +[Footnote 438: As Heaven and Earth are fairer far, etc. This passage +is quoted from Book II. of Keats' _Hyperion_.] + +[Footnote 439: Waverley. The Waverley novels, a name applied to all of +Scott's novels from _Waverley_, the title of the first one.] + +[Footnote 440: Robin Hood. An English outlaw and popular hero, the +subject of many ballads.] + +[Footnote 441: Minerva. In Roman mythology, the goddess of wisdom +corresponding to the Greek Pallas-Athene.] + +[Footnote 442: Juno. In Roman mythology, the wife of the supreme god +Jupiter.] + +[Footnote 443: Polymnia. In Greek mythology, one of the nine muses who +presided over sacred poetry; the name is more usually written +Polyhymia.] + +[Footnote 444: Delphic Sibyl. In ancient mythology, the Sibyls were +certain women who possessed the power of prophecy. One of these who +made her abode at Delphi in Greece was called the Delphian, or +Delphic, sibyl.] + +[Footnote 445: Hafiz. A Persian poet of the fourteenth century.] + +[Footnote 446: Firdousi. A Persian poet of the tenth century.] + +[Footnote 447: She was an elemental force, etc. Of this passage Oliver +Wendell Holmes said that Emerson "speaks of woman in language that +seems to pant for rhythm and rhyme."] + +[Footnote 448: Byzantine. An ornate style of architecture developed in +the fourth and fifth centuries, marked especially by its use of gold +and color.] + +[Footnote 449: Golden Book. In a book, called "the Golden Book," were +recorded the names of all the children of Venetian noblemen.] + +[Footnote 450: Schiraz. A province of Persia famous especially for its +roses, wine, and nightingales, and described by the poets as a place +of ideal beauty.] + +[Footnote 451: Osman. The name given by Emerson in his journal and +essays to his ideal man, one subject to the same conditions as +himself.] + +[Footnote 452: Koran. The sacred book of the Mohammedans.] + +[Footnote 453: Jove. Jupiter, the supreme god of Roman mythology.] + +[Footnote 454: Silenus. In Greek mythology, the leader of the satyrs. +This fable, which Emerson credits to tradition, was original.] + +[Footnote 455: Her owl. The owl was the bird sacred to Minerva, the +goddess of wisdom.] + + +GIFTS + +[Footnote 456: This essay was first printed in the periodical called +_The Dial_. + +It was a part of Emerson's philosophic faith that there is no such +thing as giving,--everything that belongs to a man or that he ought to +have, will come to him. But in the ordinarily accepted sense of the +word, Emerson was a gracious giver and receiver. In his family the old +New England custom of New Year's presents was kept up to his last +days. His presents were accompanied with verses to be read before the +gift was opened.] + +[Footnote 457: Into chancery. The phrase "in chancery," means in +litigation, as an estate, in a court of equity.] + +[Footnote 458: Cocker. Spoil, indulge,--a word now little used.] + +[Footnote 459: Fruits are acceptable gifts. Emerson took especial +pleasure in the beauty of fruits and the thought of how they had been +evolved from useless, insipid seed cases.] + +[Footnote 460: To let the petitioner, etc. We can hardly imagine +Emerson's asking a gift or favor. He often quoted the words of Landor, +an English writer: "The highest price you can pay for a thing is to +ask for it."] + +[Footnote 461: Furies. In Roman mythology, three goddesses who sought +out and punished evil-doers.] + +[Footnote 462: A man's biography, etc. Emerson wrote in his journal: +"Long ago I wrote of _gifts_ and neglected a capital example. John +Thoreau, Jr. [who, like his brother Henry, was a lover of nature] one +day put a bluebird's box on my barn,--fifteen years ago it must +be,--and there it still is, with every summer a melodious family in it +adorning the place and singing its praises. There's a gift for you +which cost the giver no money, but nothing which he bought could have +been as good."] + +[Footnote 463: Sin offering. Under the Hebrew law, a sacrifice or +offering for sin. See Leviticus xxiii. 19. Explain what Emerson means +here by the word.] + +[Footnote 464: Blackmail. What is "blackmail"? How may Christmas +gifts, for instance, become a species of blackmail?] + +[Footnote 465: Brother, if Jove, etc. In the Greek legend, Epimetheus +gives this advice to his brother Prometheus. The lines are taken from +a translation of _Works and Days_, by the Greek poet, Hesiod.] + +[Footnote 466: Timons. Here used in the sense of wealthy givers. +Timon, the hero of Shakespeare's play, _Timon of Athens_, wasted his +fortune in lavish gifts and entertainments, and in his poverty was +exposed to the ingratitude of those whom he had served. He became +morose and died in miserable retirement.] + +[Footnote 467: It is a very onerous business, etc. One of Emerson's +favorite passages in the essays of Montaigne, a French writer, was +this: "Oh, how am I obliged to Almighty God, who has been pleased that +I should immediately receive all I have from his bounty, and +particularly reserved all my obligation to himself! How instantly do I +beg of his holy compassion that I may never owe a real thanks to +anyone. O happy liberty in which I have thus far lived! May it +continue with me to the last. I endeavor to have no need of any one." + +When Emerson, in his old age, had his house injured by fire, his +friends contributed funds to repair it and to send him to England. The +gift was proffered graciously and accepted gratefully.] + +[Footnote 468: Buddhist. A follower of Buddha, a Hindoo religious +teacher of the fifth century before Christ.] + + +NATURE + +[Footnote 469: Nature. Emerson's first published volume was a little +book of essays, entitled _Nature_, which appeared in 1836. In the +years which followed, he thought more deeply on the subject and, +according to his custom, made notes about it and entries in his +journals. In the winter of 1843 he delivered a lecture on _Relation to +Nature_, and it is probable that this essay is built up from that. The +plan of it, however, had been long in his mind: In 1840 he wrote in +his journal: "I think I must do these eyes of mine the justice to +write a new chapter on Nature. This delight we all take in every show +of night or day or field or forest or sea or city, down to the lowest +particulars, is not without sequel, though we be as yet only wishers +and gazers, not at all knowing what we want. We are predominated here +as elsewhere by an upper wisdom, and resemble those great discoverers +who are haunted for years, sometimes from infancy, with a passion for +the fact, or class of facts in which the secret lies which they are +destined to unlock, and they let it not go until the blessing is won. +So these sunsets and starlights, these swamps and rocks, these bird +notes and animal forms off which we cannot get our eyes and ears, but +hover still, as moths round a lamp, are no doubt a Sanscrit cipher +covering the whole religious history of the universe, and presently we +shall read it off into action and character. The pastures are full of +ghosts for me, the morning woods full of angels."] + +[Footnote 470: There are days, etc. The passage in Emerson's journal +is hardly less beautiful. Under date of October 30, 1841, he wrote: +"On this wonderful day when heaven and earth seem to glow with +magnificence, and all the wealth of all the elements is put under +contribution to make the world fine, as if Nature would indulge her +offspring, it seemed ungrateful to hide in the house. Are there not +dull days enough in the year for you to write and read in, that you +should waste this glittering season when Florida and Cuba seem to have +left their glittering seats and come to visit us with all their +shining hours, and almost we expect to see the jasmine and cactus +burst from the ground instead of these last gentians and asters which +have loitered to attend this latter glory of the year? All insects are +out, all birds come forth, the very cattle that lie on the ground seem +to have great thoughts, and Egypt and India look from their eyes."] + +[Footnote 471: Halcyons. Halcyon days, ones of peace and tranquillity; +anciently, days of calm weather in mid-winter, when the halcyon, or +kingfisher, was supposed to brood. It was fabled that this bird laid +its eggs in a nest that floated on the sea, and that it charmed the +winds and waves to make them calm while it brooded.] + +[Footnote 472: Indian Summer. Calm, dry, hazy weather which comes in +the autumn in America. The Century Dictionary says it was called +Indian Summer because the season was most marked in the sections of +the upper eastern Mississippi valley inhabited by Indians about the +time the term became current.] + +[Footnote 473: Gabriel. One of the seven archangels. The Hebrew name +means "God is my strong one."] + +[Footnote 474: Uriel. Another of the seven archangels; the name means +"Light of God."] + +[Footnote 475: Converts all trees to wind-harps. Compare with this +passage the lines in Emerson's poem, _Woodnotes_: + + "And the countless leaves of the pines are strings + Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings." + +] + +[Footnote 476: The village. Concord, Massachusetts. Emerson's home the +greater part of the time from 1832 till his death.] + +[Footnote 477: I go with my friend, etc. With Henry Thoreau, the lover +of Nature.] + +[Footnote 478: Our little river. The Concord river.] + +[Footnote 479: Novitiate and probation. Explain the meaning of these +words, in the Roman Catholic Church. What does Emerson mean by them +here?] + +[Footnote 480: Villegiatura. The Italian name for a season spent in +country pleasures.] + +[Footnote 481: Hanging gardens. The hanging gardens of Babylon were +one of the seven wonders of the world.] + +[Footnote 482: Versailles. A royal residence near Paris, with +beautiful formal gardens.] + +[Footnote 483: Paphos. A beautiful city on the island of Cyprus, where +was situated a temple of Astarte, or Venus.] + +[Footnote 484: Ctesiphon. One of the chief cities of ancient Persia, +the site of a magnificent royal palace.] + +[Footnote 485: Notch Mountains. Probably the White Mountains near +Crawford Notch, a deep, narrow valley which is often called "The +Notch."] + +[Footnote 486: Æolian harp. A stringed instrument from which sound is +drawn by the passing of the wind over its strings. It was named for +Æolus, the god of the winds, in Greek mythology.] + +[Footnote 487: Dorian. Dorus was one of the four divisions of Greece: +the word is here used in a general sense for Grecian.] + +[Footnote 488: Apollo. In Greek and Roman mythology, the sun god, who +presided over music, poetry, and healing.] + +[Footnote 489: Diana. In Roman mythology, the goddess of the moon +devoted to the chase.] + +[Footnote 490: Edens. Beautiful, sinless places,--like the garden of +Eden.] + +[Footnote 491: Tempes. Places like the lovely valley of Tempe in +Thessaly, Greece.] + +[Footnote 492: Como Lake. A lake of northern Italy, celebrated for its +beauty.] + +[Footnote 493: Madeira Islands. Where are these islands, famous for +picturesque beauty and balmy atmosphere?] + +[Footnote 494: Common. What is a common?] + +[Footnote 495: Campagna. The plain near Rome.] + +[Footnote 496: Dilettantism. Define this word and explain its use +here.] + +[Footnote 497: "Wreaths" and "Flora's Chaplets." About the time that +Emerson was writing his essays, volumes of formal, artificial verses +were very fashionable, more as parlor ornaments than as literature. +Two such volumes were _A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England_ and +_The Floral Offering_ by Mrs. Frances Osgood, a New England writer.] + +[Footnote 498: Pan. In Greek mythology, the god of woods, fields, +flocks, and shepherds.] + +[Footnote 499: The multitude of false cherubs, etc. Explain the +meaning of this sentence. If true money were valueless, would people +make false money?] + +[Footnote 500: Proteus. In Greek mythology, a sea god who had the +power of assuming different shapes. If caught and held fast, however, +he was forced to assume his own shape and answer the questions put to +him.] + +[Footnote 501: Mosaic ... Schemes. The conception of the world as +given in Genesis on which the law of Moses, the great Hebrew lawgiver, +was founded.] + +[Footnote 502: Ptolemaic schemes. The system of geography and +astronomy taught in the second century by Ptolemy of Alexandria; it +was accepted till the sixteenth century, when the Copernican system +was established. Ptolemy believed that the sun, planets, and stars +revolve around the earth; Copernicus taught that the planets revolve +around the sun.] + +[Footnote 503: Flora. In Roman mythology, the goddess of the spring +and of flowers.] + +[Footnote 504: Fauna. In Roman mythology, the goddess of fields and +shepherds; she represents the fruitfulness of the earth.] + +[Footnote 505: Ceres. The Roman goddess of grain and harvest, +corresponding to the Greek goddess, Demeter.] + +[Footnote 506: Pomona. The Roman goddess of fruit trees and gardens.] + +[Footnote 507: All duly arrive. Emerson deducts from nature the +doctrine of evolution. What is its teaching?] + +[Footnote 508: Plato. (See note 36.)] + +[Footnote 509: Himalaya Mountain chains. (See note 193.)] + +[Footnote 510: Franklin. Give an account of Benjamin Franklin, the +famous American scientist and patriot. What did he prove about +lightening?] + +[Footnote 511: Dalton. John Dalton was an English chemist who, about +the beginning of the nineteenth century, perfected the atomic theory, +that is, the theory that all chemical combinations take place in +certain ways between the atoms, or ultimate particles, of bodies.] + +[Footnote 512: Davy. (See note 69.)] + +[Footnote 513: Black. Joseph Black, a Scotch chemist who made valuable +discoveries about latent heat and carbon dioxide, or carbonic acid +gas.] + +[Footnote 514: The astronomers said, etc. Beginning with this passage, +several pages of this essay was published in 1844, under the title of +_Tantalus_, in the next to the last number of _The Dial_, which +Emerson edited.] + +[Footnote 515: Centrifugal, centripetal. Define these words.] + +[Footnote 516: Stoics. See "Stoicism," 331.] + +[Footnote 517: Luther. (See note 188.)] + +[Footnote 518: Jacob Behmen. A German mystic of the sixteenth century; +his name is usually written Boehme.] + +[Footnote 519: George Fox. (See note 202.)] + +[Footnote 520: James Naylor. An English religious enthusiast of the +seventeenth century; he was first a Puritan and later a Quaker.] + +[Footnote 521: Operose. Laborious.] + +[Footnote 522: Outskirt and far-off reflection, etc. Compare with this +passage Emerson's poem, _The Forerunners_.] + +[Footnote 523: Oedipus. In Greek mythology, the King of Thebes who +solved the riddle of the Sphinx, a fabled monster.] + +[Footnote 524: Prunella. A widely scattered plant, called self-heal, +because a decoction of its leaves and stems was, and to some extent +is, valued as an application to wounds. An editor comments on the fact +that during the last years of Emerson's life "the little blue +self-heal crept into the grass before his study window."] + + +SHAKESPEARE; OR, THE POET + +[Footnote 525: Shakespeare; or the Poet is one of seven essays on +great men in various walks of life, published in 1850 under the title +of _Representative Men_. These essays were first delivered as lectures +in Boston in the winter of 1845, and were repeated two years later +before English audiences. They must have been especially interesting +to those Englishmen who had, seven years before, heard Emerson's +friend, Carlyle, deliver his six lectures on great men whom he +selected as representative ones. These lectures were published under +the title of _Heroes and Hero-Worship_. You should read the latter +part of Carlyle's lecture on _The Hero as Poet_ and compare what he +says about Shakespeare with Emerson's words. Both Emerson and Carlyle +reverenced the great English poet as "the master of mankind." Even in +serious New England, the plays of Shakespeare were found upon the +bookshelf beside religious tracts and doctrinal treatises. There the +boy Emerson found them and learned to love them, and the man Emerson +loved them but the more. It was as a record of personal experiences +that he wrote in his journal: "Shakespeare fills us with wonder the +first time we approach him. We go away, and work and think, for years, +and come again,--he astonishes us anew. Then, having drank deeply and +saturated us with his genius, we lose sight of him for another period +of years. By and by we return, and there he stands immeasurable as at +first. We have grown wiser, but only that we should see him wiser than +ever. He resembles a high mountain which the traveler sees in the +morning and thinks he shall quickly near it and pass it and leave it +behind. But he journeys all day till noon, till night. There still is +the dim mountain close by him, having scarce altered its bearings +since the morning light."] + +[Footnote 526: Genius. Here instead of speaking as in _Friendship_, +see note 286, of the genius or spirit supposed to preside over each +man's life, Emerson mentions the guardian spirit of human kind.] + +[Footnote 527: Shakespeare's youth, etc. It is impossible to +appreciate or enjoy this essay without having some clear general +information about the condition of the English people and English +literature in the glorious Elizabethan age in which Shakespeare lived. +Consult, for this information, some brief history of England and a +comprehensive English literature.] + +[Footnote 528: Puritans. Strict Protestants who became so powerful in +England that in the time of the Commonwealth they controlled the +political and religious affairs of the country.] + +[Footnote 529: Anglican Church. The Established Church of England; the +Episcopal church.] + +[Footnote 530: Punch. The chief character in a puppet show, hence the +puppet show itself.] + +[Footnote 531: Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, etc. For an account of these +dramatists consult a text book on English literature. The English +drama seems to have begun in the Middle Ages with what were called +Miracle plays, which were scenes from Bible history; about the same +time were performed the Mystery plays, which dramatized the lives of +saints. These were followed by the Moralities, plays in which were +personified abstract virtues and vices. The first step in the creation +of the regular drama was taken by Heywood, who composed some farcical +plays called Interludes. The people of the sixteenth century were fond +of pageants, shows in which classical personages were introduced, and +Masques, which gradually developed from pageants into dramas +accompanied with music. About the middle of the sixteenth century, +rose the English drama,--comedy, tragedy, and historical plays. The +chief among the group of dramatists who attained fame before +Shakespeare began to write were Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, and Peele. Ben +Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher rank next to Shakespeare among his +contemporaries, and among the other dramatists of the period were +Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Ford, and Massinger.] + +[Footnote 532: At the time when, etc. Probably about 1585.] + +[Footnote 533: Tale of Troy. Drama founded on the Trojan war. The +subject of famous poems by Latin and Greek poets.] + +[Footnote 534: Death of Julius Cæsar. An account of the plots which +ended in the assassination of the great Roman general.] + +[Footnote 535: Plutarch. See note on _Heroism_(264). Shakespeare, like +the earlier dramatists, drew freely on Plutarch's _Lives_ for +material.] + +[Footnote 536: Brut. A poetical version of the legendary history of +Britain, by Layamon. Its hero is Brutus, a mythical King of Britain.] + +[Footnote 537: Arthur. A British King of the sixth century, around +whose life and deeds so many legends have grown up that some +historians say he, too, was a myth. He is the center of the great +cycle of romances told in prose in Mallory's _Morte d'Arthur_ and in +poetry in Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_.] + +[Footnote 538: The royal Henries. Among the dramas popular in +Shakespeare's day which he retouched or rewrote are the historical +plays. Henry IV., First and Second Parts; Henry V; Henry VI., First, +Second, and Third Parts; and Henry VIII.] + +[Footnote 539: Italian tales. Italian literature was very popular in +Shakespeare's day, and authors drew freely from it for material, +especially from the _Decameron_, a famous collection of a hundred +tales, by Boccaccio, a poet of the fourteenth century.] + +[Footnote 540: Spanish voyages. In the sixteenth century, Spain was +still a power upon the high seas, and the tales of her conquests and +treasures in the New World were like tales of romance.] + +[Footnote 541: Prestige. Can you give an English equivalent for this +French word?] + +[Footnote 542: Which no single genius, etc. In the same way, some +critics assure us, the poems credited to the Greek poet, Homer, were +built up by a number of poets.] + +[Footnote 543: Malone. An Irish critic and scholar of the eighteenth +century, best known by his edition of Shakespeare's plays.] + +[Footnote 544: Wolsey's Soliloquy. See Shakespeare's _Henry VIII._ +III, 2. Cardinal Wolsey was prime minister of England in the reign of +Henry VIII.] + +[Footnote 545: Scene with Cromwell. See _Henry VIII._ III, 2. Thomas +Cromwell was the son of an English blacksmith; he rose to be lord high +chamberlain of England in the reign of Henry VIII., but, incurring the +King's displeasure, was executed on a charge of treason.] + +[Footnote 546: Account of the coronation. See _Henry VIII._ IV, 1.] + +[Footnote 547: Compliment to Queen Elizabeth. See _Henry VIII._ V, 5.] + +[Footnote 548: Bad rhythm. Too much importance must not be attached to +these matters in deciding authorship, as critics disagree about them.] + +[Footnote 549: Value his memory, etc. The Greeks, in appreciation of +the value of memory to the poet, represented the Muses as the +daughters of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory.] + +[Footnote 550: Homer. A Greek poet to whom is assigned the authorship +of the two greatest Greek poems, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_; he is +said to have lived about a thousand years before Christ.] + +[Footnote 551: Chaucer. (See note 33.)] + +[Footnote 552: Saadi. A Persian poet, supposed to have lived in the +thirteenth century. His best known poems are his odes.] + +[Footnote 553: Presenting Thebes, etc. This quotation is from Milton's +poem, _Il Penseroso_. Milton here names the three most popular +subjects of Greek tragedy,--the story of Oedipus, the ill-fated King +of Thebes who slew his father; the tale of the descendants of Pelops, +King of Pisa, who seemed born to woe--Agamemnon was one of his +grandsons; the third subject was the tale of Troy and the heroes of +the Trojan war,--called "divine" because the Greeks represented even +the gods as taking part in the contest.] + +[Footnote 554: Pope. (See note 88.)] + +[Footnote 555: Dryden. (See note 35.)] + +[Footnote 556: Chaucer is a huge borrower. Taine, the French critic, +says on this subject: "Chaucer was capable of seeking out in the old +common forest of the Middle Ages, stories and legends, to replant them +in his own soil and make them send out new shoots.... He has the right +and power of copying and translating because by dint of retouching he +impresses ... his original work. He recreates what he imitates."] + +[Footnote 557: Lydgate. John Lydgate was an English poet who lived a +generation later than Chaucer; in his _Troy Book_ and other poems he +probably borrowed from the sources used by Chaucer; he called himself +"Chaucer's disciple."] + +[Footnote 558: Caxton. William Caxton, the English author, more famous +as the first English printer, was not born until after Chaucer's +death. The work from which Emerson supposes the poet to have borrowed +Caxton's translation of _Recueil des Histoires de Troye_, the first +printed English book, appeared about 1474.] + +[Footnote 559: Guido di Colonna. A Sicilian poet and historian of the +thirteenth century. Chaucer in his _House of Fame_ placed in his +vision "on a pillar higher than the rest, Homer and Livy, Dares the +Phrygian, Guido Colonna, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the other +historians of the war of Troy."] + +[Footnote 560: Dares Phrygius. A Latin account of the fall of Troy, +written about the fifth century, which pretends to be a translation of +a lost work on the fall of Troy by Dares, a Trojan priest mentioned in +Homer's _Iliad_.] + +[Footnote 561: Ovid. A Roman poet who lived about the time of Christ, +whose best-known work is the _Metamorphoses_, founded on classical +legends.] + +[Footnote 562: Statius. A Roman poet of the first century after +Christ.] + +[Footnote 563: Petrarch. An Italian poet of the fourteenth century.] + +[Footnote 564: Boccaccio. An Italian novelist and poet of the +fourteenth century. See note on "Italian tales," 539. It is supposed +that the plan of the _Decameron_ suggested the similar but far +superior plan of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_.] + +[Footnote 565: Provençal poets. The poets of Provençe, a province of +the southeastern part of France. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated +for its lyric poets, called troubadours.] + +[Footnote 566: Romaunt of the Rose, etc. Chaucer's _Romaunt of the +Rose_, written during the period of French influence, is an incomplete +and abbreviated translation of a French poem of the thirteenth +century, _Roman de la Rose_, the first part of which was written by +William of Loris and the latter by John of Meung, or Jean de Meung.] + +[Footnote 567: Troilus and Creseide, etc. Chaucer ascribes the Italian +poem which he followed in his _Troilus and Creseide_ to an unknown +"Lollius of Urbino"; the source of the poem, however, is _Il +Filostrato_, by Boccaccio, the Italian poet already mentioned. +Chaucer's poem is far more than a translation; more than half is +entirely original, and it is a powerful poem, showing profound +knowledge of the Italian poets, whose influence with him superseded +the French poets.] + +[Footnote 568: The Cock and the Fox. _The Nun's Priest's Tale_ in the +_Canterbury Tales_ was an original treatment of the _Roman de Renart_, +of Marie of France, a French poet of the twelfth century.] + +[Footnote 569: House of Fame, etc. The plan of the _House of Fame_, +written during the period of Chaucer's Italian influence, shows the +influence of Dante; the general idea of the poem is from Ovid, the +Roman poet.] + +[Footnote 570: Gower. John Gower was an English poet, Chaucer's +contemporary and friend; the two poets went to the same sources for +poetic materials, but Chaucer made no such use of Gower's works as we +would infer from this passage. Emerson relied on his memory for facts, +and hence made mistakes, as here in the instances of Lydgate, Caxton, +and Gower.] + +[Footnote 571: Westminster, Washington. What legislative body +assembles at Westminster Palace, London? What at Washington?] + +[Footnote 572: Sir Robert Peel. An English statesman who died in 1850, +not long after _Representative Men_ was published.] + +[Footnote 573: Webster. Daniel Webster, an American statesman and +orator who was living when this essay was written.] + +[Footnote 574: Locke. John Locke. (See note 18.)] + +[Footnote 575: Rousseau. Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher +of the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 576: Homer. (See note 550.)] + +[Footnote 577: Menn. Menn, or Mann, was in Sanscrit one of fourteen +legendary beings; the one referred to by Emerson, Mann Vaivasvata was +supposed to be the author of the laws of Mann, a collection made about +the second century.] + +[Footnote 578: Saadi or Sadi. (See note 552.)] + +[Footnote 579: Milton. Of this great English poet and prose writer of +the seventeenth century, Emerson says: "No man can be named whose mind +still acts on the cultivated intellect of England and America with an +energy comparable to that of Milton. As a poet Shakespeare undoubtedly +transcends and far surpasses him in his popularity with foreign +nations: but Shakespeare is a voice merely: who and what he was that +sang, that sings, we know not."] + +[Footnote 580: Delphi. Here, source of prophecy. Delphi was a city in +Greece, where was the oracle of Apollo, the most famous of the oracles +of antiquity.] + +[Footnote 581: Our English Bible. The version made in the reign of +King James I. by forty-seven learned divines is a monument of noble +English.] + +[Footnote 582: Liturgy. An appointed form of worship used in a +Christian church,--here, specifically, the service of the Episcopal +church. Emerson's mother had been brought up in that church, and +though she attended her husband's church, she always loved and read +her Episcopal prayer book.] + +[Footnote 583: Grotius. Hugo Grotius was a Dutch jurist, statesman, +theologian, and poet of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 584: Rabbinical forms. The forms used by the rabbis, Jewish +doctors or expounders of the law.] + +[Footnote 585: Common law. In a general sense, the system of law +derived from England, in general use among English-speaking people.] + +[Footnote 586: Vedas. The sacred books of the Brahmins.] + +[Footnote 587: Æsop's Fables. Fables ascribed to Æsop, a Greek slave +who lived in the sixth century before Christ.] + +[Footnote 588: Pilpay, or Bidpai. Indian sage to whom were ascribed +some fables. From an Arabic translation, these passed into European +languages and were used by La Fontaine, the French fabulist.] + +[Footnote 589: Arabian Nights. _The Arabian Nights' Entertainment or A +Thousand and One Nights_ is a collection of Oriental tales, the plan +and name of which are very ancient.] + +[Footnote 590: Cid. _The Romances of the Cid_, the story of the +Spanish national hero, mentioned in note on _Heroism_139:5, was +written about the thirteenth century by an unknown author; it supplied +much of the material for two Spanish chronicles and Spanish and French +tragedies written later on the same subject.] + +[Footnote 591: Iliad. The poem in which the Greek, poet, Homer, +describes the siege and fall of Troy. Emerson here expresses the view +adopted by many scholars that it was the work, not of one, but of many +men.] + +[Footnote 592: Robin Hood. The ballads about Robin Hood, an English +outlaw and popular hero of the twelfth century.] + +[Footnote 593: Scottish Minstrelsy. _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish +Border_, a collection of original and collected poems, published by +Sir Walter Scott in 1802.] + +[Footnote 594: Shakespeare Society. The Shakespeare Society, founded +in 1841, was dissolved in 1853. In 1874 The New Shakespeare Society +was founded.] + +[Footnote 595: Mysteries. See "Kyd, Marlowe, etc." 531.] + +[Footnote 596: Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc. The first regular +English tragedy, by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, printed in +1565.] + +[Footnote 597: Gammer Gurtor's Needle. One of the first English +comedies, written by Bishop Still and printed in 1575.] + +[Footnote 598: Whether the boy Shakespeare poached, etc. For a fuller +account of the facts of Shakespeare's life, of which some traditions +and facts are mentioned here, consult some good biography of the +poet.] + +[Footnote 599: Queen Elizabeth. Dining her reign, 1558-1603, the +English drama rose and attained its height, and there was produced a +prose literature hardly inferior to the poetic.] + +[Footnote 600: King James. King James VI. of Scotland and I. of +England who was Elizabeth's kinsman and successor; he reigned in +England from 1603 to 1625.] + +[Footnote 601: Essexes. Walter Devereux was a brave English gentleman +whom Elizabeth made Earl of Essex in 1572. His son Robert, the second +Earl of Essex, was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth's.] + +[Footnote 602: Leicester. The Earl of Leicester, famous in +Shakespeare's time, was Robert Dudley, an English courtier, +politician, and general, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth.] + +[Footnote 603: Burleighs or Burghleys: William Cecil, baron of +Burghley, was an English statesman, who, for forty years, was +Elizabeth's chief minister.] + +[Footnote 604: Buckinghams. George Villiers, the first duke of +Buckingham, was an English courtier and politician, a favorite of +James I. and Charles I.] + +[Footnote 605: Tudor dynasty. The English dynasty of sovereigns +descended on the male side from Owen Tudor. It began with Henry VII. +and ended with Elizabeth.] + +[Footnote 606: Bacon. Consult English literature and history for an +account of the great statesman and author, Francis Bacon, "the wisest, +brightest, meanest of mankind."] + +[Footnote 607: Ben Jonson, etc. In his _Timber or Discoveries_, Ben +Jonson, a famous classical dramatist contemporary with Shakespeare, +says: "I loved the man and do honor his memory on this side idolatry +as much as any. He was indeed honest and of an open and free nature: +had an excellent fancy; brave notions and gentle expressions: wherein +he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should +be stopped.... His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had +been so, too. Many times he fell into those things could not escape +laughter.... But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was +ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned."] + +[Footnote 608: Sir Henry Wotton. An English diplomatist and author of +wide culture.] + +[Footnote 609: The following persons, etc. The persons enumerated were +all people of note of the seventeenth century. Sir Philip Sidney, Earl +of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, Sir Henry Vane, +Isaac Walton, Dr. John Donne, Abraham Cowley, Charles Cotton, John +Pym, and John Hales were Englishmen, scholars, statesmen, and authors. +Theodore Beza was a French theologian; Isaac Casaubon was a +French-Swiss scholar; Roberto Berlarmine was an Italian cardinal; +Johann Kepler was a German astronomer; Francis Vieta was a French +mathematician; Albericus Gentilis was an Italian jurist; Paul Sarpi +was an Italian historian; Arminius was a Dutch theologian.] + +[Footnote 610: Many others whom doubtless, etc. Emerson here +enumerates some famous English authors of the same period, not +mentioned in the preceeding list.] + +[Footnote 611: Pericles. See note on _Heroism_, 352.] + +[Footnote 612: Lessing. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a German critic and +poet of the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 613: Wieland. Christopher Martin Wieland was a German +contemporary of Lessing's, who made a prose translation into German of +Shakespeare's plays.] + +[Footnote 614: Schlegel. August Wilhelm von Schlegel, a German critic +and poet, who about the first of the nineteenth century translated +some of Shakespeare's plays into classical German.] + +[Footnote 615: Hamlet. The hero of Shakespeare's play of the same +name.] + +[Footnote 616: Coleridge. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet, +author of critical lectures and notes on Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 617: Goethe. (See note 85.)] + +[Footnote 618: Blackfriar's Theater. A famous London theater in which +nearly all the great dramas of the Elizabethan age were performed.] + +[Footnote 619: Stratford. Stratford-on-Avon, a little town in +Warwickshire, England, where Shakespeare was born and where he spent +his last years.] + +[Footnote 620: Macbeth. One of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, +written about 1606.] + +[Footnote 621: Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and Collier. English scholars +of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who edited the works of +Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 622: Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont: The +leading London theaters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.] + +[Footnote 623: Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready, famous +British actors of the Shakespearian parts.] + +[Footnote 624: The Hamlet of a famed performer, etc. Macready. Emerson +said to a friend: "I see you are one of the happy mortals who are +capable of being carried away by an actor of Shakespeare. Now, +whenever I visit the theater to witness the performance of one of his +dramas, I am carried away by the poet."] + +[Footnote 625: What may this mean, etc. _Hamlet_, I. 4.] + +[Footnote 626: Midsummer Night's Dream. One of Shakespeare's plays.] + +[Footnote 627: The forest of Arden. In which is laid, the scene of +Shakespeare's play, _As You Like It_.] + +[Footnote 628: The nimble air of Scone Castle. It was of the air of +Inverness, not of Scone, that "the air nimbly and sweetly recommends +itself unto our gentle senses."--_Macbeth_, I. 6.] + +[Footnote 629: Portia's villa. See the moonlight scene, _Merchant of +Venice_, V. 1.] + +[Footnote 630: The antres vost, etc. See _Othello_, I. 3. "Antres" is +an old word, meaning caves, caverns.] + +[Footnote 631: Cyclopean architecture. In Greek mythology, the Cyclops +were a race of giants. The term 'Cyclopean' is applied here to the +architecture of Egypt and India, because of the majestic size of the +buildings, and the immense size of the stones used, as if it would +require giants to perform such works.] + +[Footnote 632: Phidian sculpture. Phidias was a famous Greek sculptor +who lived in the age of Pericles and beautified Athens with his +works.] + +[Footnote 633: Gothic minsters. Churches or cathedrals, built in the +Gothic, or pointed, style of architecture which prevailed during the +Middle Ages; it owed nothing to the Goths, and this term was +originally used in reproach, in the sense of "barbarous."] + +[Footnote 634: The Italian painting. In Italy during the fifteenth and +sixteenth centuries pictorial art was carried to a degree of +perfection unknown in any other time or country.] + +[Footnote 635: Ballads of Spain and Scotland. The old ballads of these +countries are noted for beauty and spirit.] + +[Footnote 636: Tripod. Define this word, and explain its +appropriateness here.] + +[Footnote 637: Aubrey. John Aubrey, an English antiquarian of the +seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 638: Rowe. Nicholas Rowe, an English author of the +seventeenth century, who wrote a biography of Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 639: Timon. See note on _Gifts_, 466.] + +[Footnote 640: Warwick. An English politician and commander of the +fifteenth century, called "the King Maker." He appears in +Shakespeare's plays, _Henry IV._, _V._, and _VI._] + +[Footnote 641: Antonio. The Venetian Merchant in Shakespeare's play, +_The Merchant of Venice_.] + +[Footnote 642: Talma. François Joseph Talma was a French tragic actor, +to whom Napoleon showed favor.] + +[Footnote 643: An omnipresent humanity, etc. See what Carlyle has to +say on this subject in his _Hero as Poet_.] + +[Footnote 644: Daguerre. Louis Jacques Daguerre, a French painter, one +of the inventors of the daguerreotype process, by means of which an +image is fixed on a metal plate by the chemical action of light.] + +[Footnote 645: Euphuism. The word here has rather the force of +euphemism, an entirely different word. Euphuism was an affected ornate +style of expression, so called from _Euphues_, by John Lyly, a +sixteenth century master of that style.] + +[Footnote 646: Epicurus. A Greek philosopher of the third century +before Christ. He was the founder of the Epicurean school of +philosophy which taught that pleasure should be man's chief aim and +that the highest pleasure is freedom.] + +[Footnote 647: Dante. (See note 258.)] + +[Footnote 648: Master of the revels, etc. Emerson always expressed +thankfulness for "the spirit of joy which Shakespeare had shed over +the universe." See what Carlyle says in _The Hero as Poet_, about +Shakespeare's "mirthfulness and love of laughter."] + +[Footnote 649: Koran. The Sacred book of the Mohammedans.] + +[Footnote 650: Twelfth Night, etc. The names of three bright, merry, +or serene plays by Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 651: Egyptian verdict. Emerson used Egyptian probably in the +sense of "gipsy." He compares such opinions to the fortunes told by +the gipsies.] + +[Footnote 652: Tasso. An Italian poet of the sixteenth century.] + +[Footnote 653: Cervantes. A Spanish poet and romancer of the sixteenth +century, the author of _Don Quixote_.] + +[Footnote 654: Israelite. Such Hebrew prophets as Isaiah and +Jeremiah.] + +[Footnote 655: German. Such as Luther.] + +[Footnote 656: Swede. Such as Swedenborg, the mystic philosopher of +the eighteenth century of whom Emerson had already written in +_Representative Men_.] + +[Footnote 657: A pilgrim's progress. As described by John Bunyan, the +English writer, in his famous _Pilgrim's Progress_.] + +[Footnote 658: Doleful histories of Adam's fall, etc. The subject of +_Paradise Lost,_ the great poem by John Milton.] + +[Footnote 659: With doomsdays and purgatorial, etc. As described by +Dante in his _Divine Commedia_, an epic about hell, purgatory, and +paradise.] + + +PRUDENCE + +[Footnote 660: The essay on _Prudence_ was given as a lecture in +the course on _Human Culture_, in the winter of 1837-8. It was +published in the first series of _Essays_, which appeared in 1841.] + +[Footnote 661: Lubricity. The word means literally the state or +quality of being slippery; Emerson uses it several times, in its +derived sense of "instability."] + +[Footnote 662: Love and Friendship. The subjects of the two essays +preceding _Prudence_, in the volume of 1841.] + +[Footnote 663: The world is filled with the proverbs, etc. Compare +with this passage Emerson's words in _Compensation_ on "the flights of +proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as that of +birds and flies."] + +[Footnote 664: A good wheel or pin. That is, a part of a machine.] + +[Footnote 665: The law of polarity. Having two opposite poles, the +properties of the one of which are the opposite of the other.] + +[Footnote 666: Summer will have its flies. Emerson discoursed +with philosophic calm about the impediments and disagreeableness which +beset every path; he also accepted them with serenity when he +encountered them in his daily life.] + +[Footnote 667: The inhabitants of the climates, etc. As a +northerner, Emerson naturally felt that the advantage and superiority +were with his own section. He expressed in his poems _Voluntaries_ and +_Mayday_ views similar to those declared here.] + +[Footnote 668: Peninsular campaign. Emerson here refers to +the military operations carried on from 1808 to 1814 in Portugal, +Spain, and southern France against the French, by the British, +Spanish, and Portuguese forces commanded by Wellington. What was the +"Peninsular campaign" in American history?] + +[Footnote 669: Dr. Johnson is reported to have said, etc. Dr. +Samuel Johnson was an eminent English scholar of the eighteenth +century. In this, as in many other instances, Emerson quotes from his +memory instead of from the book. The words of Dr. Johnson, as reported +by his biographer Boswell, are: "Accustom your children constantly to +this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, +say it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check +them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."] + +[Footnote 670: Rifle. A local name in England and New England +for an instrument, on the order of a whetstone, used for sharpening +scythes; it is made of wood, covered with fine sand or emery.] + +[Footnote 671: Last grand duke of Weimar. Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach is a +grand duchy of Germany. The grand duke referred to was Charles +Augustus, who died in 1828. He was the friend and patron of the great +German authors, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland.] + +[Footnote 672: The Raphael in the Dresden gallery. The Sistine +Madonna, the most famous picture of the great Italian artist, +Raphael.] + +[Footnote 673: Call a spade a spade. Plutarch, the Greek historian, +said, "These Macedonians ... call a spade a spade."] + +[Footnote 674: Parts. A favorite eighteenth century term for +abilities, talents.] + +[Footnote 675: We have found out, etc. Emerson always insisted that +morals and intellect should be united. He urged that power and +insight are lessened by shortcomings in morals.] + +[Footnote 676: Goethe's Tasso. A play by the German poet +Goethe, founded on the belief that the imprisonment of Tasso was due +to his aspiration to the hand of Leonora d'Este, sister of the duke of +Ferrara. Tasso was a famous Italian poet of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 677: Richard III. An English king, the last of the +Plantagenet line, the hero--or villain--of Shakespeare's historical +play, Richard III.] + +[Footnote 678: Bifold. Give a simpler word that means the same.] + +[Footnote 679: Cæsar. Why is Cæsar the great Roman ruler, given as a +type of greatness?] + +[Footnote 680: Job. Why is Job, the hero of the Old Testament book of +the same name, given as a type of misery?] + +[Footnote 681: Poor Richard. _Poor Richard's Almanac_, +published (1732-1757) by Benjamin Franklin was a collection of maxims +inculcating prudence and thrift. These were given as the sayings of +"Poor Richard."] + +[Footnote 682: State Street. A street in Boston, Massachusetts, noted +as a financial center.] + +[Footnote 683: Stick in a tree between whiles, etc. "Jock, when ye hae +naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be +growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping."--Scott's _Heart of Midlothian_. +It is said that these were the words of a dying Scotchman to his son.] + +[Footnote 684: Minor virtues. Emerson suggests that punctuality and +regard for a promise are two of these. Can you name others?] + +[Footnote 685: The Latin proverb says, etc. This is quoted from +Tacitus, the famous Roman historian.] + +[Footnote 686: If he set out to contend, etc. In contention, +Emerson holds, the best men would lose their characteristic virtues, +--the fearless apostle Paul, his devotion to truth; the gentle +disciple John, his loving charity.] + +[Footnote 687: Though your views are in straight antagonism, &c. This +was Emerson's own method, and by it he won a courteous hearing from +those to whom his views were most objectionable.] + +[Footnote 688: Consuetudes. Give a simpler word that has the same +meaning.] + +[Footnote 689: Begin where we will, etc. Explain what Emerson means by +this expression.] + + +CIRCLES + +[Footnote 690: This essay first appeared in the first series of +_Essays_, published in 1841. Unlike most of the other essays in the +volume, no earlier form of it exists, and it was probably not +delivered first as a lecture. + +Dr. Richard Garnett says in his _Life of Emerson_: "The object of this +fine essay quaintly entitled _Circles_ is to reconcile this rigidity +of unalterable law with the fact of human progress. Compensation +illustrates one property of a circle, which always returns to the +point where it began, but it is no less true that around every circle +another can be drawn.... Emerson followed his own counsel; he always +keeps a reserve of power. His theory of _Circles_ reappears without +the least verbal indebtedness to himself in the splendid essay on +_Love_."] + +[Footnote 691: St. Augustine. A celebrated father of the +Latin church, who flourished in the fourth century. His most famous +work is his _Confessions_, an autobiographical volume of religious +meditations.] + +[Footnote 692: Another dawn risen on mid-noon. "Another morn has risen +on mid-noon." Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book V.] + +[Footnote 693: Greek sculpture. The greatest development of +the art of sculpture that the world has ever known was that which took +place in Greece, with Athens as the center, in the fifth century +before Christ. The masterpieces which remain are the models on which +modern art formed itself.] + +[Footnote 694: Greek letters. In literature--in drama, philosophy and +history--Greece attained an excellence as signal as in art. Emerson as +a scholar, felt that the literature of Greece was more permanent than +its art. Would an artist be apt to take this view?] + +[Footnote 695: New arts destroy the old, etc. Tell the ways in which +the improvements and inventions mentioned by Emerson have been +superseded by others; give the reasons. Mention other similar cases of +more recent date.] + +[Footnote 696: The life of man is a self-evolving circle, etc. "Throw a +stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the +beautiful type of all influence."--EMERSON, in _Nature_.] + +[Footnote 697: The heart refuses to be imprisoned. It is a +superstition current in many countries that an evil spirit cannot +escape from a circle drawn round it.] + +[Footnote 698: Crass. Gross; coarse.] + +[Footnote 699: The continual effort to raise himself above +himself, etc. + + "Unless above himself he can + Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!" + SAMUEL DANIEL. + +] + +[Footnote 700: If he were high enough, etc. + + Have I a lover + Who is noble and free?-- + I would he were nobler + Than to love me.--EMERSON, _The Sphinx._ + +] + +[Footnote 701: Aristotle and Plato. Plato was a famous Greek +philosopher who flourished in the fourth century before Christ. He was +the disciple of Socrates, the teacher of Aristotle, and the founder of +the academic school of philosophy. His exposition of idealism was +founded on the teachings of Socrates. Aristotle, another famous Greek +philosopher, was for twenty years the pupil of Plato. He founded the +peripatetic school of philosophy, and his writing dealt with all the +then known branches of science.] + +[Footnote 702: Berkeley. George Berkeley was a British clergyman of +the eighteenth century. He was the author of works on philosophy which +are marked by extreme subjective idealism.] + +[Footnote 703: Termini. Boundaries or marks to indicate boundaries. In +Roman mythology, Terminus was the god who presided over boundaries or +landmarks. He is represented with a human head, but without feet or +arms,--to indicate that he never moved from his place.] + +[Footnote 704: Pentecost. One of three great Jewish festivals. On the +day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the infant Christian +church, with the gift of tongues. See Acts ii. 1-20.] + +[Footnote 705: Hodiernal. Belonging to our present day.] + +[Footnote 706: Punic. Of Carthage, a famous ancient city, and +state of northern Africa. Carthage was the rival of Rome, but was, +after long warfare, overcome in the second century before Christ.] + +[Footnote 707: In like manner, etc. Emerson always urged that in order +to get the best from all, one must pass from affairs to thought, +society to solitude, books to nature. + + "See thou bring not to field or stone + The fancies found in books; + Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, + To brave the landscape's look."--EMERSON, + _Waldeinsamkeit_. + +] + +[Footnote 708: Petrarch. (See note 563.)] + +[Footnote 709: Ariosto. A famous Italian author of the sixteenth +century, who wrote comedies, satires, and a metrical romance, _Orlando +Furioso_.] + +[Footnote 710: "Then shall also the Son", etc. See 1 Corinthians xv. +28: Does Emerson quote the passage verbatim?] + +[Footnote 711: These manifold tenacious qualities, etc. It is +remarked of Emerson that the idea of the symbolism of nature which he +received from Plato, was the source of much of his pleasure in +Swedenborg, the Swedish mystic philosopher. Emerson says in his volume +on _Nature_: "The noblest ministry of nature is to stand as an +apparition of God."] + +[Footnote 712: "Forgive his crimes," etc. This is quoted from _Night +Thoughts_ by the English didactic poet, Edward Young.] + +[Footnote 713: Pyrrhonism. A doctrine held by a follower of Pyrrho, a +Greek philosopher of the third century before Christ, who founded the +sceptical school. He taught that it is impossible to attain truth, and +that men should be indifferent to all external circumstances.] + +[Footnote 714: I own I am gladdened, etc. Emerson always held fast to +the consoling thought that there was no evil without good, none out of +which Good did not or could not come.] + +[Footnote 715: Sempiternal. Everlasting; eternal.] + +[Footnote 716: Oliver Cromwell. An Englishman of the middle classes +who became the military and civil leader of the English Revolution of +the seventeenth century. He refused the title of king; but as Lord +Protector of the English commonwealth, he exercised royal power.] + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and + most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no + restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it + under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this + eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the + United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where + you are located before using this eBook. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that: + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without +widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + diff --git a/16643-0.zip b/16643-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4de578d --- /dev/null +++ b/16643-0.zip diff --git a/16643-h.zip b/16643-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d0031d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/16643-h.zip diff --git a/16643-h/16643-h.htm b/16643-h/16643-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d8d124f --- /dev/null +++ b/16643-h/16643-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10725 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + h2 { text-align:center; margin-top: 2em; } + .img1 { +border-style: solid; +border-width: 1px +} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + + .d2 {margin-left:2em; } + .d10 {margin-left:10em; } + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; text-indent: 0; font-weight: normal; color: gray; font-size: 0.7em; text-align: right;} + /* page numbers */ + + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table { width: 60%; padding: 1em; text-align: left; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + .tr {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + .tocpg {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .footnotes { /* only use is for border, background-color of block */ + border-width: medium; border-style: solid; color:#000000; /* comment out if not wanted */ + background-color: #EEE; /* comment out if not wanted */ + padding: 0 1em 1em 1em; /* one way to indent from border */ + } + + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: middle; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em;} + .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em;} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em;} + .poem span.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 12em;} + .poem span.i16 {display: block; margin-left: 16em;} + .poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: 1em;} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em;} + .poem span.i11 {display: block; margin-left: 11em;} + .poem span.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 12em;} + .poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 3em;} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em;} + .poem span.i7 {display: block; margin-left: 7em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Essays</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Editor: Edna H. L. Turpin</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 4, 2005 [eBook #16643]<br /> +[Most recently updated: April 29, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Curtis A. Weyant, Sankar Viswanathan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ***</div> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/image_01.jpg" alt="RALPH WALDO EMERSON" width="300" height="405" /></p> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>[1] </span></p> + +<h1>ESSAYS</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>RALPH WALDO EMERSON</h2> + +<h3>Merrill's English Texts</h3> + +<p class="center">SELECTED AND EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION<br /> +AND NOTES, BY EDNA H.L. TURPIN, AUTHOR<br /> +OF "STORIES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY,"<br /> +"CLASSIC FABLES," "FAMOUS PAINTERS," ETC.</p> + + + +<p class="center"> </p> +<p class="center"> </p> +<p class="center"> </p> +<p class="center"> </p> +<p class="center"> </p> +<p class="center"> </p> +<p class="center"> </p> +<p class="center"> </p> +<p class="center"> </p> +<h3>NEW YORK<br /> +CHARLES E. MERRILL CO.<br /> + +1907</h3> + + + <p><span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a>[3] </span></p> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<table summary="Contents" style="font-variant:small-caps"> + <tr> + <td>Introduction</td> + <td class="tocpg">Page</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span style="margin-left:1em"><a href="#LIFE_OF_EMERSON">Life of Emerson</a></span></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span style="margin-left:1em"><a href="#CRITICAL_OPINIONS_OF_EMERSON_AND_HIS_WRITINGS">Critical Opinions</a></span></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span style="margin-left:1em"><a href="#Chronological_List">Chronological List of Principal Works</a></span></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#THE_AMERICAN_SCHOLAR">The American Scholar</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#COMPENSATION">Compensation</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#SELF-RELIANCE">Self Reliance</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#FRIENDSHIP">Friendship</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#HEROISM">Heroism</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#MANNERS">Manners</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#GIFTS">Gifts</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#NATURE">Nature</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#SHAKSPEARE_OR_THE_POET">Shakespeare; or, the Poet</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#PRUDENCE">Prudence</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#CIRCLES">Circles</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#NOTES">Notes</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> + + + + + + + + + + +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>[4] </span> </p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PUBLISHERS_NOTE" id="PUBLISHERS_NOTE"></a>PUBLISHERS' NOTE</h2> + +<p>Merrill's English Texts</p> + + +<p>This series of books will include in complete editions those +masterpieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the use +of schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes will be +chosen for their special qualifications in connection with the texts +to be issued under their individual supervision, but familiarity with +the practical needs of the classroom, no less than sound scholarship, +will characterize the editing of every book in the series.</p> + +<p>In connection with each text, a critical and historical introduction, +including a sketch of the life of the author and his relation to the +thought of his time, critical opinions of the work in question chosen +from the great body of English criticism, and, where possible, a +portrait of the author, will be given. Ample explanatory notes of such +passages in the text as call for special attention will be supplied, +but irrelevant annotation and explanations of the obvious will be +rigidly excluded.</p> + +<p>CHARLES E. MERRILL CO.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center"><img class="img1" src="images/image_02.jpg" alt="Home of Emerson in Concord." width="380" height="268" /><br /> +<span class="caption smcap">Home of Emerson in Concord.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>[5] </span> </p> +<h2><a name="LIFE_OF_EMERSON" id="LIFE_OF_EMERSON"></a>LIFE OF EMERSON</h2> + + + + +<p>Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, May 25, 1803. He was descended +from a long line of New England ministers, men of refinement and +education. As a school-boy he was quiet and retiring, reading a great +deal, but not paying much attention to his lessons. He entered Harvard +at the early age of fourteen, but never attained a high rank there, +although he took a prize for an essay on Socrates, and was made class +poet after several others had declined. Next to his reserve and the +faultless propriety of his conduct, his contemporaries at college +seemed most impressed by the great maturity of his mind. Emerson +appears never to have been really a boy. He was always serene and +thoughtful, impressing all who knew him with that spirituality which +was his most distinguishing characteristic.</p> + +<p>After graduating from college he taught school for a time, and then +entered the Harvard Divinity School under Dr. Channing, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>[6] </span> the great +Unitarian preacher. Although he was not strong enough to attend all +the lectures of the divinity course, the college authorities deemed +the name Emerson sufficient passport to the ministry. He was +accordingly "approbated to preach" by the Middlesex Association of +Ministers on October 10, 1826. As a preacher, Emerson was interesting, +though not particularly original. His talent seems to have been in +giving new meaning to the old truths of religion. One of his hearers +has said: "In looking back on his preaching I find he has impressed +truths to which I always assented in such a manner as to make them +appear new, like a clearer revelation." Although his sermons were +always couched in scriptural language, they were touched with the +light of that genius which avoids the conventional and commonplace. In +his other pastoral duties Emerson was not quite so successful. It is +characteristic of his deep humanity and his dislike for all fuss and +commonplace that he appeared to least advantage at a funeral. A +connoisseur in such matters, an old sexton, once remarked that on such +occasions "he did not appear at ease at all. To tell the truth, in my +opinion, that young man was not born to be a minister."</p> + +<p>Emerson did not long remain a minister. In 1832 he preached a sermon +in which he announced certain views in regard to the communion service +which were disapproved by a large part of his congregation. He found +it impossible to continue preaching, and, with the most friendly +feelings on both sides, he parted from his congregation.</p> + +<p>A few months later (1833) he went to Europe for a short year of +travel. While abroad, he visited Walter Savage Landor, Coleridge and +Wordsworth, and Thomas Carlyle. This visit to Carlyle was to both men +a most interesting experience. They parted feeling that they had much +intellectually in common. This belief fostered a sympathy which, by +the time they had discovered how different they really were, had grown +so strong a habit that they always kept up their intimacy. This year +of travel opened Emerson's eyes to many <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>[7] </span> things of which he had +previously been ignorant; he had profited by detachment from the +concerns of a limited community and an isolated church.</p> + +<p>After his return he began to find his true field of activity in the +lecture-hall, and delivered a number of addresses in Boston and its +vicinity. While thus coming before the open public on the lecture +platform, he was all the time preparing the treatise which was to +embody all the quintessential elements of his philosophical doctrine. +This was the essay <i>Nature</i>, which was published in 1836. By its +conception of external Nature as an incarnation of the Divine Mind it +struck the fundamental principle of Emerson's religious belief. The +essay had a very small circulation at first, though later it became +widely known.</p> + +<p>In the winter of 1836 Emerson followed up his discourse on Nature by a +course of twelve lectures on the "Philosophy of History," a +considerable portion of which eventually became embodied in his +essays. The next year (1837) was the year of the delivery of the <i>Man +Thinking, or the American Scholar</i> address before the Phi Beta Kappa +Society at Cambridge.</p> + +<p>This society, composed of the first twenty-five men in each class +graduating from college, has annual meetings which have called forth +the best efforts of many distinguished scholars and thinkers. +Emerson's address was listened to with the most profound interest. It +declared a sort of intellectual independence for America. Henceforth +we were to be emancipated from clogging foreign influences, and a +national literature was to expand under the fostering care of the +Republic.</p> + +<p>These two discourses, <i>Nature</i> and <i>The American Scholar</i>, strike the +keynote of Emerson's philosophical, poetical, and moral teachings. In +fact he had, as every great teacher has, only a limited number of +principles and theories to teach. These principles of life can all be +enumerated in twenty words—self-reliance, culture, intellectual and +moral independence, the divinity of nature and man, the necessity of +labor, and high ideals.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>[8] </span> </p> + +<p>Emerson spent the latter part of his life in lecturing and in literary +work. His son, Dr. Edward Emerson, gave an interesting account of how +these lectures were constructed. "All through his life he kept a +journal. This book, he said, was his 'Savings Bank.' The thoughts thus +received and garnered in his journals were indexed, and a great many +of them appeared in his published works. They were religiously set +down just as they came, in no order except chronological, but later +they were grouped, enlarged or pruned, illustrated, worked into a +lecture or discourse, and, after having in this capacity undergone +repeated testing and rearranging, were finally carefully sifted and +more rigidly pruned, and were printed as essays."</p> + +<p>Besides his essays and lectures Emerson left some poetry in which is +embodied those thoughts which were to him too deep for prose +expression. Oliver Wendell Holmes in speaking of this says: "Emerson +wrote occasionally in verse from his school-days until he had reached +the age which used to be known as the grand climacteric, +sixty-three.... His poems are not and hardly can become popular; they +are not meant to be liked by the many, but to be dearly loved and +cherished by the few.... His occasional lawlessness in technical +construction, his somewhat fantastic expressions, his enigmatic +obscurities hardly detract from the pleasant surprise his verses so +often bring with them.... The poetic license which we allow in the +verse of Emerson is more than excused by the noble spirit which makes +us forget its occasional blemishes, sometimes to be pleased with them +as characteristic of the writer."</p> + +<p>Emerson was always a striking figure in the intellectual life of +America. His discourses were above all things inspiring. Through them +many were induced to strive for a higher self-culture. His influence +can be discerned in all the literary movements of the time. He was the +central figure of the so-called transcendental school which was so +prominent fifty <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>[9] </span> years ago, although he always rather held aloof from +any enthusiastic participation in the movement.</p> + +<p>Emerson lived a quiet life in Concord, Massachusetts. "He was a +first-rate neighbor and one who always kept his fences up." He +traveled extensively on his lecturing tours, even going as far as +England. In <i>English Traits</i> he has recorded his impressions of what +he saw of English life and manners.</p> + +<p>Oliver Wendell Holmes has described him in this wise: "His personal +appearance was that of the typical New Englander of college-bred +ancestry. Tall, spare, slender, with sloping shoulders, slightly +stooping in his later years, with light hair and eyes, the scholar's +complexion, the prominent, somewhat arched nose which belongs to many +of the New England sub-species, thin lips, suggestive of delicacy, but +having nothing like primness, still less of the rigidity which is +often noticeable in the generation succeeding next to that of the men +in their shirt-sleeves, he would have been noticed anywhere as one +evidently a scholarly thinker astray from the alcove or the study, +which were his natural habitats. His voice was very sweet, and +penetrating without any loudness or mark of effort. His enunciation +was beautifully clear, but he often hesitated as if waiting for the +right word to present itself. His manner was very quiet, his smile was +pleasant, but he did not like explosive laughter any better than +Hawthorne did. None who met him can fail to recall that serene and +kindly presence, in which there was mingled a certain spiritual +remoteness with the most benignant human welcome to all who were +privileged to enjoy his companionship."</p> + +<p>Emerson died April 27, 1882, after a few days' illness from pneumonia. +Dr. Garnett in his excellent biography says: "Seldom had 'the reaper +whose name is Death' gathered such illustrious harvest as between +December 1880 and April 1882. In the first month of this period George +Eliot passed away, in the ensuing February Carlyle followed; in April +Lord Beaconsfield died, deplored by his party, nor unregretted <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>[10] </span> by his +country; in February of the following year Longfellow was carried to +the tomb; in April Rossetti was laid to rest by the sea, and the +pavement of Westminster Abbey was disturbed to receive the dust of +Darwin. And now Emerson lay down in death beside the painter of man +and the searcher of nature, the English-Oriental statesman, the poet +of the plain man and the poet of the artist, and the prophet whose +name is indissolubly linked with his own. All these men passed into +eternity laden with the spoils of Time, but of none of them could it +be said, as of Emerson, that the most shining intellectual glory and +the most potent intellectual force of a continent had departed along +with him."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>[11] </span> </p> +<h2><a name="CRITICAL_OPINIONS_OF_EMERSON_AND_HIS_WRITINGS" id="CRITICAL_OPINIONS_OF_EMERSON_AND_HIS_WRITINGS"></a>CRITICAL OPINIONS OF EMERSON AND HIS WRITINGS.</h2> + + +<p><b>Matthew Arnold</b>, in an address on Emerson delivered in Boston, gave +an excellent estimate of the rank we should accord to him in the great +hierarchy of letters. Some, perhaps, will think that Arnold was +unappreciative and cold, but dispassionate readers will be inclined to +agree with his judgment of our great American.</p> + +<p>After a review of the poetical works of Emerson the English critic +draws his conclusions as follows:</p> + +<p>"I do not then place Emerson among the great poets. But I go farther, +and say that I do not place him among the great writers, the great men +of letters. Who are the great men of letters? They are men like +Cicero, Plato, Bacon, Pascal, Swift, Voltaire—writers with, in the +first place, a genius and instinct for style.... Brilliant and +powerful passages in a man's writings do not prove his possession of +it. Emerson has passages of noble and pathetic eloquence; he has +passages of shrewd and felicitous wit; he has crisp epigram; he has +passages of exquisitely touched observation of nature. Yet he is not a +great writer.... Carlyle formulates perfectly the defects of his +friend's poetic and literary productions when he says: 'For me it is +too ethereal, speculative, theoretic; I will have all things condense +themselves, take shape and body, if they are to have my sympathy.' ...</p> + +<p>" .... Not with the Miltons and Grays, not with the Platos and Spinozas, +not with the Swifts and Voltaires, not with the Montaignes and +Addisons, can we rank Emerson. No man could see this clearer than +Emerson himself. 'Alas, my friend,' he writes in reply to Carlyle, who +had exhorted him to creative work,—'Alas, my friend, I can do no such +gay thing as you say. I do not belong to the poets, but only to a low +department of literature,—the reporters; suburban men.' He deprecated +his friend's praise; praise 'generous to a <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>[12] </span> fault' he calls it; praise +'generous to the shaming of me,—cold, fastidious, ebbing person that +I am.'"</p> + +<p>After all this unfavorable criticism Arnold begins to praise. Quoting +passages from the Essays, he adds:</p> + +<p>"This is tonic indeed! And let no one object that it is too general; +that more practical, positive direction is what we want.... Yes, +truly, his insight is admirable; his truth is precious. Yet the secret +of his effect is not even in these; it is in his temper. It is in the +hopeful, serene, beautiful temper wherewith these, in Emerson, are +indissolubly united; in which they work and have their being.... One +can scarcely overrate the importance of holding fast to happiness and +hope. It gives to Emerson's work an invaluable virtue. As Wordsworth's +poetry is, in my judgment, the most important done in verse, in our +language, during the present century, so Emerson's Essays are, I +think, the most important work done in prose.... But by his conviction +that in the life of the spirit is happiness, and by his hope that this +life of the spirit will come more and more to be sanely understood, +and to prevail, and to work for happiness,—by this conviction and +hope Emerson was great, and he will surely prove in the end to have +been right in them.... You cannot prize him too much, nor heed him too +diligently."</p> + +<p><b>Herman Grimm</b>, a German critic of great influence in his own country, +did much to obtain a hearing for Emerson's works in Germany. At first +the Germans could not understand the unusual English, the unaccustomed +turns of phrase which are so characteristic of Emerson's style.</p> + +<p>"Macaulay gives them no difficulty; even Carlyle is comprehended. But +in Emerson's writings the broad turnpike is suddenly changed into a +hazardous sandy foot-path. His thoughts and his style are American. He +is not writing for Berlin, but for the people of Massachusetts.... It +is an art to rise above what we have been taught.... All great men are +seen to possess this freedom. They derive their standard from their +own natures, and their observations on <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>[13] </span> life are so natural and +spontaneous that it would seem as if the most illiterate person with a +scrap of common-sense would have made the same.... We become wiser +with them, and know not how the difficult appears easy and the +involved plain.</p> + +<p>"Emerson possesses this noble manner of communicating himself. He +inspires me with courage and confidence. He has read and seen but +conceals the labor. I meet in his works plenty of familiar facts, but +he does not employ them to figure up anew the old worn-out problems: +each stands on a new spot and serves for new combinations. From +everything he sees the direct line issuing which connects it with the +focus of life....</p> + +<p>" .... Emerson's theory is that of the 'sovereignty of the individual.' +To discover what a young man is good for, and to equip him for the +path he is to strike out in life, regardless of any other +consideration, is the great duty to which he calls attention. He makes +men self-reliant. He reveals to the eyes of the idealist the +magnificent results of practical activity, and unfolds before the +realist the grandeur of the ideal world of thought. No man is to allow +himself, through prejudice, to make a mistake in choosing the task to +which he will devote his life. Emerson's essays are, as it were, +printed sermons—all having this same text.... The wealth and harmony +of his language overpowered and entranced me anew. But even now I +cannot say wherein the secret of his influence lies. What he has +written is like life itself—the unbroken thread ever lengthened +through the addition of the small events which make up each day's +experience."</p> + +<p><b>Froude</b> in his famous "Life of Carlyle" gives an interesting +description of Emerson's visit to the Carlyles in Scotland:</p> + +<p>"The Carlyles were sitting alone at dinner on a Sunday afternoon at +the end of August when a Dumfries carriage drove to the door, and +there stepped out of it a young American <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>[14] </span> then unknown to fame, but +whose influence in his own country equals that of Carlyle in ours, and +whose name stands connected with his wherever the English language is +spoken. Emerson, the younger of the two, had just broken his Unitarian +fetters, and was looking out around him like a young eagle longing for +light. He had read Carlyle's articles and had discerned with the +instinct of genius that here was a voice speaking real and fiery +convictions, and no longer echoes and conventionalisms. He had come to +Europe to study its social and spiritual phenomena; and to the young +Emerson as to the old Goethe, the most important of them appeared to +be Carlyle.... The acquaintance then begun to their mutual pleasure +ripened into a deep friendship, which has remained unclouded in spite +of wide divergences of opinion throughout their working lives."</p> + +<p><b>Carlyle</b> wrote to his mother after Emerson had left:</p> + +<p>"Our third happiness was the arrival of a certain young unknown friend +named Emerson, from Boston, in the United States, who turned aside so +far from his British, French, and Italian travels to see me here! He +had an introduction from Mill and a Frenchman (Baron d'Eichthal's +nephew) whom John knew at Rome. Of course, we could do no other than +welcome him; the rather as he seemed to be one of the most lovable +creatures in himself we had ever looked on. He stayed till next day +with us, and talked and heard to his heart's content, and left us all +really sad to part with him."</p> + +<p>In 1841 Carlyle wrote to John Sterling a few words apropos of the +recent publication of Emerson's essays in England:</p> + +<p>"I love Emerson's book, not for its detached opinions, not even for +the scheme of the general world he has framed for himself, or any +eminence of talent he has expressed that with, but simply because it +is his own book; because there is a tone of veracity, an unmistakable +air of its being <i>his</i>, and a real utterance of a human soul, not a +mere echo of such. I consider it, in that sense, highly remarkable, +rare, very rare, in these days of ours. Ach Gott! It is frightful to +live <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>[15] </span> among echoes. The few that read the book, I imagine, will get +benefit of it. To America, I sometimes say that Emerson, such as he +is, seems to me like a kind of New Era."</p> + +<p><b>John Morley</b>, the acute English critic, has made an analytic study of +Emerson's style, which may reconcile the reader to some of its +exasperating peculiarities.</p> + +<p>"One of the traits that every critic notes in Emerson's writing is +that it is so abrupt, so sudden in its transitions, so discontinuous, +so inconsecutive. Dislike of a sentence that drags made him +unconscious of the quality that French critics name <i>coulant</i>. +Everything is thrown in just as it comes, and sometimes the pell-mell +is enough to persuade us that Pope did not exaggerate when he said +that no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer as the +power of rejecting his own thoughts.... Apart from his difficult +staccato, Emerson is not free from secondary faults. He uses words +that are not only odd, but vicious in construction; he is sometimes +oblique and he is often clumsy; and there is a visible feeling after +epigrams that do not always come. When people say that Emerson's style +must be good and admirable because it fits his thought, they forget +that though it is well that a robe should fit, there is still +something to be said about its cut and fashion.... Yet, as happens to +all fine minds, there came to Emerson ways of expression deeply marked +with character. On every page there is set the strong stamp of +sincerity, and the attraction of a certain artlessness; the most +awkward sentence rings true; and there is often a pure and simple note +that touches us more than if it were the perfection of elaborated +melody. The uncouth procession of the periods discloses the travail of +the thought, and that, too, is a kind of eloquence. An honest reader +easily forgives the rude jolt or unexpected start when it shows a +thinker faithfully working his way along arduous and unworn tracks. +Even at the roughest, Emerson often interjects a delightful cadence. +As he says of Landor, his sentences are cubes which will stand firm, +place them how or where you will. He criticised <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>[16] </span> Swedenborg for being +superfluously explanatory, and having an exaggerated feeling of the +ignorance of men. 'Men take truths of this nature,' said Emerson, +'very fast;' and his own style does no doubt very boldly take this +capacity for granted in us. In 'choice and pith of diction,' again, of +which Mr. Lowell speaks, he hits the mark with a felicity that is +almost his own in this generation. He is terse, concentrated, and free +from the important blunder of mistaking intellectual dawdling for +meditation. Nor in fine does his abruptness ever impede a true +urbanity. The accent is homely and the apparel plain, but his bearing +has a friendliness, a courtesy, a hospitable humanity, which goes +nearer to our hearts than either literary decoration or rhetorical +unction. That modest and lenient fellow-feeling which gave such charm +to his companionship breathes in his gravest writing, and prevents us +from finding any page of it cold or hard or dry."</p> + +<p><b>E.P. Whipple</b>, the well-known American critic, wrote soon after +Emerson's death:</p> + +<p>"But 'sweetness and light' are precious and inspiring only so far as +they express the essential sweetness of the disposition of the +thinker, and the essential illuminating power of his intelligence. +Emerson's greatness came from his character. Sweetness and light +streamed from him because they were <i>in</i> him. In everything he +thought, wrote, and did, we feel the presence of a personality as +vigorous and brave as it was sweet, and the particular radical thought +he at any time expressed derived its power to animate and illuminate +other minds from the might of the manhood, which was felt to be within +and behind it. To 'sweetness and light' he therefore added the prime +quality of fearless manliness.</p> + +<p>"If the force of Emerson's character was thus inextricably blended +with the force of all his faculties of intellect and imagination, and +the refinement of all his sentiments, we have still to account for the +peculiarities of his genius, and to answer the question, why do we +instinctively apply the epithet 'Emersonian' to every characteristic +passage in his writings? <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>[17] </span> We are told that he was the last in a long +line of clergymen, his ancestors, and that the modern doctrine of +heredity accounts for the impressive emphasis he laid on the moral +sentiment; but that does not solve the puzzle why he unmistakably +differed in his nature and genius from all other Emersons. An +imaginary genealogical chart of descent connecting him with Confucius +or Gautama would be more satisfactory.</p> + +<p>"What distinguishes <i>the</i> Emerson was his exceptional genius and +character, that something in him which separated him from all other +Emersons, as it separated him from all other eminent men of letters, +and impressed every intelligent reader with the feeling that he was +not only 'original but aboriginal.' Some traits of his mind and +character may be traced back to his ancestors, but what doctrine of +heredity can give us the genesis of his genius? Indeed, the safest +course to pursue is to quote his own words, and despairingly confess +that it is the nature of genius 'to spring, like the rainbow daughter +of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse all +history.'"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><span class="smcap"><a name="Chronological_List" id="Chronological_List"></a><b>Chronological List of Emerson's Principal Works.</b></span></h2> +<table summary="List of Works"> + <tr> + <td>Nature </td> + <td>1836</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Essays (First Series)</td> + <td>1841</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Essays (Second Series)</td> + <td>1844</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Poems</td> + <td>1847</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Miscellanies</td> + <td>1849</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Representative Men</td> + <td>1850</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>English Traits </td> + <td>1856</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Conduct of Life</td> + <td>1860</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Society and Solitude </td> + <td>1870</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and R.W. Emerson</td> + <td>1883</td> + </tr> + +</table> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>[19] </span> </p> +<h2><a name="THE_AMERICAN_SCHOLAR" id="THE_AMERICAN_SCHOLAR"></a>THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This address was delivered at Cambridge in 1837, before the +Harvard Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, a college +fraternity composed of the first twenty-five men in each +graduating class. The society has annual meetings, which +have been the occasion for addresses from the most +distinguished scholars and thinkers of the day.</p></div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. President and Gentlemen,</span></p> + +<p>I greet you on the recommencement of our literary year. Our +anniversary is one of hope, and, perhaps, not enough of labor. We do +not meet for games of strength<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> or skill, for the recitation of +histories, tragedies, and odes, like the ancient Greeks; for +parliaments of love and poesy, like the Troubadours;<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> nor for the +advancement of science, like our co-temporaries in the British and +European capitals. Thus far, our holiday has been simply a friendly +sign of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy +to give to letters any more. As such it is precious as the sign of an +indestructible instinct. Perhaps the time is already come when it +ought to be, and will be, something else; when the sluggard intellect + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>[20] </span> of this continent will look from under its iron lids and fill the +postponed expectation of the world with something better than the +exertions of mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, our long +apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The +millions that around us are rushing into life cannot always be fed on +the sere remains of foreign harvests.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Events, actions arise that +must be sung, that will sing themselves. Who can doubt that poetry +will revive and lead in a new age, as the star in the constellation +Harp, which now flames in our zenith, astronomers announce, shall one +day be the pole-star<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> for a thousand years?</p> + +<p>In the light of this hope I accept the topic which not only usage but +the nature of our association seem to prescribe to this day,—the +<span class="smcap">American Scholar</span>. Year by year we come up hither to read one +more chapter of his biography. Let us inquire what new lights, new +events, and more days have thrown on his character, his duties, and +his hopes.</p> + +<p>It is one of those fables which out of an unknown antiquity convey an +unlooked-for wisdom, that the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into +men, that he might be more helpful to himself; just as the hand was +divided into fingers, the better to answer its end.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is +One Man,—present to all particular men only partially, or through one +faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>[21] </span> whole +man. Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is +all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and +soldier. In the <i>divided</i> or social state these functions are parceled +out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> of the joint +work, whilst each other performs his. The fable implies that the +individual, to possess himself, must sometimes return from his own +labor to embrace all the other laborers. But, unfortunately, this +original unit, this fountain of power, has been so distributed to +multitudes, has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out, that it +is spilled into drops, and cannot be gathered. The state of society is +one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk and +strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a +stomach, an elbow, but never a man.</p> + +<p>Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, +who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered +by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel +and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead +of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth +to his work, but is ridden<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> by the routine of his craft, and the +soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the attorney a +statute-book; the mechanic a machine; the sailor a rope of the ship.</p> + +<p>In this distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated +intellect. In the right state he is <i>Man <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>[22] </span> Thinking</i>. In the degenerate +state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, +or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking.</p> + +<p>In this view of him, as Man Thinking, the whole theory of his office +is contained. Him Nature solicits with all her placid, all her +monitory pictures.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Him the past instructs. Him the future invites. +Is not indeed every man a student, and do not all things exist for the +student's behoof? And, finally, is not the true scholar the only true +master? But as the old oracle said, "All things have two handles: +Beware of the wrong one."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> In life, too often, the scholar errs with +mankind and forfeits his privilege. Let us see him in his school, and +consider him in reference to the main influences he receives.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I. The first in time and the first in importance of the influences +upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun;<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> and, after +sunset, Night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass +grows. Every day, men and women, conversing, beholding and +beholden.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> The scholar must needs stand wistful and admiring before +this great spectacle. He must settle its value in his mind. What is +nature to him? There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to +the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular +power returning into itself.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Therein it resembles his own spirit, +whose beginning, whose ending, he never can find,—so entire, so +boundless. Far too as her splendors shine, system on system shooting + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>[23] </span> like rays, upward, downward, without center, without +circumference,—in the mass and in the particle, Nature hastens to +render account of herself to the mind. Classification begins. To the +young mind everything is individual, stands by itself. By and by it +finds how to join two things and see in them one nature; then three, +then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying +instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, +discovering roots running under ground whereby contrary and remote +things cohere and flower out from one stem. It presently learns that +since the dawn of history there has been a constant accumulation and +classifying of facts. But what is classification but the perceiving +that these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a +law which is also a law of the human mind? The astronomer discovers +that geometry, a pure abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of +planetary motion. The chemist finds proportions and intelligible +method throughout matter; and science is nothing but the finding of +analogy, identity, in the most remote parts. The ambitious soul sits +down before each refractory fact; one after another reduces all +strange constitutions, all new powers, to their class and their law, +and goes on forever to animate the last fiber of organization, the +outskirts of nature, by insight.</p> + +<p>Thus to him, to this school-boy under the bending dome of day, is +suggested that he and it proceed from one Root; one is leaf and one is +flower; relation, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>[24] </span> sympathy, stirring in every vein. And what is that +root? Is not that the soul of his soul?—A thought too bold?—A dream +too wild? Yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of +more earthly natures,—when he has learned to worship the soul, and to +see that the natural philosophy that now is, is only the first +gropings of its gigantic hand,—he shall look forward to an +ever-expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> He shall see +that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for +part. One is seal and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his +own mind. Its laws are the laws of his own mind. Nature then becomes +to him the measure of his attainments. So much of nature as he is +ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he not yet possess. And, in +fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself,"<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> and the modern precept, +"Study nature," become at last one maxim.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>II. The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar is the +mind of the Past,—in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of +institutions, that mind is inscribed. Books are the best type of the +influence of the past, and perhaps we shall get at the truth,—learn +the amount of this influence more conveniently,—by considering their +value alone.</p> + +<p>The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received +into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new +arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again. It came into him +life; <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>[25] </span> it went out from him truth. It came to him short-lived actions; +it went out from him immortal thoughts. It came to him business; it +went from him poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It +can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now +inspires.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which +it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing.</p> + +<p>Or, I might say, it depends on how far the process had gone, of +transmuting life into truth. In proportion to the completeness of the +distillation, so will the purity and imperishableness of the product +be. But none is quite perfect. As no air-pump can by any means make a +perfect vacuum,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> so neither can any artist entirely exclude the +conventional, the local, the perishable from his book, or write a book +of pure thought, that shall be as efficient, in all respects, to a +remote posterity, as to contemporaries, or rather to the second age. +Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each +generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will +not fit this.</p> + +<p>Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacredness which attaches to +the act of creation, the act of thought, is instantly transferred to +the record. The poet chanting was felt to be a divine man. Henceforth +the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit. +Henceforward it is settled the book is perfect; as love of the hero +corrupts into worship of his statue. Instantly the book becomes +noxious.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>[26] </span> The guide is a tyrant. We sought a brother, and lo, a +governor. The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, always +slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, +having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry if +it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by +thinkers, not by Man Thinking, by men of talent, that is, who start +wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of +principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their +duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> which +Bacon,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were +only young men in libraries when they wrote these books.</p> + +<p>Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence the +book-learned class, who value books, as such; not as related to nature +and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> +with the world and soul. Hence the restorers of readings,<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> the +emendators,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> the bibliomaniacs<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> of all degrees. This is bad; +this is worse than it seems.</p> + +<p>Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What +is the right use? What is the one end which all means go to effect? +They are for nothing but to inspire.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> I had better never see a book +than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and +made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world of +value is the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>[27] </span> active soul,—the soul, free, sovereign, active. This +every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although +in almost all men obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees +absolute truth and utters truth, or creates. In this action it is +genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound +estate of every man.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> In its essence it is progressive. The book, +the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with +some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they,—let us hold by +this. They pin me down.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> They look backward and not forward. But +genius always looks forward. The eyes of man are set in his forehead, +not in his hindhead. Man hopes. Genius creates. To create,—to +create,—is the proof of a divine presence. Whatever talents may be, +if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not +his;<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>—cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are +creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative words; +manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or +authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good +and fair.</p> + +<p>On the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it receive +always from another mind its truth, though it were in torrents of +light, without periods of solitude, inquest, and self-recovery; and a +fatal disservice<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> is done. Genius is always sufficiently the enemy +of genius by over-influence.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> The literature of <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>[28] </span> every nation bear +me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakespearized now for two +hundred years.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> + +<p>Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly +subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. +Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, +the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of +their readings.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> But when the intervals of darkness come, as come +they must,—when the soul seeth not, when the sun is hid and the stars +withdraw their shining,—we repair to the lamps which were kindled by +their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn +is.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> We hear, that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, "A +fig-tree, looking on a fig-tree, becometh fruitful."</p> + +<p>It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the +best books. They impress us ever with the conviction that one nature +wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great +English poets, of Chaucer,<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> of Marvell,<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> of Dryden,<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> with the +most modern joy,—with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part +caused by the abstraction of all <i>time</i> from their verses. There is +some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived +in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which +lies close to my own soul, that which I also had well-nigh thought and +said. But for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical +doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>[29] </span> suppose some +pre-established harmony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and +some preparation of stores for their future wants, like the fact +observed in insects, who lay up food before death for the young grub +they shall never see.</p> + +<p>I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration of +instincts, to underrate the Book. We all know that as the human body +can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the +broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge. And +great and heroic men have existed who had almost no other information +than by the printed page. I only would say that it needs a strong head +to bear that diet. One must be an inventor to read well. As the +proverb says, "He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies must +carry out the wealth of the Indies." There is then creative reading as +well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and +invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with +manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense +of our author is as broad as the world. We then see, what is always +true, that as the seer's hour of vision is short and rare among heavy +days and months, so is its record, perchance, the least part of his +volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> or Shakespeare, +only that least part,—only the authentic utterances of the +oracle;—all the rest he rejects, were it never so many times Plato's +and Shakespeare's.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>[30] </span> </p> + +<p>Of course there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise +man. History and exact science he must learn by laborious reading. +Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office,—to teach +elements. But they can only highly serve us when they aim not to +drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various +genius to their hospitable halls, and by the concentrated fires set +the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are natures +in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> and +pecuniary foundations,<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> though of towns of gold, can never +countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> Forget this, +and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, +whilst they grow richer every year.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>III. There goes in the world a notion that the scholar should be a +recluse, a valetudinarian,<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>—as unfit for any handiwork or public +labor as a penknife for an axe. The so-called "practical men" sneer at +speculative men, as if, because they speculate or <i>see</i>, they could do +nothing. I have heard it said that the clergy—who are always, more +universally than any other class, the scholars of their day—are +addressed as women; that the rough, spontaneous conversation of men +they do not hear, but only a mincing<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> and diluted speech. They are +often virtually disfranchised; and indeed there are advocates for +their celibacy. As far as this is true of the studious classes, it is +not just and wise. Action is <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>[31] </span> with the scholar subordinate, but it is +essential. Without it he is not yet man. Without it thought can never +ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of +beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, but +there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. The preamble<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> of +thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious +to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. +Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not.</p> + +<p>The world—this shadow of the soul, or <i>other me</i>, lies wide around. +Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me +acquainted with myself. I launch eagerly into this resounding tumult. +I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to +suffer and to work, taught by an instinct that so shall the dumb +abyss<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> be vocal with speech. I pierce its order; I dissipate its +fear;<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So +much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness +have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my +dominion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his +nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is +pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, +want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar +grudges every opportunity of action passed by, as a loss of power.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>[32] </span> </p> + +<p>It is the raw material out of which the intellect molds her splendid +products. A strange process too, this by which experience is converted +into thought, as a mulberry-leaf is converted into satin.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> The +manufacture goes forward at all hours.</p> + +<p>The actions and events of our childhood and youth are now matters of +calmest observation. They lie like fair pictures in the air. Not so +with our recent actions,—with the business which we now have in hand. +On this we are quite unable to speculate. Our affections as yet +circulate through it. We no more feel or know it than we feel the +feet, or the hand, or the brain of our body. The new deed is yet a +part of life,—remains for a time immersed in our unconscious life. In +some contemplative hour it detaches itself from the life like a ripe +fruit,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> to become a thought of the mind. Instantly it is raised, +transfigured; the corruptible has put on incorruption.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> Henceforth +it is an object of beauty, however base its origin and neighborhood. +Observe, too, the impossibility of antedating this act. In its grub +state it cannot fly, it cannot shine, it is a dull grub. But suddenly, +without observation, the selfsame thing unfurls beautiful wings, and +is an angel of wisdom. So is there no fact, no event, in our private +history, which shall not, sooner or later, lose its adhesive, inert +form, and astonish us by soaring from our body into the empyrean.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> +Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the fear of boys, and dogs, +and ferules,<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> the love of little maids and berries, and many +another <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>[33] </span> fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already; friend +and relative, profession and party, town and country, nation and +world, must also soar and sing.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p> + +<p>Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions has +the richest return of wisdom. I will not shut myself out of this globe +of action, and transplant an oak into a flower-pot, there to hunger +and pine; nor trust the revenue of some single faculty, and exhaust +one vein of thought, much like those Savoyards,<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> who, getting their +livelihood by carving shepherds, shepherdesses, and smoking Dutchmen, +for all Europe, went out one day to the mountain to find stock, and +discovered that they had whittled up the last of their pine-trees. +Authors we have, in numbers, who have written out their vein, and who, +moved by a commendable prudence, sail for Greece or Palestine, follow +the trapper into the prairie, or ramble round Algiers, to replenish +their merchantable stock.</p> + +<p>If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would be covetous of +action. Life is our dictionary.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> Years are well spent in country +labors; in town; in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank +intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one +end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate +and embody our perceptions. I learn immediately from any speaker how +much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his +speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and +copestones <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>[34] </span> for the masonry of to-day. This is the way to learn +grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and +the work-yard made.</p> + +<p>But the final value of action, like that of books, and better than +books, is that it is a resource. That great principle of Undulation in +nature, that shows itself in the inspiring and expiring of the breath; +in desire and satiety; in the ebb and flow of the sea; in day and +night; in heat and cold; and, as yet more deeply ingrained in every +atom and every fluid, is known to us under the name of +Polarity,—these "fits of easy transmission and reflection," as +Newton<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> called them, are the law of nature because they are the law +of spirit.</p> + +<p>The mind now thinks, now acts, and each fit reproduces the other. When +the artist has exhausted his materials, when the fancy no longer +paints, when thoughts are no longer apprehended and books are a +weariness,—he has always the resource <i>to live</i>. Character is higher +than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary. +The stream retreats to its source. A great soul will be strong to +live, as well as strong to think. Does he lack organ or medium to +impart his truth? He can still fall back on this elemental force of +living them. This is a total act. Thinking is a partial act. Let the +grandeur of justice shine in his affairs. Let the beauty of affection +cheer his lowly roof. Those "far from fame," who dwell and act with +him, will feel the force of his constitution in the doings and +passages of the day <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>[35] </span> better than it can be measured by any public and +designed display. Time shall teach him that the scholar loses no hour +which the man lives. Herein he unfolds the sacred germ of his +instinct, screened from influence. What is lost in seemliness is +gained in strength. Not out of those on whom systems of education have +exhausted their culture comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or +to build the new, but out of unhandselled<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> savage nature; out of +terrible Druids<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> and Berserkers<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> come at last Alfred<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> and +Shakespeare. I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be +said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is +virtue yet in the hoe and the spade,<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> for learned as well as for +unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are +invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall +not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the +popular judgments and modes of action.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I have now spoken of the education of the scholar by nature, by books, +and by action. It remains to say somewhat of his duties.</p> + +<p>They are such as become Man Thinking. They may all be comprised in +self-trust. The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to +guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, +unhonored, and unpaid task of observation. Flamsteed<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> and +Herschel,<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> in their glazed observatories, may catalogue the stars +with the praise of all <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>[36] </span> men, and, the results being splendid and +useful, honor is sure. But he, in his private observatory, cataloguing +obscure and nebulous<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> stars of the human mind, which as yet no man +has thought of as such,—watching days and months sometimes for a few +facts; correcting still his old records,—must relinquish display and +immediate fame. In the long period of his preparation he must betray +often an ignorance and shiftlessness in popular arts, incurring the +disdain of the able who shoulder him aside. Long he must stammer in +his speech; often forego the living for the dead. Worse yet, he must +accept—how often!—poverty and solitude. For the ease and pleasure of +treading the old road, accepting the fashions, the education, the +religion of society, he takes the cross of making his own, and, of +course, the self-accusation, the faint heart, the frequent uncertainty +and loss of time, which are the nettles and tangling vines in the way +of the self-relying and self-directed; and the state of virtual +hostility in which he seems to stand to society, and especially to +educated society. For all this loss and scorn, what offset? He is to +find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. +He is one who raises himself from private considerations and breathes +and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world's eye. +He is the world's heart. He is to resist the vulgar prosperity that +retrogrades ever to barbarism, by preserving and communicating heroic +sentiments, noble biographies, melodious verse, and the conclusions of + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>[37] </span> history. Whatsoever oracles the human heart, in all emergencies, in +all solemn hours, has uttered as its commentary on the world of +actions,—these he shall receive and impart. And whatsoever new +verdict Reason from her inviolable seat pronounces on the passing men +and events of to-day,—this he shall hear and promulgate.</p> + +<p>These being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in +himself, and to defer never to the popular cry. He and he only knows +the world. The world of any moment is the merest appearance. Some +great decorum, some fetich<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> of a government, some ephemeral trade, +or war, or man, is cried up<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> by half mankind and cried down by the +other half, as if all depended on this particular up or down. The odds +are that the whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the +scholar has lost in listening to the controversy. Let him not quit his +belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> +of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In silence, in +steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add +observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach, +and bide his own time,—happy enough if he can satisfy himself alone +that this day he has seen something truly. Success treads on every +right step. For the instinct is sure that prompts him to tell his +brother what he thinks. He then learns that in going down into the +secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all +minds. He learns that he who <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>[38] </span> has mastered any law in his private +thoughts is master to that extent of all men whose language he speaks, +and of all into whose language his own can be translated. The poet, in +utter solitude remembering his spontaneous thoughts and recording +them, is found to have recorded that which men in cities vast find +true for them also. The orator distrusts at first the fitness of his +frank confessions, his want of knowledge of the persons he addresses, +until he finds that he is the complement<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> of his hearers;—that +they drink his words because he fulfills for them their own nature; +the deeper he dives into his privatest, secretest presentiment, to his +wonder he finds this is the most acceptable, most public and +universally true. The people delight in it; the better part of every +man feels—This is my music; this is myself.</p> + +<p>In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the +scholar be,—free and brave. Free even to the definition of freedom, +"without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own +constitution." Brave; for fear is a thing which a scholar by his very +function puts behind him. Fear always springs from ignorance. It is a +shame to him if his tranquility, amid dangerous times, arise from the +presumption that like children and women his is a protected class; or +if he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from +politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the +flowering bushes, peeping into microscopes, and turning rhymes, as a +boy whistles to keep his courage up. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>[39] </span> So is the danger a danger still; +so is the fear worse. Manlike let him turn and face it. Let him look +into its eye and search its nature, inspect its origin,—see the +whelping of this lion,—which lies no great way back; he will then +find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent; he +will have made his hands meet on the other side, and can henceforth +defy it and pass on superior. The world is his who can see through its +pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown +error you behold is there only by sufferance,—by your sufferance. See +it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow.</p> + +<p>Yes, we are the cowed,—we the trustless. It is a mischievous notion +that we are come late into nature; that the world was finished a long +time ago. As the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of God, so +it is ever to so much of his attributes as we bring to it. To +ignorance and sin it is flint. They adapt themselves to it as they +may; but in proportion as a man has any thing in him divine, the +firmament flows before him and takes his signet<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> and form. Not he +is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind. +They are the kings of the world who give the color of their present +thought to all nature and all art, and persuade men, by the cheerful +serenity of their carrying the matter, that this thing which they do +is the apple which the ages have desired to pluck, now at last ripe, +and inviting nations to the harvest. The great man makes the great +thing. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>[40] </span> Wherever Macdonald<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> sits, there is the head of the table. +Linnæus<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> makes botany the most alluring of studies, and wins it +from the farmer and the herb-woman: Davy,<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> chemistry; and +Cuvier,<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> fossils. The day is always his who works in it with +serenity and great aims. The unstable estimates of men crowd to him +whose mind is filled with a truth, as the heaped waves of the Atlantic +follow the moon.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p> + +<p>For this self-trust, the reason is deeper than can be +fathomed,—darker than can be enlightened. I might not carry with me +the feeling of my audience in stating my own belief. But I have +already shown the ground of my hope, in adverting to the doctrine that +man is one. I believe man has been wronged; he has wronged himself. He +has almost lost the light that can lead him back to his prerogatives. +Men are become of no account. Men in history, men in the world of +to-day, are bugs, are spawn, and are called "the mass" and "the herd." +In a century, in a millenium, one or two men;<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> that is to say, one +or two approximations to the right state of every man. All the rest +behold in the hero or the poet their own green and crude +being,—ripened; yes, and are content to be less, so <i>that</i> may attain +to its full stature. What a testimony, full of grandeur, full of pity, +is borne to the demands of his own nature, by the poor clansman, the +poor partisan, who rejoices in the glory of his chief! The poor and +the low find some amends to their immense moral capacity, for their +acquiescence in a political and social inferiority.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>[41] </span> They are +content to be brushed like flies from the path of a great person, so +that justice shall be done by him to that common nature which it is +the dearest desire of all to see enlarged and glorified. They sun +themselves in the great man's light, and feel it to be their own +element. They cast the dignity of man from their downtrod selves upon +the shoulders of a hero, and will perish to add one drop of blood to +make that great heart beat, those giant sinews combat and conquer. He +lives for us, and we live in him.</p> + +<p>Men such as they<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> are very naturally seek money or power; and power +because it is as good as money,—the "spoils," so called, "of office." +And why not? For they aspire to the highest, and this, in their +sleep-walking, they dream is highest. Wake them and they shall quit +the false good and leap to the true, and leave governments to clerks +and desks. This revolution is to be wrought by the gradual +domestication of the idea of Culture. The main enterprise of the world +for splendor, for extent, is the upbuilding of a man. Here are the +materials strewn along the ground. The private life of one man shall +be a more illustrious monarchy, more formidable to its enemy, more +sweet and serene in its influence to its friend, than any kingdom in +history. For a man, rightly viewed, comprehendeth<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> the particular +natures of all men. Each philosopher, each bard, each actor has only +done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself. The +books which once we valued <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>[42] </span> more than the apple of the eye, we have +quite exhausted. What is that but saying that we have come up with the +point of view which the universal mind took through the eyes of one +scribe; we have been that man, and have passed on. First, one, then +another, we drain all cisterns, and waxing greater by all these +supplies, we crave a better and a more abundant food. The man has +never lived that can feed us ever. The human mind cannot be enshrined +in a person who shall set a barrier on any one side to this unbounded, +unboundable empire. It is one central fire, which, flaming now out of +the lips of Etna, lightens the capes of Sicily, and now out of the +throat of Vesuvius, illuminates the towers and vineyards of Naples. It +is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which +animates all men.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But I have dwelt perhaps tediously upon this abstraction of the +Scholar. I ought not to delay longer to add what I have to say of +nearer reference to the time and to this country.</p> + +<p>Historically, there is thought to be a difference in the ideas which +predominate over successive epochs, and there are data for marking the +genius of the Classic, of the Romantic, and now of the Reflective or +Philosophical age.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> With the views I have intimated of the oneness +or the identity of the mind through all individuals, I do not much +dwell on these differences. In fact, I believe each individual passes +through all three. The boy is a Greek; the youth, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>[43] </span> romantic; the +adult, reflective. I deny not, however, that a revolution in the +leading idea may be distinctly enough traced.</p> + +<p>Our age is bewailed as the age of Introversion.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> Must that needs be +evil? We, it seems, are critical. We are embarrassed with second +thoughts.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> We cannot enjoy anything for hankering to know whereof +the pleasure consists. We are lined with eyes. We see with our feet. +The time is infected with Hamlet's unhappiness,—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p></div> + +<p>Is it so bad then? Sight is the last thing to be pitied. Would we be +blind? Do we fear lest we should outsee nature and God, and drink +truth dry? I look upon the discontent of the literary class as a mere +announcement of the fact that they find themselves not in the state of +mind of their fathers, and regret the coming state as untried; as a +boy dreads the water before he has learned that he can swim. If there +is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of +Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side and admit of +being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and +by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by +the rich possibilities of the new era? This time, like all times, is a +very good one, if we but know what to do with it.</p> + +<p>I read with some joy of the auspicious signs of the coming days, as +they glimmer already through <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>[44] </span> poetry and art, through philosophy and +science, through church and state.</p> + +<p>One of these signs is the fact that the same movement<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> which +effected the elevation of what was called the lowest class in the +state assumed in literature a very marked and as benign an aspect. +Instead of the sublime and beautiful, the near, the low, the common, +was explored and poetized. That which had been negligently trodden +under foot by those who were harnessing and provisioning themselves +for long journeys into far countries, is suddenly found to be richer +than all foreign parts. The literature of the poor, the feelings of +the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household +life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a +sign—is it not?—of new vigor when the extremities are made active, +when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet. I ask not +for the great, the remote, the romantic; what is doing in Italy or +Arabia; what is Greek art, or Provençal minstrelsy; I embrace the +common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. Give +me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future +worlds. What would we really know the meaning of? The meal in the +firkin; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street; the news of the +boat; the glance of the eye; the form and the gait of the body;—show +me the ultimate reason of these matters; show me the sublime presence +of the highest spiritual cause lurking, as always it does lurk, in +these suburbs and extremities <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>[45] </span> of nature; let me see every trifle +bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal +law;<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> and the shop, the plow, and the ledger referred to the like +cause by which light undulates and poets sing;—and the world lies no +longer a dull miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and order: +there is no trifle, there is no puzzle, but one design unites and +animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench.</p> + +<p>This idea has inspired the genius of Goldsmith,<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> Burns,<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> +Cowper,<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> and, in a newer time, of Goethe,<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> Wordsworth,<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> and +Carlyle.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> This idea they have differently followed and with various +success. In contrast with their writing, the style of Pope,<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> of +Johnson,<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> of Gibbon,<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> looks cold and pedantic. This writing is +blood-warm. Man is surprised to find that things near are not less +beautiful and wondrous than things remote. The near explains the far. +The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature. This +perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries. +Goethe, in this very thing the most modern of the moderns, has shown +us, as none ever did, the genius of the ancients.</p> + +<p>There is one man of genius who has done much for this philosophy of +life, whose literary value has never yet been rightly estimated:—I +mean Emanuel Swedenborg.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> The most imaginative of men, yet writing +with the precision of a mathematician, he endeavored to engraft a +purely philosophical Ethics on the popular Christianity of his time. +Such an attempt of <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>[46] </span> course must have difficulty which no genius could +surmount. But he saw and showed the connexion between nature and the +affections of the soul. He pierced the emblematic or spiritual +character of the visible, audible, tangible world. Especially did his +shade-loving muse hover over and interpret the lower parts of nature; +he showed the mysterious bond that allies moral evil to the foul +material forms, and has given in epical parables a theory of insanity, +of beasts, of unclean and fearful things.</p> + +<p>Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political +movement, is the new importance given to the single person. Everything +that tends to insulate the individual—to surround him with barriers +of natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his, and +man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign +state—tends to true union as well as greatness. "I learned," said the +melancholy Pestalozzi,<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> "that no man in God's wide earth is either +willing or able to help any other man." Help must come from the bosom +alone. The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the +ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes +of the future. He must be an university of knowledges. If there be one +lesson more than another that should pierce his ear, it is—The world +is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and +you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers +the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all; it is for you to <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>[47] </span> dare +all. Mr. President and Gentlemen, this confidence in the unsearched +might of man belongs, by all motives, by all prophecy, by all +preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the +courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already +suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice +make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, +indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of +this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is +no work for any one but the decorous and the complaisant. Young men of +the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the +mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth +below not in unison with these, but are hindered from action by the +disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and +turn drudges, or die of disgust, some of them suicides. What is the +remedy? They did not yet see, and thousands of young men as hopeful +now crowding to the barriers for the career do not yet see, that if +the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there +abide, the huge world will come round to him. Patience,—patience; +with the shades of all the good and great for company; and for solace +the perspective of your own infinite life; and for work the study and +the communication of principles, the making those instincts prevalent, +the conversion of the world. Is it not the chief disgrace in the +world, not to be an <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>[48] </span> unit; not to be reckoned one character; not to +yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, but to +be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand, of the +party, the section, to which we belong; and our opinion predicted +geographically, as the north, or the south? Not so, brothers and +friends,—please God, ours shall not be so. We will walk on our own +feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. +Then shall man be no longer a name for pity, for doubt, and for +sensual indulgence. The dread of man and the love of man shall be a +wall of defense and a wreath of joy around all. A nation of men will +for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by +the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>[49] </span></p> +<h2><a name="COMPENSATION" id="COMPENSATION"></a>COMPENSATION.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a></h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The wings of Time are black and white,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pied with morning and with night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mountain tall and ocean deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trembling balance duly keep.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In changing moon, in tidal wave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glows the feud of Want and Have.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gauge of more and less through space<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Electric star and pencil plays.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lonely Earth amid the balls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That hurry through the eternal halls,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A makeweight flying to the void,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Supplemental asteroid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or compensatory spark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shoots across the neutral Dark.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Man's the elm, and Wealth the vine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stanch and strong the tendrils twine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the frail ringlets thee deceive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">None from its stock that vine can reave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fear not, then, thou child infirm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's no god dare wrong a worm.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laurel crowns cleave to deserts,<br /></span> + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>[50] </span> +<span class="i0">And power to him who power exerts;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hast not thy share? On winged feet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lo! it rushes thee to meet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all that Nature made thy own,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Floating in air or pent in stone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will rive the hills and swim the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, like thy shadow, follow thee.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Ever since I was a boy, I have wished to write a discourse on +Compensation: for it seemed to me when very young, that on this +subject life was ahead of theology, and the people knew more than the +preachers taught. The documents,<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> too, from which the doctrine is +to be drawn, charmed my fancy by their endless variety, and lay always +before me, even in sleep; for they are the tools in our hands, the +bread in our basket, the transactions of the street, the farm, and the +dwelling-house, greetings, relations, debts and credits, the influence +of character, the nature and endowment of all men. It seemed to me, +also, that in it might be shown men a ray of divinity, the present +action of the soul of this world, clean from all vestige of tradition, +and so the heart of man might be bathed by an inundation of eternal +love, conversing with that which he knows was always and always must +be, because it really is now. It appeared, moreover, that if this +doctrine could be stated in terms with any resemblance to those bright +intuitions in which this truth is sometimes revealed to us, it would + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>[51] </span> be a star in many dark hours and crooked passages in our journey that +would not suffer us to lose our way.</p> + +<p>I was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon at church. +The preacher, a man esteemed for his orthodoxy, unfolded in the +ordinary manner the doctrine of the Last Judgment. He assumed that +judgment is not executed in this world; that the wicked are +successful; that the good are miserable;<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> and then urged from +reason and from Scripture a compensation to be made to both parties in +the next life. No offense appeared to be taken by the congregation at +this doctrine. As far as I could observe, when the meeting broke up, +they separated without remark on the sermon.</p> + +<p>Yet what was the import of this teaching? What did the preacher mean +by saying that the good are miserable in the present life? Was it that +houses and lands, offices, wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had by +unprincipled men, whilst the saints are poor and despised; and that a +compensation is to be made to these last hereafter, by giving them the +like gratifications another day,—bank stock and doubloons,<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> +venison and champagne? This must be the compensation intended; for +what else? Is it that they are to have leave to pray and praise? to +love and serve men? Why, that they can do now. The legitimate +inference the disciple would draw was: "We are to have <i>such</i> a good +time as the sinners have now"; or, to push it to its extreme import: +"You sin now; <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>[52] </span> we shall sin by and by; we would sin now, if we could; +not being successful, we expect our revenue to-morrow."</p> + +<p>The fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad are successful; +that justice is not done now. The blindness of the preacher consisted +in deferring to the base estimate of the market of what constitutes a +manly success, instead of confronting and convicting the world from +the truth; announcing the presence of the soul; the omnipotence of the +will: and so establishing the standard of good and ill, of success and +falsehood.</p> + +<p>I find a similar base tone in the popular religious works of the day, +and the same doctrines assumed by the literary men when occasionally +they treat the related topics. I think that our popular theology has +gained in decorum, and not in principle, over the superstitions it has +displaced. But men are better than this theology. Their daily life +gives it the lie. Every ingenuous and aspiring soul leaves the +doctrine behind him in his own experience; and all men feel sometimes +the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate. For men are wiser than +they know. That which they hear in schools and pulpits without +afterthought, if said in conversation, would probably be questioned in +silence. If a man dogmatize in a mixed company on Providence and the +divine laws, he is answered by a silence which conveys well enough to +an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer, but his incapacity to +make his own statement.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>[53] </span> </p> + +<p>I shall attempt in this and the following chapter to record some facts +that indicate the path of the law of Compensation; happy beyond my +expectation, if I shall truly draw the smallest arc of this circle.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Polarity</span>,<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> or action and reaction, we meet in every part +of nature; in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and +flow of waters; in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration +of plants and animals; in the equation of quantity and quality in the +fluids of the animal body; in the systole and diastole<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> of the +heart; in the undulations of fluids, and of sound; in the centrifugal +and centripetal gravity; in electricity, galvanism, and chemical +affinity. Superinduce magnetism at one end of a needle; the opposite +magnetism takes place at the other end. If the south attracts, the +north repels. To empty here, you must condense there. An inevitable +dualism bisects nature, so that each thing is a half, and suggests +another thing to make it whole; as, spirit, matter; man, woman; odd, +even; subjective, objective; in, out; upper, under; motion, rest; yea, +nay.</p> + +<p>Whilst the world is thus dual, so is everyone of its parts. The +entire system of things gets represented in every particle. There is +somewhat that resembles the ebb and flow of the sea, day and night, +man and woman, in a single needle of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in +each individual of every animal tribe. The reaction, so grand in the +elements, is repeated within these small boundaries. For example, in +the animal kingdom the physiologist has observed that no <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>[54] </span> creatures +are favorites, but a certain compensation balances every gift and +every defect. A surplusage given to one part is paid out of a +reduction from another part of the same creature. If the head and neck +are enlarged, the trunk and extremities are cut short.</p> + +<p>The theory of the mechanic forces is another example. What we gain in +power is lost in time; and the converse. The periodic or compensating +errors of the planets is another instance. The influences of climate +and soil in political history is another. The cold climate +invigorates. The barren soil does not breed fevers, crocodiles, +tigers, or scorpions.</p> + +<p>The same dualism underlies the nature and condition of man. Every +excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its +sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of +pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for +its moderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain +of folly. For everything you have missed, you have gained something +else; and for everything you gain, you lose something. If riches +increase, they are increased<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> that use them. If the gatherer +gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his +chest, swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies +and exceptions. The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level +from their loftiest tossing, than the varieties of condition tend to +equalize themselves. There is always some leveling <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>[55] </span> circumstance that +puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, +substantially on the same ground with all others. Is a man too strong +and fierce for society, and by temper and position a bad citizen,—a +morose ruffian, with a dash of the pirate in him;—nature sends him a +troop of pretty sons and daughters, who are getting along in the +dame's classes at the village school, and love and fear for them +smooths his grim scowl to courtesy. Thus she contrives to +intenerate<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> the granite and felspar, takes the boar out and puts +the lamb in, and keeps her balance true.</p> + +<p>The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President +has paid dear for his White House.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> It has commonly cost him all +his peace, and the best of his many attributes. To preserve for a +short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is +content to eat dust<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> before the real masters who stand erect +behind the throne. Or, do men desire the more substantial and +permanent grandeur of genius? Neither has this an immunity. He who by +force of will or of thought, is great, and overlooks<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> thousands, +has the charges of that eminence. With every influx of light comes new +danger. Has he light? he must bear witness to the light, and always +outrun that sympathy which gives him such keen satisfaction, by his +fidelity to new revelations of the incessant soul. He must hate father +and mother, wife and child. Has he all that the world loves and +admires and covets?—he must <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>[56] </span> cast behind him their admiration, and +afflict them by faithfulness to his truth, and become a by-word and a +hissing.</p> + +<p>This law writes the laws of cities and nations. It is in vain to build +or plot or combine against it. Things refuse to be mismanaged long. +<i>Res nolunt diu male administrari.</i><a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> Though no checks to a new +evil appear, the checks exist, and will appear. If the government is +cruel, the governor's life is not safe. If you tax too high, the +revenue will yield nothing. If you make the criminal code sanguinary, +juries will not convict. If the law is too mild, private vengeance +comes in. If the government is a terrific democracy, the pressure is +resisted by an overcharge of energy in the citizen, and life glows +with a fiercer flame. The true life and satisfactions of man seem to +elude the utmost rigors or felicities of condition, and to establish +themselves with great indifferency under all varieties of +circumstances. Under all governments the influence of character +remains the same,—in Turkey and in New England about alike. Under the +primeval despots of Egypt, history honestly confesses that man must +have been as free as culture could make him.</p> + +<p>These appearances indicate the fact that the universe is represented +in everyone of its particles. Everything in nature contains all the +powers of nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff; as the +naturalist sees one type under every metamorphosis, and regards a +horse as a running man, a fish <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>[57] </span> as a swimming man, a bird as a flying +man, a tree as a rooted man. Each new form repeats not only the main +character of the type, but part for part all the details, all the +aims, furtherances, hindrances, energies, and whole system of every +other. Every occupation, trade, art, transaction, is a compend of the +world and a correlative of every other. Each one is an entire emblem +of human life; of its good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its +course and its end. And each one must somehow accommodate the whole +man, and recite all his destiny.</p> + +<p>The world globes itself in a drop of dew.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> The microscope cannot +find the animalcule which is less perfect for being little.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> Eyes, +ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of +reproduction that take hold on eternity,—all find room to consist in +the small creature. So do we put our life into every act. The true +doctrine of omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in +every moss and cobweb.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> The value of the universe contrives to +throw itself into every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; +if the affinity, so the repulsion; if the force, so the limitation.</p> + +<p>Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That soul, which +within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its +inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength. "It +is in the world, and the world was made by it." Justice is not +postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. + +Oἱ κύβοι Διὸς ἀεὶ εὐπίπτουσι ,<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a>—the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>[58] </span> dice of God are +always loaded. The world looks like a multiplication table, or a +mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. +Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still +returns to you. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every +virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty. What +we call retribution is the universal necessity by which the whole +appears wherever a part appears. If you see smoke, there must be fire. +If you see a hand or limb, you know that the trunk to which it belongs +is there behind.</p> + +<p>Every act rewards itself, or, in other words, integrates itself, in a +twofold manner; first, in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly, +in the circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance +the retribution. The causal retribution is in the thing, and is seen +by the soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the +understanding; it is inseparable from the thing, but is often spread +over a long time, and so does not become distinct until after many +years. The specific stripes may follow late after the offense, but +they follow because they accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out +of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the +flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and +ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms +in the cause, the end preëxists in the means, the fruit in the seed.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>[59] </span> </p> + +<p>Whilst thus the world will be whole, and refuses to be disparted, we +seek to act partially, to sunder, to appropriate; for example,—to +gratify the senses, we sever the pleasure of the senses from the needs +of the character. The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to +the solution of one problem,—how to detach the sensual sweet, the +sensual strong, the sensual bright, etc., from the moral sweet, the +moral deep, the moral fair; that is, again, to contrive to cut clean +off this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a +<i>one end</i>, without an <i>other end</i>. The soul says, Eat; the body would +feast. The soul says, The man and woman shall be one flesh and one +soul; the body would join the flesh only. The soul says, Have dominion +over all things to the ends of virtue; the body would have the power +over things to its own ends.</p> + +<p>The soul strives amain<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> to live and work through all things. It +would be the only fact. All things shall be added unto it,—power, +pleasure, knowledge, beauty. The particular man aims to be somebody; +to set up for himself; to truck and higgle for a private good; and, in +particulars, to ride, that he may ride; to dress, that he may be +dressed; to eat, that he may eat; and to govern, that he may be seen. +Men seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and +fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of +nature,—the sweet, without the other side,—the bitter.</p> + +<p>This dividing and detaching is steadily counteracted. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>[60] </span> Up to this day, +it must be owned, no projector has had the smallest success. The +parted water reunites behind our hand. Pleasure is taken out of +pleasant things, profit out of profitable things, power out of strong +things, as soon as we seek to separate them from the whole. We can no +more have things and get the sensual good, by itself, than we can get +an inside that shall have no outside, or a light without a shadow. +"Drive out nature with a fork, she comes running back."<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a></p> + +<p>Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the unwise seek +to dodge, which one and another brags that he does not know; that they +do not touch him;—but the brag is on his lips, the conditions are in +his soul. If he escapes them in one part, they attack him in another +more vital part. If he has escaped them in form, and in the +appearance, it is because he has resisted his life, and fled from +himself, and the retribution is so much death. So signal is the +failure of all attempts to make this separation of the good from the +tax, that the experiment would not be tried,—since to try it is to be +mad,—but for the circumstance, that when the disease began in the +will, of rebellion and separation, the intellect is at once infected, +so that the man ceases to see God whole in each object, but is able to +see the sensual allurement of an object, and not see the sensual hurt; +he sees the mermaid's head, but not the dragon's tail; and thinks he +can cut off that which he would have, from that which he would not +have. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>[61] </span> "How secret art thou who dwellest in the highest heavens in +silence, O thou only great God, sprinkling with an unwearied +Providence certain penal blindnesses upon such as have unbridled +desires!"<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></p> + +<p>The human soul is true to these facts in the painting of fable, of +history, of law, of proverbs, of conversation. It finds a tongue in +literature unawares. Thus the Greeks called Jupiter,<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> Supreme +Mind; but having traditionally ascribed to him many base actions, they +involuntarily made amends to reason, by tying up the hands<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> of so +bad a god. He is made as helpless as a king of England.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> +Prometheus<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> knows one secret which Jove must bargain for; +Minerva,<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> another. He cannot get his own thunders; Minerva keeps +the key of them.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Of all the gods, I only know the keys<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0"> That ope the solid doors within whose vaults<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0"> His thunders sleep."<br /> +</span> +</div></div> + +<p>A plain confession of the in-working of the All, and of its moral aim. +The Indian mythology ends in the same ethics; and it would seem +impossible for any fable to be invented to get any currency which was +not moral. Aurora<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> forgot to ask youth for her lover, and though +Tithonus is immortal, he is old, Achilles<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> is not quite +invulnerable; the sacred waters did not wash the heel by which Thetis +held him. Siegfried,<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> in the Niebelungen, is not quite immortal, +for a leaf fell on his back whilst he was bathing in the dragon's +blood, and that spot which it covered <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>[62] </span> is mortal. And so it must be. +There is a crack in everything God has made. It would seem, there is +always this vindictive circumstance stealing in at unawares, even into +the wild poesy in which the human fancy attempted to make bold +holiday, and to shake itself free of the old laws,—this back-stroke, +this kick of the gun, certifying that the law is fatal; that in nature +nothing can be given, all things are sold.</p> + +<p>This is that ancient doctrine of Nemesis,<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> who keeps watch in the +universe, and lets no offense go unchastised. The Furies,<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> they +said, are attendants on justice, and if the sun in heaven should +transgress his path, they would punish him. The poets related that +stone walls, and iron swords, and leathern thongs had an occult +sympathy with the wrongs of their owners; that the belt which Ajax +gave Hector<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> dragged the Trojan hero over the field at the wheels +of the car of Achilles, and the sword which Hector gave Ajax was that +on whose point Ajax fell. They recorded, that when the Thasians<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> +erected a statue to Theagenes, a victor in the games, one of his +rivals went to it by night, and endeavored to throw it down by +repeated blows, until at last he moved it from its pedestal, and was +crushed to death beneath its fall.</p> + +<p>This voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It came from thought +above the will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer, +which has nothing private in it;<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> that which he does not know, +that <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>[63] </span> which flowed out of his constitution, and not from his too +active invention; that which in the study of a single artist you might +not easily find, but in the study of many, you would abstract as the +spirit of them all. Phidias it is not, but the work of man in that +early Hellenic<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> world, that I would know. The name and +circumstance of Phidias, however convenient for history, embarrass +when we come to the highest criticism. We are to see that which man +was tending to do in a given period, and was hindered, or, if you +will, modified in doing, by the interfering volitions of Phidias, of +Dante, of Shakespeare, the organ whereby man at the moment wrought.</p> + +<p>Still more striking is the expression of this fact in the proverbs of +all nations, which are always the literature of reason, or the +statements of an absolute truth, without qualification. Proverbs, like +the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. +That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow +the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in +proverbs without contradiction. And this law of laws which the pulpit, +the senate, and the college deny, is hourly preached in all markets +and workshops by flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as +omnipresent as that of birds and flies.</p> + +<p>All things are double, one against another.—Tit for tat;<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> an eye +for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure; +love for love.—Give and it shall be given you.—He that watereth + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>[64] </span> shall be watered himself.—What will you have? quoth God; pay for it +and take it.—Nothing venture, nothing have.—Thou shalt be paid +exactly for what thou hast done, no more, no less.—Who doth not work +shall not eat.—Harm watch, harm catch.—Curses always recoil on the +head of him who imprecates them.—If you put a chain around the neck +of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.—Bad counsel +confounds the adviser.—The Devil is an ass.</p> + +<p>It is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our action is +overmastered and characterized above our will by the law of nature. We +aim at a petty end quite aside from the public good, but our act +arranges itself by irresistible magnetism in a line with the poles of +the world.</p> + +<p>A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will, or against +his will, he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every +word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a thread-ball +thrown at a mark, but the other end remains in the thrower's bag. Or, +rather, it is a harpoon hurled at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a +coil of cord in the boat, and if the harpoon is not good, or not well +thrown, it will go nigh to cut the steersman in twain, or to sink the +boat.</p> + +<p>You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. "No man had ever a point +of pride that was not injurious to him," said Burke.<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> The +exclusive in fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>[65] </span> from enjoyment in the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in +religion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself, in +striving to shut out others. Treat men as pawns<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> and ninepins, and +you shall suffer as well as they. If you leave out their heart, you +shall lose your own. The senses would make things of all persons; of +women, of children, of the poor. The vulgar proverb, "I will get it +from his purse or get it from his skin," is sound philosophy.</p> + +<p>All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are +speedily punished. They are punished by fear. Whilst I stand in simple +relations to my fellow-man, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We +meet as water meets water, or as two currents of air mix, with perfect +diffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as there is any +departure from simplicity, and attempt at halfness, or good for me +that is not good for him, my neighbor feels the wrong; he shrinks from +me as far as I have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek mine; +there is war between us; there is hate in him and fear in me.</p> + +<p>All the old abuses in society, universal and particular, all unjust +accumulations of property and power, are avenged in the same manner. +Fear is an instructor of great sagacity, and the herald of all +revolutions. One thing he teaches, that there is rottenness where he +appears. He is a carrion crow, and though you see not well what he +hovers for, there is death somewhere. Our property is timid, our laws +are <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>[66] </span> timid, our cultivated classes are timid. Fear for ages has boded +and mowed and gibbered over government and property. That obscene<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> +bird is not there for nothing. He indicates great wrongs which must be +revised.</p> + +<p>Of the like nature is that expectation of change which instantly +follows the suspension of our voluntary activity. The terror of +cloudless noon, the emerald of Polycrates,<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> the awe of prosperity, +the instinct which leads every generous soul to impose on itself tasks +of a noble asceticism and vicarious virtue, are the tremblings of the +balance of justice through the heart and mind of man.</p> + +<p>Experienced men of the world know very well that it is best to pay +scot and lot<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> as they go along, and that a man often pays dear for +a small frugality. The borrower runs in his own debt. Has a man gained +anything who has received a hundred favors and rendered none? Has he +gained by borrowing, through indolence or cunning, his neighbor's +wares, or horses, or money? There arises on the deed the instant +acknowledgment of benefit on the one part, and of debt on the other; +that is, of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in +the memory of himself and his neighbor; and every new transaction +alters, according to its nature, their relation to each other. He may +soon come to see that he had better have broken his own bones than to +have ridden in his neighbor's coach, and that "the highest price he +can pay for a thing is to ask for it."</p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>[67] </span> </p> + +<p>A wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and know that +it is the part of prudence to face every claimant, and pay every just +demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay; for, +first or last, you must pay your entire debt. Persons and events may +stand for a time between you and justice, but it is only a +postponement. You must pay at last your own debt. If you are wise, you +will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more. Benefit is the +end of nature. But for every benefit which you receive, a tax is +levied. He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base—and +that is the one base thing in the universe—to receive favors and +render none. In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those +from whom we receive them, or only seldom.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> But the benefit we +receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for +cent, to somebody. Beware of too much good staying in your hand. It +will fast corrupt and worm worms.<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> Pay it away quickly in some +sort.</p> + +<p>Labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws. Cheapest, say the +prudent, is the dearest labor. What we buy in a broom, a mat, a wagon, +a knife, is some application of good sense to a common want. It is +best to pay in your land a skillful gardener, or to buy good sense +applied to gardening; in your sailor, good sense applied to +navigation; in the house, good sense applied to cooking, sewing, +serving; in your agent, good sense applied to accounts and <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>[68] </span> affairs. +So do you multiply your presence, or spread yourself throughout your +estate. But because of the dual constitution of things, in labor as in +life there can be no cheating. The thief steals from himself. The +swindler swindles himself. For the real price of labor is knowledge +and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs. These signs, like +paper money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which they +represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or +stolen. These ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions +of the mind, and in obedience to pure motives. The cheat, the +defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the knowledge of material and +moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative. +The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power: but +they who do not the thing have not the power.</p> + +<p>Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to +the construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of +the perfect compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give +and Take, the doctrine that everything has its price,—and if that +price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and +that it is impossible to get anything without its price,—is not less +sublime in the columns of a ledger than in the budgets of states, in +the laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of +nature. I cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees +implicated in those processes with which he is conversant, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>[69] </span> the stern +ethics which sparkle on his chisel edge, which are measured out by his +plumb and foot rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the +shop bill as in the history of a state,—do recommend to him his +trade, and though seldom named, exalt his business to his imagination.</p> + +<p>The league between virtue and nature engages all things to assume a +hostile front to vice. The beautiful laws and substances of the world +persecute and whip the traitor. He finds that things are arranged for +truth and benefit, but there is no den in the wide world to hide a +rogue. Commit a crime,<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> and the earth is made of glass. Commit a +crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as +reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel +and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word,<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> you cannot wipe out +the foot-track, you cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet +or clew. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and +substances of nature—water, snow, wind, gravitation—become penalties +to the thief.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the law holds with equal sureness for all right +action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, +as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. The good man has +absolute good, which like fire turns everything to its own nature, so +that you cannot do him any harm; but as the royal armies sent against +Napoleon, when he approached, cast down their colors <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>[70] </span> and from enemies +became friends, so disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offense, +poverty, prove benefactors:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"Winds blow and waters roll<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strength to the brave, and power and deity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet in themselves are nothing."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had +ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had +ever a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in +the fable<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> admired his horns and blamed his feet, but when the +hunter came, his feet saved him, and afterwards, caught in the +thicket, his horns destroyed him. Every man in his lifetime needs to +thank his faults. As no man thoroughly understands a truth until he +has contended against it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with +the hindrances or talents of men, until he has suffered from the one, +and seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the same. Has +he a defect of temper that unfits him to live in society? Thereby he +is driven to entertain himself alone, and acquire habits of self-help; +and thus, like the wounded oyster, he mends his shell with pearl.</p> + +<p>Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms +itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and +stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. +Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he +is punished, tormented, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>[71] </span> defeated, he has a chance to learn something; +he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; +learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got +moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of +his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his +weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead +skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. +Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As +long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain +assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are +spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. +In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As +the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the +enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the +temptation we resist.</p> + +<p>The same guards which protect us from disaster, defect, and enmity, +defend us, if we will, from selfishness and fraud. Bolts and bars are +not the best of our institutions, nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of +wisdom. Men suffer all their life long, under the foolish superstition +that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be +cheated by anyone but himself,<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> as for a thing to be and not to be +at the same time. There is a third silent party to all our bargains. +The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the +fulfillment of every <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>[72] </span> contract, so that honest service cannot come to +loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God +in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is +withholden,<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> the better for you; for compound interest on compound +interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.</p> + +<p>The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, +to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. It makes no +difference whether the actors be many or one, a tyrant or a mob. A +mob<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of +reason, and traversing its work. The mob is man voluntarily descending +to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its +actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a +principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by +inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who +have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines +to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate +spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be +dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a +more illustrious abode; every burned book or house enlightens the +world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the +earth from side to side. Hours of sanity and consideration are always +arriving to communities, as to individuals, when the truth is seen, +and the martyrs are justified.</p> + +<p>Thus do all things preach the indifferency of <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>[73] </span> circumstances. The man +is all. Everything has two sides, a good and an evil. Every advantage +has its tax. I learn to be content. But the doctrine of compensation +is not the doctrine of indifferency. The thoughtless say, on hearing +these representations, What boots it to do well? there is one event to +good and evil; if I gain any good, I must pay for it; if I lose any +good, I gain some other; all actions are indifferent.</p> + +<p>There is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation, to wit, its own +nature. The soul is not a compensation, but a life. The soul <i>is</i>. +Under all this running sea of circumstance, whose waters ebb and flow +with perfect balance, lies the aboriginal abyss of real Being. +Essence, or God, is not a relation, or a part, but the whole. Being is +the vast affirmative, excluding negation, self-balanced, and +swallowing up all relations, parts, and times within itself. Nature, +truth, virtue, are the influx from thence. Vice is the absence or +departure of the same. Nothing, Falsehood, may indeed stand as the +great Night or shade, on which, as a background, the living universe +paints itself forth, but no fact is begotten by it; it cannot work, +for it is not. It cannot work any good; it cannot work any harm. It is +harm inasmuch as it is worse not to be than to be.</p> + +<p>We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts, because the +criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy, and does not come to a +crisis or judgment anywhere in visible nature. There is no stunning + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>[74] </span> confutation of his nonsense before men and angels. Has he therefore +outwitted the law? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie +with him, he so far deceases from nature. In some manner there will be +a demonstration of the wrong to the understanding also; but should we +not see it, this deadly deduction makes square the eternal account.</p> + +<p>Neither can it be said, on the other hand, that the gain of rectitude +must be bought by any loss. There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty +to wisdom; they are proper additions of being. In a virtuous action, I +properly <i>am</i>; in a virtuous act, I add to the world; I plant into +deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing, and see the darkness +receding on the limits of the horizon. There can be no excess to love; +none to knowledge; none to beauty, when these attributes are +considered in the purest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always +affirms an Optimism,<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> never a Pessimism.</p> + +<p>Man's life is a progress, and not a station. His instinct is trust. +Our instinct uses "more" and "less" in application to man, of the +<i>presence of the soul</i>, and not of its absence; the brave man is +greater than the coward; the true, the benevolent, the wise, is more a +man, and not less, than the fool and knave. There is no tax on the +good of virtue; for that is the incoming of God himself, or absolute +existence without any comparative. Material good has its tax, and if +it came without desert or sweat, has no root in me, and the next wind +will blow it away. But <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>[75] </span> all the good of nature is the soul's, and may +be had, if paid for in nature's lawful coin, that is, by labor which +the heart and the head allow. I no longer wish to meet a good I do not +earn; for example, to find a pot of buried gold, knowing that it +brings with it new burdens. I do not wish more external +goods,—neither possessions, nor honors, nor powers, nor persons. The +gain is apparent; the tax is certain. But there is no tax on the +knowledge that the compensation exists, and that it is not desirable +to dig up treasure. Herein I rejoice with a serene eternal peace. I +contract the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn the wisdom of +St. Bernard,<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a>—"Nothing can, work me damage except myself; the +harm, that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real +sufferer but by my own fault."</p> + +<p>In the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequalities of +condition. The radical tragedy of nature seems to be the distinction +of More and Less. How can Less not feel the pain; how not feel +indignation or malevolence towards More? Look at those who have less +faculty, and one feels sad, and knows not well what to make of it. He +almost shuns their eye; he fears they will upbraid God. What should +they do? It seems a great injustice. But see the facts nearly, and +these mountainous inequalities vanish. Love reduces them, as the sun +melts the iceberg in the sea. The heart and soul of all men being one, +this bitterness of <i>His</i> and <i>Mine</i> ceases. His is mine. I am my +brother, and my brother is me. If <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>[76] </span> I feel overshadowed and outdone by +great neighbors, I can yet love; I can still receive; and he that +loveth maketh his own the grandeur he loves. Thereby I make the +discovery that my brother is my guardian, acting for me with the +friendliest designs, and the estate I so admired and envied is my own. +It is the nature of the soul to appropriate all things. Jesus<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> and +Shakespeare are fragments of the soul, and by love I conquer and +incorporate them in my own conscious domain. His<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> virtue,—is not +that mine? His wit,—if it cannot be made mine, it is not wit.</p> + +<p>Such, also, is the natural history of calamity. The changes which +break up at short intervals the prosperity of men are advertisements +of a nature whose law is growth. Every soul is by this intrinsic +necessity quitting its whole system of things, its friends, and home, +and laws, and faith, as the shellfish crawls out of its beautiful but +stony case, because it no longer admits of its growth, and slowly +forms a new house. In proportion to the vigor of the individual, these +revolutions are frequent, until in some happier mind they are +incessant, and all worldly relations hang very loosely about him, +becoming, as it were, a transparent fluid membrane through which the +living form is seen, and not, as in most men, an indurated +heterogeneous fabric of many dates, and of no settled character, in +which the man is imprisoned. Then there can be enlargement, and the +man of to-day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday. And such +should be the outward biography of man <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>[77] </span> in time, a putting off of dead +circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment day by day. But to +us, in our lapsed estate, resting, not advancing, resisting, not +coöperating with the divine expansion, this growth comes by shocks.</p> + +<p>We cannot part with our friend. We cannot let our angels go. We do not +see that they only go out, that archangels may come in. We are +idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in +its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any +force in to-day to rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We +linger in the ruins of the old tent, where once we had bread and +shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and +nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so +graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty +saith, "Up and onward forevermore!" We cannot stay amid the ruins. +Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted +eyes, like those monsters who look backwards.</p> + +<p>And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the +understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a +mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of +friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure +years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The +death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but +privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>[78] </span> genius; +for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an +epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up +a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows +the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It +permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the +reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the +next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny +garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for +its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, +is made the banyan<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to +wide neighborhoods of men.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>[79] </span> </p> +<h2><a name="SELF-RELIANCE" id="SELF-RELIANCE"></a>SELF-RELIANCE</h2> + +<p>"Ne te quæsiveris extra."<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Man is his own star; and the soul that can<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Render an honest and a perfect man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Commands all light, all influence, all fate;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nothing to him falls early or too late.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Cast the bantling on the rocks,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wintered with the hawk and fox,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Power and speed be hands and feet.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which +were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an +admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The +sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may +contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for +you in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> +Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal +sense;<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,—and our +first thought is rendered back to us by the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>[80] </span> trumpets of the Last +Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest +merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato,<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> and Milton<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> is, that they +set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what +they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of +light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster +of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice +his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize +our own rejected thoughts:<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> they come back to us with a certain +alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson +for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression +with good-humored inflexibility then most when<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> the whole cry of +voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with +masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the +time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from +another.</p> + +<p>There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the +conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide;<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> +that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that +though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn +can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground +which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new +in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor +does he know until he has tried. Not for <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>[81] </span> nothing one face, one +character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. +This sculpture in the memory is not without preëstablished harmony. +The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of +that particular ray. We but half express ourselves,<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> and are +ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be +safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be +faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by +cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his +work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall +give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the +attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no +hope.</p> + +<p>Trust thyself:<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept +the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your +contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done +so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, +betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated +at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all +their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind +the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a +protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, +redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing +on Chaos<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> and the Dark.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>[82] </span> </p> + +<p>What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text, in the face and +behavior of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel +mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed +the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> have not. +Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we +look in their faces we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody: +all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> +out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth +and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and +made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it +will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he +cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is +sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his +contemporaries. Bashful or bold, then, he will know how to make us +seniors very unnecessary.</p> + +<p>The nonchalance<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would +disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the +healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit +is in the playhouse;<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> independent, irresponsible, looking out from +his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences +them on their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys, as good, bad, +interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never +about consequences about interests; <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>[83] </span> he gives an independent, genuine +verdict. You must court him: he does not court you. But the man is, as +it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has +once acted or spoken with <i>éclat</i><a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> he is a committed person, +watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections +must now enter into his account. There is no Lethe<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> for this. Ah, +that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> can thus avoid +all pledges, and having observed, observe again from the same +unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always +be formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which +being seen to be not private, but necessary, would sink like darts +into the ear of men, and put them in fear.</p> + +<p>These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint +and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in +conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members. Society is +a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better +securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty +and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. +Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, +but names and customs.</p> + +<p>Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> He who would gather +immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must +explore if it be goodness.<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> Nothing is at last sacred but the +integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>[84] </span> and you shall +have the suffrage<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> of the world. I remember an answer which when +quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont +to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my +saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live +wholly from within? my friend suggested: "But these impulses may be +from below, not from above." I replied: "They do not seem to me to be +such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." +No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but +names very readily transferable to that or this;<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> the only right +is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A +man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if +everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think +how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and +dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and +sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and +speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat +of philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this +bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from +Barbadoes,<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> why should I not say to him: "Go love thy infant; love +thy wood-chopper: be good-natured and modest: have that grace; and +never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible +tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>[85] </span> love afar is +spite at home." Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth +is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have +some edge to it,—else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be +preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules +and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my +genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, +<i>Whim</i>.<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we +cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I +seek or why I exclude company. Then, again, do not tell me, as a good +man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good +situations. Are they <i>my</i> poor? I tell thee, thou foolish +philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give +to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There +is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought +and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your +miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; +the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now +stand; alms to sots; and the thousand-fold Relief Societies;—though I +confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a +wicked dollar which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold.</p> + +<p>Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the +rule. There is the man <i>and</i> his virtues. Men do what is called a good +action, as some <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>[86] </span> piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a +fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are +done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world,—as +invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. +I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not +for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so +it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and +unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and +bleeding.<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse +this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it +makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are +reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I +have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, +and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows +any secondary testimony.</p> + +<p>What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. +This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may +serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is +the harder, because you will always find those who think they know +what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to +live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after +our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps +with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a></p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>[87] </span> </p> + +<p>The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, +that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the +impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, +contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for +the government or against it, spread your table like base +housekeepers,—under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the +precise<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> man you are. And, of course, so much force is withdrawn +from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> Do +your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what +a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I +anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and +topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I +not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous +word? Do I not know that, with<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> all this ostentation of examining +the grounds of the institution, he will do no such thing? Do I not +know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side,—the +permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister? He is a +retained attorney, and these airs of the bench<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> are the emptiest +affectation. Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another +handkerchief,<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> and attached themselves to some one of these +communities of opinion.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> This conformity makes them not false in a +few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. +Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>[88] </span> the real two, +their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, +and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is +not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we +adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by +degrees the gentlest asinine expression. There is a mortifying +experience in particular which does not fail to wreak itself also in +the general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced +smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease in +answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not +spontaneously moved, but moved by a low usurping willfulness, grow +tight about the outline of the face with the most disagreeable +sensation.</p> + +<p>For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> And +therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The bystanders +look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlor. If +this aversation had its origin in contempt and resistance like his +own, he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces +of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are +put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs.<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> Yet is +the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the +senate and the college. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the +world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is +decorous and prudent, for they are timid as being very vulnerable +themselves. But <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>[89] </span> when to their feminine rage the indignation of the +people is added, when the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the +unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made +to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to +treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment.</p> + +<p>The other terror<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> that scares us from self-trust is our +consistency;<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> a reverence for our past act or word, because the +eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> than +our past acts, and we are loth to disappoint them.</p> + +<p>But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about +this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> you have +stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict +yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on +your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring +the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in +a new day. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the +Deity; yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them +heart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color. +Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and +flee.<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a></p> + +<p>A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by +little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a +great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself +with the shadow on the wall. Speak what you think <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>[90] </span> now in hard words, +and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though +it contradict everything you said to-day.—"Ah, so you shall be sure +to be misunderstood."—Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? +Pythagoras<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> was misunderstood, and Socrates,<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> and Jesus, and +Luther,<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> and Copernicus,<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> and Galileo,<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> and Newton,<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> +and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to +be misunderstood.</p> + +<p>I suppose no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will +are rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of +Andes<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> and Himmaleh<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> are insignificant in the curve of the +sphere. Nor does it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is +like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a>—read it forward, +backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing, +contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my +honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it +will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not, and see it not. My +book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The +swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he +carries in his bill into my web also. We pass for what we are. +Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate +their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue +or vice emit a breath every moment.</p> + +<p>There will be an agreement in whatever variety of <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>[91] </span> actions, so they be +each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions +will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost +sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One +tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line +of a hundred tacks.<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> See the line from a sufficient distance, and +it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action +will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your +conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already +done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If +I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes,<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> I must +have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, +do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. The force +of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their +health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate +and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a +train of great days and victories behind. They shed an united light on +the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of angels. +That is it which throws thunder into Chatham's<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> voice, and dignity +into Washington's port, and America into Adams's<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> eye. Honor is +venerable to us because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient +virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it +and pay it homage, because it is not a trap for our love <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>[92] </span> and homage, +but is self-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an old +immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person.</p> + +<p>I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and +consistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward. +Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the +Spartan<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> fife. Let us never bow and apologize more. A great man is +coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he +should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity, and though I +would make it kind, I would make it true. Let us affront and reprimand +the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl +in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the +upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and +Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no +other time or place, but is the center of things. Where he is, there +is nature. He measures you, and all men, and all events. Ordinarily, +everybody in society reminds us of somewhat else, or of some other +person. Character, reality, reminds you of nothing else; it takes +place of the whole creation. The man must be so much, that he must +make all circumstances indifferent. Every true man is a cause, a +country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time +fully to accomplish his design;—and posterity seem to follow his +steps as a train of clients. A man Cæsar<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> is born, and for ages +after <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>[93] </span> we have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds +so grow and cleave to his genius, that he is confounded with virtue +and the possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of +one man; as Monachism, of the hermit Antony;<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> the Reformation, of +Luther; Quakerism, of Fox;<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> Methodism, of Wesley;<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> Abolition, +of Clarkson.<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> Scipio,<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> Milton called "the height of Rome"; and +all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few +stout and earnest persons.</p> + +<p>Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him +not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, +a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which exists for him. But +the man in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds +to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels +poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, a statue, a costly book, +have an alien and forbidding air, much like a gay equipage, and seem +to say like that, "Who are you, Sir?" Yet they all are his, suitors +for his notice, petitioners to his faculties that they will come out +and take possession. The picture waits for my verdict: it is not to +command me, but I am to settle its claims to praise. That popular +fable of the sot who was picked up dead drunk in the street, carried +to the duke's house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke's bed, +and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the +duke, and assured that he had been insane,<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> owes its popularity to +the fact <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>[94] </span> that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the +world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason, +and finds himself a true prince.</p> + +<p>Our reading is mendicant and sycophantic. In history, our imagination +plays us false. Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier +vocabulary than private John and Edward in a small house and common +day's work; but the things of life are the same to both; the sum total +of both is the same. Why all this deference to Alfred,<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> and +Scanderbeg,<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> and Gustavus?<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> Suppose they were virtuous; did +they wear out virtue? As great a stake depends on your private act +to-day, as followed their public and renowned steps. When private men +shall act with original views, the luster will be transferred from the +actions of kings to those of gentlemen.</p> + +<p>The world has been instructed by its kings, who have so magnetized the +eyes of nations. It has been taught by this colossal symbol the mutual +reverence that is due from man to man. The joyful loyalty with which +men have everywhere suffered the king, the noble, or the great +proprietor to walk among them by a law of his own, make his own scale +of men and things, and reverse theirs, pay for benefits not with money +but with honor, and represent the law in his person, was the +hieroglyphic<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> by which they obscurely signified their +consciousness of their own right and comeliness, the right of every +man.</p> + +<p>The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we +inquire the reason of self-trust. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>[95] </span> Who is the Trustee? What is the +aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What +is the nature and power of that science-baffling star, without +parallax,<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of +beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of +independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the +essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity +or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all +later teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, the last fact behind +which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin. For the +sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the +soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, +from man, but one with them, and proceeds obviously from the same +source whence their life and being also proceed. We first share the +life by which things exist, and afterwards see them as appearances in +nature, and forget that we have shared their cause. Here is the +fountain of action and of thought. Here are the lungs of that +inspiration which giveth man wisdom, and which cannot be denied +without impiety and atheism. We lie in the lap of immense +intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its +activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do +nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask +whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all +philosophy is at fault. Its <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>[96] </span> presence or its absence is all we can +affirm. Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his +mind, and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his +involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the +expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day +and night, not to be disputed. My willful actions and acquisitions are +but roving;—the idlest reverie, the faintest native emotion, command +my curiosity and respect. Thoughtless people contradict as readily the +statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; +for, they do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy +that I choose to see this or that thing. But perception is not +whimsical, it is fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it +after me, and in course of time, all mankind,—although it may chance +that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much +a fact as the sun.</p> + +<p>The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is +profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh +he should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the +world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, +from the center of the present thought; and new date and new create +the whole. Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, +old things pass away,—means, teachers, texts, temples, fall; it lives +now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>[97] </span> made sacred by relation to it,—one as much as another. All things +are dissolved to their center by their cause, and, in the universal +miracle, petty and particular miracles disappear. If, therefore, a man +claims to know and speak of God, and carries you backward to the +phraseology of some old moldered nation in another country, in another +world, believe him not. Is the acorn better than the oak which is its +fullness and completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom +he has cast his ripened being?<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> Whence, then, this worship of the +past?<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and +authority of the soul. Time and space are but physiological colors +which the eye makes, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where +it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury, if it +be anything more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and +becoming.</p> + +<p>Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say +"I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before +the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window +make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what +they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There +is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. +Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown +flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its +nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>[98] </span> But man postpones, or remembers; he does not live in the present, but +with a reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that +surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be +happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above +time.</p> + +<p>This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not +yet hear God himself, unless he speak the phraseology of I know not +what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a +price on a few texts, on a few lives.<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> We are like children who +repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they +grow older, of the men and talents and characters they chance to +see,—painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, +when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered +those saying, they understand them, and are willing to let the words +go; for, at any time, they can use words as good when occasion comes. +If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man +to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. When we have new +perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded +treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall +be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn.</p> + +<p>And now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid; +probably cannot be said; for all that we say is the far-off +remembering of the intuition. That thought, by what I can now nearest +approach <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>[99] </span> to say it, is this. When good is near you, when you have +life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall +not discern the footprints of any other; you shall not see the face of +man; you shall not hear any name;—the way, the thought, the good, +shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and +experience. You take the way from man, not to man. All persons that +ever existed are its forgotten ministers. Fear and hope are alike +beneath it. There is somewhat low even in hope. In the hour of vision, +there is nothing that can be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The +soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation, +perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right, and calms itself with +knowing that all things go well. Vast spaces of nature, the Atlantic +Ocean, the South Sea,—long intervals of time, years, centuries,—are +of no account. This which I think and feel underlay every former state +of life and circumstances, as it does underlie my present, and what is +called life, and what is called death.</p> + +<p>Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of +repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new +state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one +fact the world hates, that the soul <i>becomes</i>; for that forever +degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to +shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> +equally aside. Why, then, do we prate of self-reliance? Inasmuch <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>[100] </span> as +the soul is present, there will be power not confident but agent.<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> +To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather +of that which relies, because it works and is. Who has more obedience +than I masters me, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I +must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. We fancy it rhetoric, when +we speak of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, +and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable to +principles, by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities, +nations, kings, rich men, poets, who are not.</p> + +<p>This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on +every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed <span class="smcap">One</span>. +Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it +constitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into +all lower forms. All things real are so by so much virtue as they +contain. Commerce, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war eloquence, +personal weight, are somewhat, and engage my respect as examples of +its presence and impure action. I see the same law working in nature +for conservation and growth. Power is in nature the essential measure +of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which +cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise +and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the +vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of +the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>[101] </span> </p> + +<p>Thus all concentrates: let us not rove; let us sit at home with the +cause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books +and institutions, by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the +invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here +within.<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> Let our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our +own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our +native riches.</p> + +<p>But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his +genius admonished to stay at home to put itself in communication with +the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the +urns of other men. We must go alone. I like the silent church before +the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, +how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or +sanctuary! So let us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of +our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our +hearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood, and +I have all men's.<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> Not for that will I adopt their petulance or +folly, even to the extent of being ashamed of it. But your isolation +must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At +times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with +emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, +charity, all knock at once at thy closet door, and say, "Come out unto +us." But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men +possess to annoy men, I give <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>[102] </span> them by a weak curiosity. No man can +come near me but through my act. "What we love that we have, but by +desire we bereave ourselves of the love."</p> + +<p>If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and faith, +let us at least resist our temptations; let us enter into the state of +war, and wake Thor and Woden,<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> courage and constancy, in our Saxon +breasts. This is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. +Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to +the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we +converse. Say to them, O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O +friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward +I am the truth's. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law +less than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but +proximities.<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support +my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife,—but these relations +I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your +customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, +or you.<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the +happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. +I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is +deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever +inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will +love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>[103] </span> by +hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth +with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not +selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, +and all men's however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. +Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by +your nature as well as mine, and, if we follow the truth, it will +bring us out safe at last.<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> But so may you give these friends +pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their +sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when +they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they +justify me, and do the same thing.</p> + +<p>The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a +rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism;<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> and the bold +sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the +law of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one or +the other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfill your round of +duties by clearing yourself in the <i>direct</i>, or in the <i>reflex</i> way. +Consider whether you have satisfied your relations to father, mother, +cousin, neighbor, town, cat, and dog; whether any of these can upbraid +you. But I may also neglect this reflex standard, and absolve me to +myself. I have my own stern claims and perfect circle. It denies the +name of duty to many offices that are called duties. But if I can +discharge its debts, it enables me to dispense with the popular code. +If <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>[104] </span> any one imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its +commandment one day.</p> + +<p>And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the +common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a +taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, +that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, +that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to +others!</p> + +<p>If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by +distinction <i>society</i>, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew +and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, +desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, +afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and +perfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our +social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot +satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to +their practical force,<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> and do lean and beg day and night +continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, +our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but society has +chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of +fate, where strength is born.</p> + +<p>If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all +heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is <i>ruined</i>. If the +finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in +an office within one year afterwards in the cities or <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>[105] </span> suburbs of +Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is +right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. +A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the +professions, who <i>teams it, farms it</i>,<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> <i>peddles</i>, keeps a school, +preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so +forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, +is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his +days, and feels no shame in not "studying a profession," for he does +not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a +hundred chances. Let a Stoic<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> open the resources of man, and tell +men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; +that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a +man is the word made flesh,<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> born to shed healing to the +nations,<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that +the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, +idolatries and customs out of the window, we pity him no more, but +thank and revere him,—and that teacher shall restore the life of man +to splendor, and make his name dear to all history.</p> + +<p>It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution +in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their +education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their +association; in their property; in their speculative views.</p> + +<p>1. In what prayers do men allow themselves!<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>[106] </span> That which they call +a holy office is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad +and asks for some foreign addition to come through some foreign +virtue, and loses itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural, +and mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves a particular +commodity,—anything less than all good,—is vicious. Prayer is the +contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It +is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul.<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> It is the +spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to +effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and +not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one +with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action. The +prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of +the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard +throughout nature, though for cheap ends. Caratach,<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> in Fletcher's +Bonduca, when admonished to inquire the mind of the god Audate, +replies,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors;<br /></span> +<span class="i0"> Our valors are our best gods."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want +of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you +can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and +already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. +We come to them who weep foolishly, and <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>[107] </span> sit down and cry for company, +instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric +shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. +The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods +and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him +all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our +love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We +solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he +held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods love him +because men hated him. "To the persevering mortal," said +Zoroaster,<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> "the blessed Immortals are swift."</p> + +<p>As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a +disease of the intellect. They say with those foolish Israelites, "Let +not God speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any man with us, +and we will obey."<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my +brother, because he has shut his own temple doors, and recites fables +merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God. Every new +mind is a new classification. If it prove a mind of uncommon activity +and power, a Locke,<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> a Lavoisier,<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> a Hutton,<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> a +Betham,<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> a Fourier,<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> it imposes its classification on other +men, and lo! a new system. In proportion to the depth of the thought, +and so to the number of the objects it touches and brings within reach +of the pupil, is his complacency. But chiefly is this apparent in +creeds and churches, which <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>[108] </span> are also classifications of some powerful +mind acting on the elemental thought of duty, and man's relation to +the Highest. Such is Calvinism,<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> Quakerism,<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> +Swedenborgism.<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> The pupil takes the same delight in subordinating +everything to the new terminology, as a girl who has just learned +botany in seeing a new earth and new seasons thereby. It will happen +for a time, that the pupil will find his intellectual power has grown +by the study of his master's mind. But in all unbalanced minds, the +classification is idolized, passes for the end, and not for a speedily +exhaustible means, so that the walls of the system blend to their eye +in the remote horizon with the walls of the universe; the luminaries +of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their master built. They +cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to see,—how you can see; +"It must be somehow that you stole the light from us." They do not yet +perceive that light, unsystematic, indomitable, will break into any +cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and call it their own. +If they are honest and do well, presently their neat new pinfold will +be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot and vanish, and +the immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, +million-colored, will beam over the universe as on the first morning.</p> + +<p>2. It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Traveling, +whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all +educated Americans. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>[109] </span> They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable +in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an +axis of the earth. In manly hours, we feel that duty is our place. The +soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home, and when his +necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or +into foreign lands, he is at home still; and shall make men sensible +by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of +wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not +like an interloper or a valet.</p> + +<p>I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for +the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is +first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding +somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get +somewhat which he does not carry,<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> travels away from himself, and +grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes,<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> in +Palmyra,<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as +they. He carries ruins to ruins.</p> + +<p>Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the +indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can +be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, +embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, +and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, +identical, that I fled from.<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> I seek the Vatican,<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a> and the +palaces. I affect <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>[110] </span> to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but +I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.</p> + +<p>3. But the rage of traveling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness +affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, +and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel +when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is +imitation but the traveling of the mind? Our houses are built with +foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our +opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the +Distant. The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It +was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an +application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the +conditions to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> or the +Gothic<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought, and +quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if the American +artist will study with hope and love the precise thing to be done by +him considering the climate, the soil, the length of the day, the +wants of the people, the habit and form of the government, he will +create a house in which all these will find themselves fitted, and +taste and sentiment will be satisfied also.</p> + +<p>Insist on yourself; never imitate.<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> Your own gift you can present +every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; +but of the adopted <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>[111] </span> talent of another, you have only an +extemporaneous, half possession. That which each can do best, none but +his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till +that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have +taught Shakespeare?<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> Where is the master who could have instructed +Franklin,<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> or Washington, or Bacon,<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> or Newton?<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> Every +great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> is precisely that +part he could not borrow. Shakespeare will never be made by the study +of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope +too much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an +utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of +Phidias,<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> or trowel of the Egyptians,<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> or the pen of +Moses,<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> or Dante,<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> but different from all these. Not possibly +will the soul all rich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, +deign to repeat itself; but if you can hear what these patriarchs say, +surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice; for the ear +and the tongue are two organs of one nature. Abide in the simple and +noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart, and thou shalt reproduce +the Foreworld<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> again.</p> + +<p>4. As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so does our +spirit of society. All men plume themselves on the improvement of +society, and no man improves.</p> + +<p>Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on +the other. It undergoes continual <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>[112] </span> changes; it is barbarous, it is +civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this +change is not amelioration. For everything that is given, something is +taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. What a +contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, +with a watch, a pencil, and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the +naked New Zealander,<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> whose property is a club, a spear, a mat, +and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under! But compare the +health of the two men, and you shall see that the white man has lost +his aboriginal strength. If the traveler tell us truly, strike the +savage with a broad ax, and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and +heal as if you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow +shall send the white to his grave.</p> + +<p>The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. +He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He +has a fine Geneva<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the +hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> he has, and so +being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street +does not know a star in the sky. The solstice<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> he does not +observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar +of the year is without a dial in his mind. His notebooks impair his +memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases +the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery +does not encumber; whether we have not <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>[113] </span> lost by refinement some +energy, by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and forms, some +vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom +where is the Christian?</p> + +<p>There is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the standard +of height or bulk. No greater men are now than ever were. A singular +equality may be observed between great men of the first and of the +last ages; nor can all the science, art, religion, and philosophy of +the nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than +Plutarch's<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> heroes, three or four and twenty centuries ago. Not in +time is the race progressive. Phocion,<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> Socrates, Anaxagoras,<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> +Diogenes,<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> are great men, but they leave no class. He who is +really of their class will not be called by their name, but will be +his own man, and, in his turn, the founder of a sect. The arts and +inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate +men. The harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good. +Hudson<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> and Bering<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> accomplished so much in their fishing +boats, as to astonish Parry<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> and Franklin,<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> whose equipment +exhausted the resources of science and art. Galileo, with an +opera-glass, discovered a more splendid series of celestial phenomena +than any one since. Columbus<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> found the New World in an undecked +boat. It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of +means and machinery, which were introduced with loud laudation a few +years or centuries before. The great genius returns to essential <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>[114] </span> man. +We reckoned the improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of +science, and yet Napoleon<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> conquered Europe by the bivouac, which +consisted of falling back on naked valor, and disencumbering it of all +aids. The Emperor held it impossible to make a perfect army, says Las +Casas,<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> "without abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries, and +carriages, until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should +receive his supply of corn, grind it in his handmill, and bake his +bread himself."</p> + +<p>Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is +composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to +the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a +nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them.</p> + +<p>And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments +which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away +from themselves and at things so long, that they have come to esteem +the religious, learned, and civil institutions as guards of property, +and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be +assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what +each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes +ashamed of his property, out of new respect for his nature. Especially +he hates what he has, if he see that it is accidental,—came to him by +inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; +it does not belong to <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>[115] </span> him, has no root in him, and merely lies there, +because no revolution or no robber takes it away. But that which a man +is, does always by necessity acquire, and what the man acquires is +living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or +revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually +renews itself wherever the man breathes. "Thy lot or portion of life," +said the Caliph Ali,<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> "is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest +from seeking after it." Our dependence on these foreign goods leads us +to our slavish respect for numbers. The political parties meet in +numerous conventions; the greater the concourse, and with each new +uproar of announcement, The delegation from Essex!<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> The Democrats +from New Hampshire! The Whigs of Maine! the young patriot feels +himself stronger than before by a new thousand of eyes and arms. In +like manner the reformers summon conventions, and vote and resolve in +multitude. Not so, O friends! will the god deign to enter and inhabit +you, but by a method precisely the reverse. It is only as a man puts +off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong +and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a +man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and in the endless +mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of +all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is inborn, that he is +weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so +perceiving, throws himself <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>[116] </span> unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly +rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, +works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than +a man who stands on his head.</p> + +<p>So use all that is called Fortune.<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> Most men gamble with her, and +gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as +unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the +chancelors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained +the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her +rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your +sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable +event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for +you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. +Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>[117] </span> </p> +<h2><a name="FRIENDSHIP" id="FRIENDSHIP"></a>FRIENDSHIP.<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a></h2> + + +<p>1. We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Barring all +the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human +family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many +persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we +honor, and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in +church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the +language of these wandering eyebeams. The heart knoweth.</p> + +<p>2. The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain +cordial exhilaration. In poetry, and in common speech, the emotions of +benevolence and complacency which are felt toward others, are likened +to the material effects of fire; so swift, or much more swift, more +active, more cheering are these fine inward irradiations. From the +highest degree of passionate love, to the lowest degree of good will, +they make the sweetness of life.</p> + +<p>3. Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The +scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not +furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is +necessary to write a letter to a friend, and, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>[118] </span> forthwith, troops of +gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen words. +See in any house where virtue and self-respect abide, the palpitation +which the approach of a stranger causes. A commended stranger is +expected and announced, and an uneasiness between pleasure and pain +invades all the hearts of a household. His arrival almost brings fear +to the good hearts that would welcome him. The house is dusted, all +things fly into their places, the old coat is exchanged for the new, +and they must get up a dinner if they can. Of a commended stranger, +only the good report is told by others, only the good and new is heard +by us. He stands to us for humanity. He is, what we wish. Having +imagined and invested him, we ask how we should stand related in +conversation and action with such a man, and are uneasy with fear. The +same idea exalts conversation with him. We talk better than we are +wont. We have the nimblest fancy, a richer memory, and our dumb devil +has taken leave for the time. For long hours we can continue a series +of sincere, graceful, rich communications, drawn from the oldest, +secretest experience, so that they who sit by, of our own kinsfolk and +acquaintance, shall feel a lively surprise at our unusual powers. But +as soon as the stranger begins to intrude his partialities, his +definitions, his defects, into the conversation, it is all over. He +has heard the first, the last and best, he will ever hear from us. He +is no stranger now. Vulgarity, ignorance, misapprehension, are old + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>[119] </span> acquaintances. Now, when he comes, he may get the order, the dress, +and the dinner, but the throbbing of the heart, and the communications +of the soul, no more.</p> + +<p>4. What is so pleasant as these jets of affection which relume<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> a +young world for me again? What is so delicious as a just and firm +encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling? How beautiful, on their +approach to this beating heart, the steps and forms of the gifted and +the true! The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is +metamorphosed; there is no winter, and no night; all tragedies, all +ennuis vanish; all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity +but the forms all radiant of beloved persons. Let the soul be assured +that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it +would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.</p> + +<p>5. I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the +old and the new. Shall I not call God, the Beautiful, who daily +showeth himself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace +solitude, and yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the +lovely, and the noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my +gate.<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine,—a +possession for all time. Nor is nature so poor, but she gives me this +joy several times, and thus we weave social threads of our own, a new +web of relations; and, as many thoughts in succession substantiate +themselves, we shall by-and-by stand in a new world of our own +creation, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>[120] </span> and no longer strangers and pilgrims is a traditionary +globe. My friends have come<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> to me unsought. The great God gave +them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of virtue with +itself, I find them, or rather, not I, but the Deity in me and in +them, both deride and cancel the thick walls of individual character, +relation, age, sex and circumstance, at which he usually connives, and +now makes many one. High thanks I owe you, excellent lovers, who carry +out the world for me to new and noble depths, and enlarge the meaning +of all my thoughts. These are new poetry of the first +Bard<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a>—poetry without stop—hymn, ode and epic,<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> poetry still +flowing, Apollo<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> and the Muses<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> chanting still. Will these two +separate themselves from me again, or some of them? I know not, but I +fear it not; for my relation to them is so pure, that we hold by +simple affinity, and the Genius<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> of my life being thus social, the +same affinity will exert its energy on whomsoever is as noble as these +men and women, wherever I may be.</p> + +<p>6. I confess to an extreme tenderness of nature on this point. It is +almost dangerous to me to "crush the sweet poison,<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> of misused +wine" of the affections. A new person is to me a great event, and +hinders me from sleep. I have had such fine fancies lately about two +or three persons, as have given me delicious hours, but the joy ends +in the day: it yields no fruit. Thought is not born of it; my action +is very little modified. I must feel pride in my friend's +accomplishments as if they were mine, and a <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>[121] </span> property in his virtues. +I feel as warmly when he is praised, as the lover when he hears +applause of his engaged maiden. We over-estimate the conscience of our +friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature finer, +his temptations less. Everything that is his,—his name, his form, his +dress, books and instruments,—fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds +new and larger from his mouth.</p> + +<p>7. Yet the systole and diastole<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> of the heart are not without +their analogy in the ebb and flow of love. Friendship, like the +immortality<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> of the soul, is too good to be believed. The lover, +beholding his maiden, half knows that she is not verily that which he +worships; and in the golden hour of friendship, we are surprised with +shades of suspicion and unbelief. We doubt that we bestow on our hero +the virtues in which he shines, and afterward worship the form to +which we have ascribed this divine inhabitation. In strictness, the +soul does not respect men as it respects itself. In strict science, +all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness. +Shall we fear to cool our love by mining for the metaphysical +foundation of this Elysian temple?<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> Shall I not be as real as the +things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they +are. Their essence is not less beautiful than their appearance, though +it needs finer organs for its apprehension. The root of the plant is +not unsightly to science, though for chaplets and festoons we cut <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>[122] </span> the +stem short. And I must hazard the production of the bald fact amid +these pleasing reveries, though it should prove an Egyptian skull at +our banquet.<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> A man who stands united with his thought, conceives +magnificently to himself. He is conscious of a universal success,<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> +even though bought by uniform particular failures. No advantages, no +powers, no gold or force can be any match for him. I cannot choose but +rely on my own poverty, more than on your wealth. I cannot make your +consciousness tantamount to mine. Only the star dazzles; the planet +has a faint, moon-like ray. I hear what you say of the admirable parts +and tried temper of the party you praise, but I see well that for all +his purple cloaks I shall not like him, unless he is at least a poor +Greek like me. I cannot deny it, O friend, that the vast shadow of the +Phenomenal includes thee, also, in its pied and painted +immensity,—thee, also, compared with whom all else is shadow. Thou +art not Being, as Truth is, as Justice is,—thou art not my soul, but +a picture and effigy of that. Thou hast come to me lately, and already +thou art seizing thy hat and cloak. It is not that the soul puts forth +friends, as the tree puts forth leaves, and presently, by the +germination of new buds, extrudes the old leaf?<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> The law of nature +is alternation forevermore. Each electrical state superinduces the +opposite. The soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter +into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone, for a +season, that it may <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>[123] </span> exalt its conversation or society. This method +betrays itself along the whole history of our personal relations. The +instinct of affection revives the hope of union with our mates, and +the returning sense of insulation recalls us from the chase. Thus +every man passes his life in the search after friendship, and if he +should record his true sentiment, he might write a letter like this, +to each new candidate for his love:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>:—</p> + +<p>If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match +my mood with thine, I should never think again of trifles, +in relation to thy comings and goings. I am not very wise; +my moods are quite attainable; and I respect thy genius; it +is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a +perfect intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a +delicious torment. Thine ever, or never.</p></div> + +<p>8. Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity, and +not for life. They are not to be indulged. This is to weave cobweb, +and not cloth. Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, +because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams,<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a> instead +of the tough fiber of the human heart. The laws of friendship are +great, austere, and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of +morals. But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a +sudden sweetness. We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden +of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen. We seek our +friend not sacredly but with an adulterate <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>[124] </span> passion which would +appropriate him to ourselves. In vain. We are armed all over with +subtle antagonisms, which, as soon as we meet, begin to play, and +translate all poetry into stale prose. Almost all people descend to +meet. All association must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the +very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures +disappears as they approach each other. What a perpetual +disappointment is actual society, even of the virtuous and gifted! +After interviews have been compassed with long foresight, we must be +tormented presently by baffled blows, by sudden, unseasonable +apathies, by epilepsies of wit and of animal spirits, in the heyday of +friendship and thought. Our faculties do not play us true, and both +parties are relieved by solitude.</p> + +<p>9. I ought to be equal to every relation. It makes no difference how +many friends I have, and what content I can find in conversing with +each, if there be one to whom I am not equal. If I have shrunk unequal +from one contest instantly, the joy I find in all the rest becomes +mean and cowardly. I should hate myself, if then I made my other +friends my asylum.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The valiant warrior<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> famoused for fight,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">After a hundred victories, once foiled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"> Is from the book of honor razed quite,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And all the rest forgot for which he toiled."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>10. Our impatience is thus sharply rebuked. Bashfulness and apathy are +a tough husk in which <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>[125] </span> a delicate organization is protected from +premature ripening. It would be lost if it knew itself before any of +the best souls were yet ripe enough to know and own it. Respect the +<i>naturalangsamkeit</i><a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> which hardens the ruby in a million years, +and works in duration, in which Alps and Andes come and go as +rainbows. The good spirit of our life has no heaven which is the price +of rashness. Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but +for the total worth of man. Let us not have this childish luxury in +our regards, but the austerest worth; let us approach our friend with +an audacious trust in the truth of his heart, in the breadth, +impossible to be overturned, of his foundations.</p> + +<p>11. The attractions of this subject are not to be resisted, and I +leave, for the time, all account of subordinate social benefit, to +speak of that select and sacred relation which is a kind of absolute, +and which even leaves the language of love suspicious and common, so +much is this purer, and nothing is so much divine.</p> + +<p>12. I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest +courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, +but the solidest thing we know. For now, after so many ages of +experience, what do we know of nature, or of ourselves? Not one step +has man taken toward the solution of the problem of his destiny. In +one condemnation of folly stand the whole universe of men. But the +sweet sincerity of joy and peace, which I <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>[126] </span> draw from this alliance +with my brother's soul, is the nut itself whereof all nature and all +thought is but the husk and shell. Happy is the house that shelters a +friend! It might well be built, like a festal bower or arch, to +entertain him a single day. Happier, if he know the solemnity of that +relation, and honor its law! He who offers himself a candidate for +that covenant comes up, like an Olympian,<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> to the great games, +where the first-born of the world are the competitors. He proposes +himself for contest where Time, Want, Danger are in the lists, and he +alone is victor who has truth enough in his constitution to preserve +the delicacy of his beauty from the wear and tear of all these. The +gifts of fortune may be present or absent, but all the hap in that +contest depends on intrinsic nobleness, and the contempt of trifles. +There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each +so sovereign, that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason +why either should be first named. One is Truth. A friend is a person +with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud. I am +arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may +drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and +second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with +the simplicity and wholeness, with which one chemical atom meets +another. Sincerity is the luxury allowed, but diadems and authority, +only to the highest rank, <i>that</i> being permitted to speak truth as +having none above <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>[127] </span> it to court or conform unto. Every man alone is +sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We +parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by +gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him +under a hundred folds. I knew a man who,<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> under a certain +religious frenzy, cast off this drapery, and omitting all compliments +and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he +encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first he was +resisted, and all men agreed he was mad. But persisting, as indeed he +could not help doing, for some time in this course, he attained to the +advantage of bringing every man of his acquaintance into true +relations with him. No man would think of speaking falsely with him, +or of putting him off with any chat of markets or reading-rooms. But +every man was constrained by so much sincerity to the like plain +dealing and what love of nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth he +had, he did certainly show him. But to most of us society shows not +its face and eye, but its side and its back. To stand in true +relations with men in a false age, is worth a fit of insanity, is it +not? We can seldom go erect. Almost every man we meet requires some +civility,—requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some +whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be +questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend +is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>[128] </span> My friend gives +me entertainment without requiring any stipulation on my part. A +friend, therefore, is a sort of paradox<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a> in nature. I who alone +am, I who see nothing in nature whose existence I can affirm with +equal evidence to my own, behold now the semblance of my being in all +its height, variety and curiosity, reiterated in a foreign form; so +that a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.</p> + +<p>13. The other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to +men by every sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by +lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and +badge and trifle, but we can scarce believe that so much character can +subsist in another as to draw us by love. Can another be so blessed, +and we so pure, that we can offer him tenderness? When a man becomes +dear to me, I have touched the goal of fortune. I find very little +written directly to the heart of this matter in books. And yet I have +one text which I cannot choose but remember. My author says,<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a>—"I +offer myself faintly and bluntly to those whose I effectually am, and +tender myself least to him to whom I am the most devoted." I wish that +friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and eloquence. It must +plant itself on the ground, before it vaults over the moon. I wish it +to be a little of a citizen, before it is quite a cherub.<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> We +chide the citizen because he makes love a commodity. It is an exchange +of gifts, of useful loans; it is good <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>[129] </span> neighborhood; it watches with +the sick; it holds the pall at the funeral; and quite loses sight of +the delicacies and nobility of the relation. But though we cannot find +the god under this disguise of a sutler, yet, on the other hand, we +cannot forgive the poet if he spins his thread too fine, and does not +substantiate his romance by the municipal virtues of justice, +punctuality, fidelity and pity. I hate the prostitution of the name of +friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances. I much prefer the +company of plow-boys and tin-peddlers, to the silken and perfumed +amity which only celebrates its days of encounter by a frivolous +display, by rides in a curricle,<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> and dinners at the best taverns. +The end of friendship is a commerce the most strict and homely that +can be joined; more strict than any of which we have experience. It is +for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and +death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country +rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, +and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the +trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs +and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and +unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but +should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was +drudgery.</p> + +<p>14. Friendship may be said to require natures so rare and costly, each +so well-tempered, and so <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>[130] </span> happily adapted, and withal so +circumstanced, (for even in that particular, a poet says, love demands +that the parties be altogether paired,) that its satisfaction can very +seldom be assured. It cannot subsist in its perfection, say some of +those who are learned in this warm lore of the heart, betwixt more +than two. I am not quite so strict in my terms, perhaps because I have +never known so high a fellowship as others. I please my imagination +more with a circle of godlike men and women variously related to each +other, and between whom subsists a lofty intelligence. But I find this +law of <i>one to one</i>,<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a> peremptory for conversation, which is the +practice and consummation of friendship. Do not mix waters too much. +The best mix as ill as good and bad. You shall have very useful and +cheering discourse at several times with two several men, but let all +three of you come together, and you shall not have one new and hearty +word. Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take part in a +conversation of the most sincere and searching sort. In good company +there is never such discourse between two, across the table, as takes +place when you leave them alone. In good company, the individuals at +once merge their egotism into a social soul exactly co-extensive with +the several consciousnesses there present. No partialities of friend +to friend, no fondnesses of brother to sister, of wife to husband, are +there pertinent, but quite otherwise. Only he may then speak who can +sail on the common thought of the party, and not <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>[131] </span> poorly limited to +his own. Now this convention, which good sense demands, destroys the +high freedom of great conversation, which requires an absolute running +of two souls into one.</p> + +<p>15. No two men but being left alone with each other, enter into +simpler relations. Yet it is affinity that determines <i>which</i> two +shall converse. Unrelated men give little joy to each other; will +never suspect the latent powers of each. We talk sometimes of a great +talent for conversation, as if it were a permanent property in some +individuals. Conversation is an evanescent relation,—no more. A man +is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say +a word to his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his silence with as +much reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the +shade. In the sun it will mark the hour. Among those who enjoy his +thought, he will regain his tongue.</p> + +<p>16. Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and +unlikeness, that piques each with the presence of power and of consent +in the other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather +than that my friend should overstep by a word or a look his real +sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him +not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being +mine, is that the <i>not mine</i> is <i>mine</i>. I hate, where I looked for a +manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of +concession. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>[132] </span> Better be a nettle in the side of your friend, than his +echo. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do +without it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There +must be very two before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance +of two large formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, +before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these +disparities unites them.</p> + +<p>17. He only is fit for this society who is magnanimous; who is sure +that greatness and goodness are always economy; who is not swift to +intermeddle with his fortunes. Let him not intermeddle with this. +Leave to the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the +births of the eternal. Friendship demands a religious treatment. We +talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected. Reverence +is a great part of it. Treat your friend as a spectacle. Of course he +has merits that are not yours, and that you cannot honor, if you must +needs hold him close to your person. Stand aside; give those merits +room; let them mount and expand. Are you the friend of your friend's +buttons, or of his thought? To a great heart he will still be a +stranger in a thousand particulars, that he may come near in the +holiest ground. Leave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as +property, and to suck a short and all-confounding pleasure instead of +the noblest benefits.</p> + +<p>18. Let us buy our entrance to this guild by a long probation. Why +should we desecrate noble and <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>[133] </span> beautiful souls by intruding on them? +Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to his +house, or know his mother and brother and sisters? Why be visited by +him at your own? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this +touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, +a sincerity, a glance from him I want, but not news, nor pottage. I +can get politics, and chat, and neighborly conveniences, from cheaper +companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, +universal, and great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is +profane in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the +horizon, or that clump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us +not vilify but raise it to that standard. That great defying eye, that +scornful beauty of his mien and action, do not pique yourself on +reducing, but rather fortify and enhance. Worship his superiorities; +wish him not less by a thought, but hoard and tell them all. Guard him +as thy counterpart. Let him be to thee forever a sort of beautiful +enemy, untamable, devoutly revered, and not a trivial conveniency to +be soon outgrown and cast aside. The hues of the opal, the light of +the diamond, are not to be seen, if the eye is too near. To my friend +I write a letter, and from him I receive a letter. That seems to you a +little. It suffices me. It is a spiritual gift worthy of him to give +and of me to receive. It profanes nobody. In these warm lines the +heart will trust itself, as it will not <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>[134] </span> to the tongue, and pour out +the prophecy of a godlier existence than all the annals of heroism +have yet made good.</p> + +<p>19. Respect so far the holy laws of this fellowship as not to +prejudice its perfect flower by your impatience for its opening. We +must be our own before we can be another's. There is at least this +satisfaction in crime, according to the Latin proverb;—you can speak +to your accomplice on even terms. <i>Crimen quos<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> inquinat, æquat</i>. +To those whom we admire and love, at first we cannot. Yet the least +defect of self-possession vitiates, in my judgment, the entire +relation. There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never +mutual respect until, in their dialogue, each stands for the whole +world.</p> + +<p>20. What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what grandeur of +spirit we can. Let us be silent,—so we may hear the whisper of the +gods. Let us not interfere. Who set you to cast about what you should +say to the select souls, or how to say anything to such? No matter how +ingenious, no matter how graceful and bland. There are innumerable +degrees of folly and wisdom, and for you to say aught is to be +frivolous. Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait until the necessary +and everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves +of your lips. The only reward of virtue, is virtue; the only way to +have a friend is to be one. You shall not come nearer a man by getting +into his house. If unlike, his soul only flees the faster from <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>[135] </span> you, +and you shall catch never a true glance of his eye. We see the noble +afar off, and they repel us; why should we intrude? Late,—very +late,—we perceive that no arrangements, no introductions, no +consuetudes or habits of society, would be of any avail to establish +us in such relations with them as we desire,—but solely the uprise of +nature in us to the same degree it is in them; then shall we meet as +water with water; and if we should not meet them then, we shall not +want them, for we are already they. In the last analysis, love is only +the reflection of a man's own worthiness from other men. Men have +sometimes exchanged names with their friends, as if they would signify +that in their friend each loved his own soul.</p> + +<p>21. The higher the style we demand of friendship, of course the less +easy to establish it with flesh and blood. We walk alone in the world. +Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope +cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of +the universal power, souls are now acting, enduring and daring, which +can love us, and which we can love. We may congratulate ourselves that +the period of nonage,<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> of follies, of blunders, and of shame, is +passed in solitude, and when we are finished men, we shall grasp +heroic hands in heroic hands. Only be admonished by what you already +see, not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no +friendship can be. Our impatience betrays us into rash and foolish +alliances which <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>[136] </span> no God attends. By persisting in your path, though +you forfeit the little you gain the great. You demonstrate yourself, +so as to put yourself out of the reach of false relations, and you +draw to you the first-born of the world, those rare pilgrims whereof +only one or two wander in nature at once, and before whom the vulgar +great show as specters and shadows merely.</p> + +<p>22. It is foolish to be afraid of making our ties too spiritual, as if +so we could lose any genuine love. Whatever correction of our popular +views we make from insight, nature will be sure to bear us out in, and +though it seem to rob us of some joy, will repay us with a greater. +Let us feel, if we will, the absolute insulation of man. We are sure +that we have all in us. We go to Europe, or we pursue persons, or we +read books, in the instinctive faith that these will call it out and +reveal us to ourselves. Beggars all. The persons are such as we; the +Europe, an old faded garment of dead persons; the books, their ghosts. +Let us drop this idolatry. Let us give over this mendicancy. Let us +even bid our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, "Who are +you? Unhand me. I will be dependent no more." Ah! seest thou not, O +brother, that thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform, +and only be more each other's, because we are more our own? A friend +is Janus-faced<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a>: he looks to the past and the future. He is the +child of all my foregoing hours, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>[137] </span> the prophet of those to come, and +the harbinger<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> of a greater friend.</p> + +<p>23. I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them +where I can find them, but I seldom use them. We must have society on +our own terms, and admit or exclude it on the slightest cause. I +cannot afford to speak much with my friend. If he is great, he makes +me so great that I cannot descend to converse. In the great days, +presentiments hover before me, far before me in the firmament. I ought +then to dedicate myself to them. I go in that I may seize them, I go +out that I may seize them. I fear only that I may lose them receding +into the sky in which now they are only a patch of brighter light. +Then, though I prize my friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and +study their visions, lest I lose my own. It would indeed give me a +certain household joy to quit this lofty seeking, this spiritual +astronomy, or search of stars, and come down to warm sympathies with +you; but then I know well I shall mourn always the vanishing of my +mighty gods. It is true, next week I shall have languid moods, when I +can well afford to occupy myself with foreign objects; then I shall +regret the lost literature of your mind, and wish you were by my side +again. But if you come, perhaps you will fill my mind only with new +visions, not with yourself but with your lusters, and I shall not be +able any more than now to converse with you. So I will owe <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>[138] </span> to my +friends this evanescent intercourse. I will receive from them, not +what they have, but what they are. They shall give me that which +properly they cannot give, but which emanates from them. But they +shall not hold me by any relations less subtile and pure. We will meet +as though we met not, and part as though we parted not.</p> + +<p>24. It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a +friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the +other. Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is +not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall +wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the +reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold +companion. If he is unequal, he will presently pass away; but thou art +enlarged by thy own shining, and no longer a mate for frogs and worms, +dost soar and burn with the gods of the empyrean.<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> It is thought a +disgrace to love unrequited. But the great will see that true love +cannot be unrequited. True love transcends the unworthy object, and +dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask +crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its +independency the surer. Yet these things may hardly be said without a +sort of treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is +entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or +provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it may +deify both.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>[139] </span></p> +<h2><a name="HEROISM" id="HEROISM"></a>HEROISM<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a></h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Paradise is under the shadow of swords,"<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i16"><i>Mahomet.</i><br /> +</span> +</div></div> + + +<p>1. In the elder English dramatists,<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> and mainly in the plays of +Beaumont and Fletcher,<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> there is a constant recognition of +gentility, as if a noble behavior were as easily marked in the society +of their age, as color is in our American population. When any +Rodrigo, Pedro, or Valerio<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> enters, though he be a stranger, the +duke or governor exclaims, This is a gentleman,—and proffers +civilities without end; but all the rest are slag and refuse. In +harmony with this delight in personal advantages, there is in their +plays a certain heroic cast of character and dialogue,—as in Bonduca, +Sophocles, the Mad Lover, the Double Marriage,<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a>—wherein the +speaker is so earnest and cordial, and on such deep grounds of +character, that the dialogue, on the slightest additional incident in +the plot, rises naturally into poetry. Among many texts, take the +following. The Roman Martius has conquered Athens—all but the +invincible spirits of Sophocles, the duke of Athens, and Dorigen, his +wife. The beauty of the latter inflames Martius, and he seeks to save +her husband; but Sophocles will not ask his life, although +assured, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>[140] </span> that a word will save him, and the +execution of both proceeds.</p> + +<p> +<span class="d2">"<i>Valerius.</i></span><span class="d2"> Bid thy wife farewell.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="d2"><i>Soph.</i></span> <span class="d2">No, I will take no leave. My Dorigen,</span><br /> +Yonder, above, 'bout Ariadne's crown.<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a><br /> +My spirit shall hover for thee. Prithee, haste.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="d2"><i>Dor.</i></span> <span class="d2">Stay, Sophocles—with this, tie up my sight;</span><br /> +Let not soft nature so transformed be,<br /> +And lose her gentler sexed humanity,<br /> +To make me see my lord bleed. So, 'tis well;<br /> +Never one object underneath the sun<br /> +Will I behold before my Sophocles:<br /> +Farewell; now teach the Romans how to die.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="d2"><i>Mar.</i></span> <span class="d2">Dost know what 'tis to die?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="d2"><i>Soph.</i></span> <span class="d2">Thou dost not, Martius,</span><br /> +And therefore, not what 'tis to live; to die<br /> +Is to begin to live. It is to end<br /> +An old, stale, weary work, and to commence<br /> +A newer and a better. 'Tis to leave<br /> +Deceitful knaves for the society<br /> +Of gods and goodness. Thou, thyself, must part<br /> +At last, from all thy garlands, pleasures, triumphs,<br /> +And prove thy fortitude what then 'twill do.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="d2"><i>Val.</i></span> <span class="d2">But art not grieved nor vexed to leave thy life thus?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="d2"><i>Soph.</i></span> <span class="d2">Why should I grieve or vex for being sent</span><br /> +To them I ever loved best? Now, I'll kneel,<br /> +But with my back toward thee; 'tis the last duty<br /> +This trunk can do the gods.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="d2"><i>Mar.</i></span> <span class="d2">Strike, strike, Valerius,</span><br /> +Or Martius' heart will leap out at his mouth:<br /> +This is a man, a woman! Kiss thy lord,<br /> +And live with all the freedom you were wont.<br /> +O love! thou doubly hast afflicted me<br /> +With virtue and with beauty. Treacherous heart,<br /> +My hand shall cast thee quick into my urn,<br /> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>[141] </span> +Ere thou transgress this knot of piety.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="d2"><i>Val.</i></span> <span class="d2">What ails my brother?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="d2"><i>Soph.</i></span> <span class="d2">Martius, oh Martius,</span><br /> +Thou now hast found a way to conquer me.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="d2"><i>Dor.</i></span> <span class="d2">O star of Rome! what gratitude can speak</span><br /> +Fit words to follow such a deed as this?<br /> +<br /> +<span class="d2"><i>Mar.</i></span> <span class="d2">This admirable duke, Valerius,</span><br /> +With his disdain of fortune and of death,<br /> +Captived himself, has captived me,<br /> +And though my arm hath ta'en his body here,<br /> +His soul hath subjugated Martius' soul.<br /> +By Romulus,<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> he is all soul, I think;<br /> +He hath no flesh, and spirit cannot be gyved;<br /> +Then we have vanquished nothing; he is free,<br /> +And Martius walks now in captivity."<br /> +</p> + +<p>2. I do not readily remember any poem, play, sermon, novel, or +oration, that our press vents in the last few years, which goes to the +same tune. We have a great many flutes and flageolets, but not often +the sound of any fife. Yet, Wordsworth's Laodamia, and the ode of +"Dion,"<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> and some sonnets, have a certain noble music; and +Scott<a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> will sometimes draw a stroke like the portrait of Lord +Evandale, given by Balfour of Burley.<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a> Thomas Carlyle,<a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> with +his natural taste for what is manly and daring in character, has +suffered no heroic trait in his favorites to drop from his +biographical and historical pictures. Earlier, Robert Burns<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> has +given us a song or two. In the Harleian Miscellanies,<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> there is an +account of the battle of Lutzen,<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> which deserves to be read. And +Simon Ockley's<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a> History of the Saracens <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>[142] </span> recounts the prodigies of +individual valor with admiration, all the more evident on the part of +the narrator, that he seems to think that his place in Christian +Oxford<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> requires of him some proper protestations of abhorrence. +But if we explore the literature of Heroism, we shall quickly come to +Plutarch,<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> who is its Doctor and historian. To him we owe the +Brasidas,<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> the Dion,<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> the Epaminondas,<a name="FNanchor_329_329" id="FNanchor_329_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> the Scipio<a name="FNanchor_330_330" id="FNanchor_330_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a> of +old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all +the ancient writers. Each of his "Lives" is a refutation to the +despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A +wild courage, a Stoicism<a name="FNanchor_331_331" id="FNanchor_331_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> not of the schools, but of the blood, +shines in every anecdote, and has given that book its immense fame.</p> + +<p>3. We need books of this tart cathartic virtue, more than books of +political science, or of private economy. Life is a festival only to +the wise. Seen from the nook and chimney-side of prudence, it wears a +ragged and dangerous front. The violations of the laws of nature by +our predecessors and our contemporaries are punished in us also. The +disease and deformity around us certify the infraction of natural, +intellectual, and moral laws, and often violation on violation to +breed such compound misery. A lockjaw that bends a man's head back to +his heels, hydrophobia that makes him bark at his wife and babes, +insanity that makes him eat grass; war, plague, cholera, famine +indicate a certain ferocity in nature, which, as it had its inlet by +human crime, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>[143] </span> must have its outlet by human suffering. Unhappily, +almost no man exists who has not in his own person become, to some +amount, a stockholder in the sin, and so made himself liable to a +share in the expiation.</p> + +<p>4. Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let +him hear in season that he is born into the state of war, and that the +commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go +dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self-collected, and neither +defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and +life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the +mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his +behavior.</p> + +<p>5. Toward all this external evil, the man within the breast assumes a +warlike attitude, and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with +the infinite army of enemies. To this military attitude of the soul we +give the name of Heroism. Its rudest form is the contempt for safety +and ease, which makes the attractiveness of war. It is a self-trust +which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its +energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind +of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will, but +pleasantly, and, as it were, merrily, he advances to his own music, +alike in frightful alarms, and in the tipsy mirth of universal +dissoluteness. There is somewhat not philosophical in heroism; there +is somewhat not holy in <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>[144] </span> it; it seems not to know that other souls are +of one texture with it; it has pride; it is the extreme of individual +nature. Nevertheless, we must profoundly revere it. There is somewhat +in great actions, which does not allow us to go behind them. Heroism +feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right; and although a +different breeding, different religion, and greater intellectual +activity, would have modified or even reversed the particular action, +yet for the hero, that thing he does is the highest deed, and is not +open to the censure of philosophers or divines. It is the avowal of +the unschooled man, that he finds a quality in him that is negligent +of expense, of health, of life, of danger, of hatred, of reproach, and +knows that his will is higher and more excellent than all actual and +all possible antagonists.</p> + +<p>6. Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind, and in +contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism +is an obedience<a name="FNanchor_332_332" id="FNanchor_332_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> to a secret impulse of an individual's character. +Now to no other man can its wisdom appear as it does to him, for every +man must be supposed to see a little further on his own proper path +than any one else. Therefore, just and wise men take umbrage at his +act, until after some little time be past: then they see it to be in +unison with their acts. All prudent men see that the action is clean +contrary to a sensual prosperity; for every heroic act measures itself +by its contempt of some external good. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>[145] </span> But it finds its own success +at last, and then the prudent also extol.</p> + +<p>7. Self-trust is the essence of heroism. It is the state of the soul +at war, and its ultimate objects are the last defiance of falsehood +and wrong, and the power to bear all that can be inflicted by evil +agents. It speaks the truth, and it is just, generous, hospitable, +temperate, scornful of petty calculations, and scornful of being +scorned. It persists; it is of an undaunted boldness, and of a +fortitude not to be wearied out. Its jest is the littleness of common +life. That false prudence which dotes on health and wealth is the butt +and merriment of heroism. Heroism, like Plotinus,<a name="FNanchor_333_333" id="FNanchor_333_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> is almost +ashamed of its body. What shall it say, then, to the sugar-plums, and +cats'-cradles, to the toilet, compliments, quarrels, cards, and +custard, which rack the wit of all human society. What joys has kind +nature provided for us dear creatures! There seems to be no interval +between greatness and meanness. When the spirit is not master of the +world then it is its dupe. Yet the little man takes the great hoax so +innocently, works in it so headlong and believing, is born red, and +dies gray, arranging his toilet, attending on his own health, laying +traps for sweet food and strong wine, setting his heart on a horse or +a rifle, made happy with a little gossip or a little praise, that the +great soul cannot choose but laugh at such earnest nonsense. "Indeed, +these humble considerations<a name="FNanchor_334_334" id="FNanchor_334_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> make me out of love with greatness. +What a disgrace is it to me to take note <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>[146] </span> how many pairs of silk +stockings thou hast, namely, these and those that were the +peach-colored ones; or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as one for +superfluity, and one other for use!"</p> + +<p>8. Citizens, thinking after the laws of arithmetic, consider the +inconvenience of receiving strangers at their fireside, reckon +narrowly the loss of time and the unusual display: the soul of a +better quality thrusts back the unreasonable economy into the vaults +of life, and says, I will obey the God, and the sacrifice and the fire +he will provide. Ibn Hankal,<a name="FNanchor_335_335" id="FNanchor_335_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a> the Arabian geographer, describes a +heroic extreme in the hospitality of Sogd, in Bokhar,<a name="FNanchor_336_336" id="FNanchor_336_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> "When I was +in Sogd I saw a great building, like a palace, the gates of which were +open and fixed back to the wall with large nails. I asked the reason, +and was told that the house had not been shut, night or day, for a +hundred years. Strangers may present themselves at any hour, and in +whatever number; the master has amply provided for the reception of +the men and their animals, and is never happier than when they tarry +for some time. Nothing of the kind have I seen in any other country." +The magnanimous know very well that they who give time, or money, or +shelter, to the stranger—so it be done for love, and not for +ostentation—do, as it were, put God under obligation to them, so +perfect are the compensations of the universe. In some way the time +they seem to lose is redeemed, and the pains they seem to take +remunerate themselves. These men fan <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>[147] </span> the flame of human love, and +raise the standard of civil virtue among mankind. But hospitality must +be for service, and not for show, or it pulls down the host. The brave +soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its +table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it hath, but its +own majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks<a name="FNanchor_337_337" id="FNanchor_337_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> and fair water +than belong to city feasts.</p> + +<p>9. The temperance of the hero proceeds from the same wish to do no +dishonor to the worthiness he has. But he loves it for its elegancy, +not for its austerity. It seems not worth his while to be solemn, and +denounce with bitterness flesh-eating or wine-drinking, the use of +tobacco, or opium, or tea, or silk, or gold. A great man scarcely +knows how he dines, how he dresses; but without railing or precision, +his living is natural and poetic. John Eliot,<a name="FNanchor_338_338" id="FNanchor_338_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a> the Indian Apostle, +drank water, and said of wine,—"It is a noble, generous liquor, and +we should be humbly thankful for it, but, as I remember, water was +made before it." Better still is the temperance of king David<a name="FNanchor_339_339" id="FNanchor_339_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> who +poured out on the ground unto the Lord the water which three of his +warriors had brought him to drink, at the peril of their lives.</p> + +<p>10. It is told of Brutus,<a name="FNanchor_340_340" id="FNanchor_340_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a> that when he fell on his sword, after +the battle of Philippi,<a name="FNanchor_341_341" id="FNanchor_341_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a> he quoted a line of Euripides,<a name="FNanchor_342_342" id="FNanchor_342_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a>—"O +virtue! I have followed thee through life, and I find thee at last but +a shade." I doubt not the hero is slandered by this report. The heroic +soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>[148] </span> It does not ask to +dine nicely, and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the +perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not +need plenty, and can very well abide its loss.</p> + +<p>11. But that which takes my fancy most, in the heroic class, is the +good humor and hilarity they exhibit. It is a height to which common +duty can very well attain, to suffer and to dare with solemnity. But +these rare souls set opinion, success, and life, at so cheap a rate, +that they will not soothe their enemies by petitions, or the show of +sorrow, but wear their own habitual greatness. Scipio,<a name="FNanchor_343_343" id="FNanchor_343_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a> charged +with peculation, refuses to do himself so great a disgrace as to wait +for justification, though he had the scroll of his accounts in his +hands, but tears it to pieces before the tribunes. Socrates'<a name="FNanchor_344_344" id="FNanchor_344_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a> +condemnation of himself to be maintained in all honor in the +Prytaneum,<a name="FNanchor_345_345" id="FNanchor_345_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_345_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a> during his life, and Sir Thomas More's<a name="FNanchor_346_346" id="FNanchor_346_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_346_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a> +playfulness at the scaffold, are of the same strain. In Beaumont and +Fletcher's "Sea Voyage," Juletta tells the stout captain and his +company,</p> + +<p> +<span class="d2"><i>Jul.</i></span> <span class="d2">Why, slaves, 'tis in our power to hang ye.</span><br /><br /> +<span class="d2"><i>Master.</i></span><span class="d10"> Very likely,</span><br /> +'Tis in our powers, then, to be hanged, and scorn ye. +</p> + +<p>These replies are sound and whole. Sport is the bloom and glow of a +perfect health. The great will not condescend to take anything +seriously; all must be as gay as the song of a canary, though it were +the building of cities, or the eradication of old and foolish + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>[149] </span> churches and nations, which have cumbered the earth long thousands of +years. Simple hearts put all the history and customs of this world +behind them, and play their own play in innocent defiance of the +Blue-Laws<a name="FNanchor_347_347" id="FNanchor_347_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_347_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> of the world; and such would appear, could we see the +human race assembled in vision, like little children frolicking +together; though, to the eyes of mankind at large, they wear a stately +and solemn garb of works and influences.</p> + +<p>12. The interest these fine stories have for us, the power of a +romance over the boy who grasps the forbidden book under his bench at +school, our delight in the hero, is the main fact to our purpose. All +these great and transcendent properties are ours. If we dilate in +beholding the Greek energy, the Roman pride, it is that we are already +domesticating the same sentiment. Let us find room for this great +guest in our small houses. The first step of worthiness will be to +disabuse us of our superstitious associations with places and times, +with number and size. Why should these words, Athenian, Roman, Asia, +and England, so tingle in the ear? Where the heart is, there the +muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. +Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry +places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But +here we are; and, if we will tarry a little, we may come to learn that +here is best. See to it only that thyself is here;—and art and +nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>[150] </span> Being, shall +not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest. Epaminondas,<a name="FNanchor_348_348" id="FNanchor_348_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_348_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a> +brave and affectionate, does not seem to us to need Olympus<a name="FNanchor_349_349" id="FNanchor_349_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_349_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a> to +die upon, nor the Syrian sunshine. He lies very well where he is. The +Jerseys<a name="FNanchor_350_350" id="FNanchor_350_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_350_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a> were handsome ground enough for Washington to tread, and +London streets for the feet of Milton.<a name="FNanchor_351_351" id="FNanchor_351_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_351_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a> A great man makes his +climate genial in the imagination of men, and its air the beloved +element of all delicate spirits. That country is the fairest, which is +inhabited by the noblest minds. The pictures which fill the +imagination in reading the actions of Pericles,<a name="FNanchor_352_352" id="FNanchor_352_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_352_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a> Xenophon,<a name="FNanchor_353_353" id="FNanchor_353_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_353_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a> +Columbus,<a name="FNanchor_354_354" id="FNanchor_354_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_354_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a> Bayard,<a name="FNanchor_355_355" id="FNanchor_355_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_355_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a> Sidney,<a name="FNanchor_356_356" id="FNanchor_356_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_356_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a> Hampden,<a name="FNanchor_357_357" id="FNanchor_357_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_357_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a> teach us how +needlessly mean our life is, that we, by the depth of our living, +should deck it with more than regal or national splendor, and act on +principles that should interest man and nature in the length of our +days.</p> + +<p>13. We have seen or heard of many extraordinary young men, who never +ripened, or whose performance in actual life was not extraordinary. +When we see their air and mien, when we hear them speak of society, or +books, or religion, we admire their superiority; they seem to throw +contempt on our entire polity and social state; theirs is the tone of +a youthful giant, who is sent to work revolutions. But they enter an +active profession, and the forming Colossus<a name="FNanchor_358_358" id="FNanchor_358_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_358_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> shrinks to the common +size of man. The magic they used was the ideal tendencies, which +always make the Actual ridiculous; but the tough world had its revenge +the moment they put their horses of the sun <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>[151] </span> to plow in its furrow. +They found no example and no companion, and their heart fainted. What +then? The lesson they gave in their first aspirations, is yet true; +and a better valor and a purer truth shall one day organize their +belief. Or why should a woman liken herself to any historical woman, +and think, because Sappho,<a name="FNanchor_359_359" id="FNanchor_359_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_359_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> or Sévigné,<a name="FNanchor_360_360" id="FNanchor_360_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_360_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a> or De Staël,<a name="FNanchor_361_361" id="FNanchor_361_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_361_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a> or +the cloistered souls who have had genius and cultivation, do not +satisfy the imagination and the serene Themis,<a name="FNanchor_362_362" id="FNanchor_362_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_362_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a> none +can,—certainly not she. Why not? She has a new and unattempted +problem to solve, perchance that of the happiest nature that ever +bloomed. Let the maiden, with erect soul, walk serenely on her way, +accept the hint of each new experience, search, in turn, all the +objects that solicit her eye, that she may learn the power and the +charm of her new-born being which is the kindling of a new dawn in the +recesses of space. The fair girl, who repels interference by a decided +and proud choice of influences, so careless of pleasing, so wilful and +lofty, inspires every beholder with somewhat of her own nobleness. The +silent heart encourages her; O friend, never strike sail to a fear! +Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas. Not in vain you +live, for every passing eye is cheered and refined by the vision.</p> + +<p>14. The characteristic of a genuine heroism is its persistency. All +men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when +you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to +reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>[152] </span> cannot be the common, +nor the common the heroic. Yet we have the weakness to expect the +sympathy of people in those actions whose excellence is that they +outrun sympathy, and appeal to a tardy justice. If you would serve +your brother, because it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back +your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. +Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done +something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a +decorous age. It was a high counsel<a name="FNanchor_363_363" id="FNanchor_363_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_363_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> that I once heard given to a +young person,—"Always do what you are afraid to do." A simple manly +character need never make an apology, but should regard its past +action with the calmness of Phocion,<a name="FNanchor_364_364" id="FNanchor_364_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_364_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a> when he admitted that the +event of the battle was happy, yet did not regret his dissuasion from +the battle.</p> + +<p>15. There is no weakness or exposure for which we cannot find +consolation in the thought,—this is a part of my constitution, part +of my relation and office to my fellow-creature. Has nature covenanted +with me that I should never appear to disadvantage, never make a +ridiculous figure? Let us be generous of our dignity as well as of our +money. Greatness once and forever has done with opinion. We tell our +charities, not because we wish to be praised for them, not because we +think they have great merit, but for our justification. It is a +capital blunder; as you discover, when another man recites his +charities.</p> + +<p>16. To speak the truth, even with some austerity, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>[153] </span> to live with some +rigor of temperance, or some extremes of generosity, seems to be an +asceticism which common good-nature would appoint to those who are at +ease and in plenty, in sign that they feel a brotherhood with the +great multitude of suffering men. And not only need we breathe and +exercise the soul by assuming the penalties of abstinence, of debt, of +solitude, of unpopularity, but it behooves the wise man to look with a +bold eye into those rarer dangers which sometimes invade men, and to +familiarize himself with disgusting forms of disease, with sounds of +execration, and the vision of violent death.</p> + +<p>17. Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never +shines in which this element may not work. The circumstances of man, +we say, are historically somewhat better in this country, and at this +hour, than perhaps ever before. More freedom exists for culture. It +will not now run against an ax at the first step out of the beaten +track of opinion. But whoso is heroic will always find crises to try +his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the +trial of persecution always proceeds. It is but the other day that the +brave Lovejoy<a name="FNanchor_365_365" id="FNanchor_365_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_365_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a> gave his breast to the bullets of a mob, for the +rights of free speech and opinion, and died when it was better not to +live.</p> + +<p>18. I see not any road to perfect peace which a man can walk, but to +take counsel of his own bosom. Let him quit too much association, let +him go home much, and establish himself in those courses he <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>[154] </span> approves. +The unremitting retention of simple and high sentiments in obscure +duties is hardening the character to that temper which will work with +honor, if need be, in the tumult, or on the scaffold. Whatever +outrages have happened to men may befall a man again; and very easily +in a republic, if there appear any signs of a decay of religion. +Coarse slander, fire, tar and feathers, and the gibbet, the youth may +freely bring home to his mind, and with what sweetness of temper he +can, and inquire how fast he can fix his sense of duty, braving such +penalties, whenever it may please the next newspaper and a sufficient +number of his neighbors to pronounce his opinions incendiary.</p> + +<p>19. It may calm the apprehension of calamity in the most susceptible +heart to see how quick a bound nature has set to the utmost infliction +of malice. We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow +us.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"Let them rave:<a name="FNanchor_366_366" id="FNanchor_366_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_366_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art quiet in thy grave."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In the gloom of our ignorance of what shall be, in the hour when we +are deaf to the higher voices, who does not envy them who have seen +safely to an end their manful endeavor? Who that sees the meanness of +our politics, but inly congratulates Washington that he is long +already wrapped in his shroud, and forever safe; that he was laid +sweet in his grave, the hope of humanity not yet subjugated in him? +Who <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>[155] </span> does not sometimes envy the good and brave, who are no more to +suffer from the tumults of the natural world, and await with curious +complacency the speedy term of his own conversation with finite +nature? And yet the love that will be annihilated sooner than +treacherous has already made death impossible, and affirms itself no +mortal, but a native of the deeps of absolute and inextinguishable +being.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>[156] </span> </p> +<h2><a name="MANNERS" id="MANNERS"></a>MANNERS<a name="FNanchor_367_367" id="FNanchor_367_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_367_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a></h2> + + +<p>1. Half the world, it is said, knows not how the other half live. Our +Exploring Expedition saw the Feejee Islanders<a name="FNanchor_368_368" id="FNanchor_368_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_368_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> getting their +dinner off human bones; and they are said to eat their own wives and +children. The husbandry of the modern inhabitants of Gournou<a name="FNanchor_369_369" id="FNanchor_369_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_369_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a> +(west of old Thebes) is philosophical to a fault. To set up their +housekeeping, nothing is requisite but two or three earthen pots, a +stone to grind meal, and a mat which is the bed. The house, namely, a +tomb, is ready without rent or taxes. No rain can pass through the +roof, and there is no door, for there is no want of one, as there is +nothing to lose. If the house do not please them, they walk out and +enter another, as there are several hundreds at their command. "It is +somewhat singular," adds Berzoni, to whom we owe this account, "to +talk of Happiness among people who live in sepulchers, among corpses +and rags of an ancient nation which they knew nothing of." In the +deserts of Borgoo<a name="FNanchor_370_370" id="FNanchor_370_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_370_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a> the rock-Tibboos still dwell in caves, like +cliff-swallows, and the language of these negroes is compared by their +neighbors to the shrieking of bats, and to the whistling of birds. +Again, the Bornoos<a name="FNanchor_371_371" id="FNanchor_371_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_371_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a> have no proper names; individuals are called +after <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>[157] </span> their height, thickness, or other accidental quality, and have +nick-names merely. But the salt, the dates, the ivory, and the gold, +for which these horrible regions are visited, find their way into +countries, where the purchaser and consumer can hardly be ranked in +one race with these cannibals and man-stealers; countries where man +serves himself with metals, wood, stone, glass, gum, cotton, silk and +wool; honors himself with architecture;<a name="FNanchor_372_372" id="FNanchor_372_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_372_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a> writes laws, and +contrives to execute his will through the hands of many nations; and, +especially, establishes a select society, running through all the +countries of intelligent men, a self-constituted aristocracy, or +fraternity of the best, which, without written law, or exact usage of +any kind, perpetuates itself, colonizes every new-planted island, and +adopts and makes its own whatever personal beauty or extraordinary +native endowment anywhere appears.</p> + +<p>2. What fact more conspicuous in modern history, than the creation of +the gentleman? Chivalry<a name="FNanchor_373_373" id="FNanchor_373_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_373_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a> is that, and loyalty is that, and, in +English literature, half the drama, and all the novels, from Sir +Philip Sidney<a name="FNanchor_374_374" id="FNanchor_374_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_374_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a> to Sir Walter Scott,<a name="FNanchor_375_375" id="FNanchor_375_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_375_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a> paint this figure. The +word <i>gentleman</i>, which, like the word Christian, must hereafter +characterize the present and the few preceding centuries, by the +importance attached to it, is a homage to personal and incommunicable +properties. Frivolous and fantastic additions have got associated with +the name, but the steady interest of mankind in it must be attributed +to the valuable properties which <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>[158] </span> it designates. An element which +unites all the most forcible persons of every country; makes them +intelligible and agreeable to each other, and is somewhat so precise, +that it is at once felt if an individual lack the masonic sign,<a name="FNanchor_376_376" id="FNanchor_376_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_376_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a> +cannot be any casual product, but must be an average result of the +character and faculties universally found in men. It seems a certain +permanent average; as the atmosphere is a permanent composition, +whilst so many gases are combined only to be decompounded. <i>Comme il +faut</i>, is the Frenchman's description of good society, <i>as we must +be</i>. It is a spontaneous fruit of talents and feelings of precisely +that class who have most vigor, who take the lead in the world of this +hour, and, though far from pure, far from constituting the gladdest +and highest tone of human feeling, is as good as the whole society +permits it to be. It is made of the spirit, more than of the talent of +men, and is a compound result, into which every great force enters as +an ingredient, namely, virtue, wit, beauty, wealth, and power.</p> + +<p>3. There is something equivocal in all the words in use to express the +excellence of manners and social cultivation, because the qualities +are fluxional, and the last effect is assumed by the senses as the +cause. The word <i>gentleman</i> has not any correlative abstract<a name="FNanchor_377_377" id="FNanchor_377_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_377_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a> to +express the quality. <i>Gentility</i> is mean, and <i>gentilesse</i><a name="FNanchor_378_378" id="FNanchor_378_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_378_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a> is +obsolete. But we must keep alive in the vernacular the distinction +between <i>fashion</i>, a word <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>[159] </span> of narrow and often sinister meaning, and +the heroic character which the gentleman imports. The usual words, +however, must be respected: they will be found to contain the root of +the matter. The point of distinction in all this class of names, as +courtesy, chivalry, fashion, and the like, is, that the flower and +fruit, not the grain of the tree, are contemplated. It is beauty which +is the aim this time, and not worth. The result is now in question, +although our words intimate well enough the popular feeling, that the +appearance supposes a substance. The gentleman is a man of truth, lord +of his own actions, and expressing that lordship in his behavior, not +in any manner dependent and servile either on persons, or opinions, or +possessions. Beyond this fact of truth and real force, the word +denotes good-nature and benevolence: manhood first, and then +gentleness. The popular notion certainly adds a condition of ease and +fortune; but that is a natural result of personal force and love, that +they should possess and dispense the goods of the world. In times of +violence, every eminent person must fall in with many opportunities to +approve his stoutness and worth; therefore every man's name that +emerged at all from the mass in the feudal ages,<a name="FNanchor_379_379" id="FNanchor_379_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_379_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> rattles in our +ear like a flourish of trumpets. But personal force never goes out of +fashion. That is still paramount to-day, and, in the moving crowd of +good society, the men of valor and reality are known, and rise to +their natural place. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>[160] </span> The competition is transferred from war to +politics and trade, but the personal force appears readily enough in +these new arenas.</p> + +<p>4. Power first, or no leading class. In politics and in trade, +bruisers and pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks. +God knows<a name="FNanchor_380_380" id="FNanchor_380_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_380_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a> that all sorts of gentlemen knock at the door; but +whenever used in strictness, and with any emphasis, the name will be +found to point at original energy. It describes a man standing in his +own right, and working after untaught methods. In a good lord, there +must first be a good animal, at least to the extent of yielding the +incomparable advantage of animal spirits.<a name="FNanchor_381_381" id="FNanchor_381_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_381_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a> The ruling class must +have more, but they must have these, giving in every company the sense +of power,<a name="FNanchor_382_382" id="FNanchor_382_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_382_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a> which makes things easy to be done which daunt the +wise. The society of the energetic class, in their friendly and +festive meetings, is full of courage, and of attempts, which +intimidate the pale scholar. The courage which girls exhibit is like a +battle of Lundy's Lane,<a name="FNanchor_383_383" id="FNanchor_383_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_383_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a> or a sea-fight. The intellect relies on +memory to make some supplies to face these extemporaneous squadrons. +But memory is a base mendicant with basket and badge, in the presence +of these sudden masters. The rulers of society must be up to the work +of the world, and equal to their versatile office: men of the right +Cæsarian pattern,<a name="FNanchor_384_384" id="FNanchor_384_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_384_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a> who have great range of affinity. I am far from +believing the timid maxim<a name="FNanchor_385_385" id="FNanchor_385_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_385_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> of Lord Falkland,<a name="FNanchor_386_386" id="FNanchor_386_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_386_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a> ("That for +ceremony there must go two to it; since a bold fellow will go <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>[161] </span> through +the cunningest forms,") and am of opinion that the gentleman is the +bold fellow whose forms are not to be broken through; and only that +plenteous nature is rightful master, which is the complement of +whatever person it converses with. My gentleman gives the law where he +is; he will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the +field, and outshine all courtesy in the hall. He is good company for +pirates, and good with academicians; so that it is useless to fortify +yourself against him; he has the private entrance to all minds, and I +could as easily exclude myself as him. The famous gentlemen of Asia +and Europe have been of this strong type: Saladin,<a name="FNanchor_387_387" id="FNanchor_387_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_387_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a> Sapor,<a name="FNanchor_388_388" id="FNanchor_388_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_388_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a> +the Cid,<a name="FNanchor_389_389" id="FNanchor_389_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_389_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a> Julius Cæsar,<a name="FNanchor_390_390" id="FNanchor_390_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_390_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a> Scipio,<a name="FNanchor_391_391" id="FNanchor_391_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_391_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a> Alexander,<a name="FNanchor_392_392" id="FNanchor_392_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_392_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a> +Pericles,<a name="FNanchor_393_393" id="FNanchor_393_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_393_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a> and the lordliest personages. They sat very carelessly +in their chairs, and were too excellent themselves to value any +condition at a high rate.</p> + +<p>5. A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the popular judgment, +to the completion of this man of the world: and it is a material +deputy which walks through the dance which the first has led. Money is +not essential, but this wide affinity is, which transcends the habits +of clique and caste, and makes itself felt by men of all classes. If +the aristocrat is only valid in fashionable circles, and not with +truckmen, he will never be a leader in fashion; and if the man of the +people cannot speak on equal terms with the gentleman, so that the +gentleman shall perceive that he is already really of his own order, +he is not to be <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>[162] </span> feared. Diogenes,<a name="FNanchor_394_394" id="FNanchor_394_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_394_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a> Socrates,<a name="FNanchor_395_395" id="FNanchor_395_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_395_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a> and +Epaminondas<a name="FNanchor_396_396" id="FNanchor_396_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_396_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a> are gentlemen of the best blood, who have chosen the +condition of poverty, when that of wealth was equally open to them. I +use these old names, but the men I speak of are my +contemporaries.<a name="FNanchor_397_397" id="FNanchor_397_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_397_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a> Fortune will not supply to every generation one +of these well-appointed knights, but every collection of men furnishes +some example of the class: and the politics of this country, and the +trade of every town, are controlled by these hardy and irresponsible +doers, who have invention to take the lead, and a broad sympathy which +puts them in fellowship with crowds, and makes their action popular.</p> + +<p>6. The manners of this class are observed and caught with devotion by +men of taste. The association of these masters with each other, and +with men intelligent of their merits, is mutually agreeable and +stimulating. The good forms, the happiest expressions of each, are +repeated and adopted. By swift consent, everything superfluous is +dropped, everything graceful is renewed. Fine manners<a name="FNanchor_398_398" id="FNanchor_398_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_398_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a> show +themselves formidable to the uncultivated man. They are a subtler +science of defence to parry and intimidate; but once matched by the +skill of the other party, they drop the point of the sword,—points +and fences disappear, and the youth finds himself in a more +transparent atmosphere, wherein life is a less troublesome game, and +not a misunderstanding rises between the players. Manners aim to +facilitate life, to get rid of impediments, and bring the man <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>[163] </span> pure to +energize. They aid our dealing and conversation, as a railway aids +traveling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the road, +and leaving nothing to be conquered but pure space. These forms very +soon become fixed, and a fine sense of propriety is cultivated with +more heed, that it becomes a badge of social and civil distinctions. +Thus grows up Fashion, an equivocal semblance, the most puissant, the +most fantastic and frivolous, the most feared and followed, and which +morals and violence assault in vain.</p> + +<p>7. There exists a strict relation between the class of power, and the +exclusive and polished circles. The last are always filled or filling +from the first. The strong men usually give some allowance even to the +petulances of fashion, for that affinity they find in it. +Napoleon,<a name="FNanchor_399_399" id="FNanchor_399_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_399_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a> child of the revolution, destroyer of the old +noblesse,<a name="FNanchor_400_400" id="FNanchor_400_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_400_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a> never ceased to court the Faubourg St. Germain<a name="FNanchor_401_401" id="FNanchor_401_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_401_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a>: +doubtless with the feeling, that fashion is a homage to men of his +stamp. Fashion, though in a strange way, represents all manly virtue. +It is a virtue gone to seed: it is a kind of posthumous honor. It does +not often caress the great, but the children of the great: it is a +hall of the Past. It usually sets its face against the great of this +hour. Great men are not commonly in its halls: they are absent in the +field: they are working, not triumphing. Fashion is made up of their +children; of those, who, through the value and virtue of somebody, +have acquired lustre to their name, marks of distinction, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>[164] </span> means of +cultivation and generosity, and, in their physical organization, a +certain health and excellence, which secures to them, if not the +highest power to work, yet high power to enjoy. The class of power, +the working heroes, the Cortez,<a name="FNanchor_402_402" id="FNanchor_402_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_402_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a> the Nelson,<a name="FNanchor_403_403" id="FNanchor_403_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_403_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a> the Napoleon, +see that this is the festivity and permanent celebration of such as +they; that fashion is funded talent; is Mexico,<a name="FNanchor_404_404" id="FNanchor_404_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_404_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a> Marengo,<a name="FNanchor_405_405" id="FNanchor_405_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_405_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a> and +Trafalgar<a name="FNanchor_406_406" id="FNanchor_406_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_406_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a><a name="FNanchor_407_407" id="FNanchor_407_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_407_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a> beaten out thin; that the brilliant names of +fashion run back to just such busy names as their own, fifty or sixty +years ago. They are the sowers, their sons shall be the reapers, and +<i>their</i> sons, in the ordinary course of things, must yield the +possession of the harvest, to new competitors with keener eyes and +stronger frames. The city is recruited from the country. In the year +1805, it is said, every legitimate monarch in Europe was imbecile. The +city would have died out, rotted, and exploded, long ago, but that it +was reinforced from the fields. It is only country which came to town +day before yesterday, that is city and court to-day.</p> + +<p>8. Aristocracy and fashion are certain inevitable results. These +mutual selections are indestructible. If they provoke anger in the +least favored class, and the excluded majority revenge themselves on +the excluding minority, by the strong hand, and kill them, at once a +new class finds itself at the top, as certainly as cream rises in a +bowl of milk: and if the people should destroy class after class, +until two men only were left, one of these would be the leader, and +would <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>[165] </span> be involuntarily served and copied by the other. You may keep +this minority out of sight and out of mind, but it is tenacious of +life, and is one of the estates of the realm.<a name="FNanchor_408_408" id="FNanchor_408_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_408_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a> I am the more +struck with this tenacity, when I see its work. It respects the +administration of such unimportant matters, that we should not look +for any durability in its rule. We sometimes meet men under some +strong moral influence, as a patriotic, a literary, a religious +movement, and feel that the moral sentiment rules man and nature. We +think all other distinctions and ties will be slight and fugitive, +this of caste or fashion, for example; yet come from year to year, and +see how permanent that is, in this Boston or New York life of man, +where, too, it has not the lease countenance from the law of the land. +Not in Egypt or in India a firmer or more impassable line. Here are +associations whose ties go over, and under, and through it, a meeting +of merchants, a military corps, a college-class, a fire-club, a +professional association, a political, a religious convention;—the +persons seem to draw inseparably near; yet that assembly once +dispersed, its members will not in the year meet again. Each returns +to his degree in the scale of good society, porcelain remains +porcelain, and earthen earthen. The objects of fashion may be +frivolous, or fashion may be objectless, but the nature of this union +and selection can be neither frivolous nor accidental. Each man's rank +in that perfect graduation depends on some symmetry in his structure, +or some agreement <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>[166] </span> in his structure to the symmetry of society. Its +doors unbar instantaneously to a natural claim of their own kind. A +natural gentleman finds his way in, and will keep the oldest patrician +out, who has lost his intrinsic rank. Fashion understands itself; +good-breeding and personal superiority of whatever country readily +fraternize with those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have +distinguished themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their +tournure.<a name="FNanchor_409_409" id="FNanchor_409_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_409_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a></p> + +<p>9. To say what good of fashion we can,—it rests on reality, and hates +nothing so much as pretenders;—to exclude and mystify pretenders, and +send them into everlasting "Coventry,"<a name="FNanchor_410_410" id="FNanchor_410_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_410_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a> is its delight. We +contemn, in turn, every other gift of men of the world; but the habit, +even in little and the least matters, of not appealing to any but our +own sense of propriety, constitutes the foundation of all chivalry. +There is almost no kind of self-reliance, so it be sane and +proportioned, which fashion does not occasionally adopt, and give it +the freedom of its saloons. A sainted soul is always elegant, and, if +it will, passes unchallenged into the most guarded ring. But so will +Jock the teamster pass, in some crisis that brings him thither, and +find favor, as long as his head is not giddy with the new +circumstance, and the iron shoes do not wish to dance in waltzes and +cotillions. For there is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of +behavior yield to the energy of the individual. The maiden at her +first ball, the countryman at a city <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>[167] </span> dinner, believes that there is a +ritual according to which every act and compliment must be performed, +or the failing party must be cast out of this presence. Later, they +learn that good sense and character make their own forms every moment, +and speak or abstain, to take wine or refuse it, stay or go, sit in a +chair or sprawl with children on the floor, or stand on their head, or +what else soever, in a new and aboriginal way: and that strong will is +always in fashion, let who will be unfashionable. All that fashion +demands is composure, and self-content. A circle of men perfectly +well-bred would be a company of sensible persons, in which every man's +native manners and character appear. If the fashionist have not this +quality, he is nothing. We are such lovers of self-reliance, that we +excuse in man many sins, if he will show us a complete satisfaction in +his position, which asks no leave to be of mine, or any man's good +opinion. But any deference to some eminent man or woman of the world, +forfeits all privilege of nobility. He is an underling: I have nothing +to do with him; I will speak with his master. A man should not go +where he cannot carry his whole sphere or society with him,—not +bodily, the whole circle of his friends, but atmospherically. He +should preserve in a new company the same attitude of mind and reality +of relation, which his daily associates draw him to, else he is shorn +of his best beams, and will be an orphan in the merriest club. "If you +could see Vich Ian Vohr with his tail on!<a name="FNanchor_411_411" id="FNanchor_411_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_411_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a>—" But <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>[168] </span> Vich Ian Vohr +must always carry his belongings in some fashion, if not added as +honor, then severed as disgrace.</p> + +<p>10. There will always be in society certain persons who are +mercuries<a name="FNanchor_412_412" id="FNanchor_412_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_412_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a> of its approbation, and whose glance will at any time +determine for the curious their standing in the world. These are the +chamberlains of the lesser gods. Accept their coldness as an omen of +grace with the loftier deities, and allow them all their privilege. +They are clear in their office, nor could they be thus formidable, +without their own merits. But do not measure the importance of this +class by their pretension, or imagine that a fop can be the dispenser +of honor and shame. They pass also at their just rate; for how can +they otherwise, in circles which exist as a sort of herald's +office<a name="FNanchor_413_413" id="FNanchor_413_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_413_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a> for the sifting of character?</p> + +<p>11. As the first thing man requires of man is reality, so that appears +in all the forms of society. We pointedly, and by name, introduce the +parties to each other. Know you before all heaven and earth, that this +is Andrew, and this is Gregory;—they look each other in the eye; they +grasp each other's hand, to identify and signalize each other. It is a +great satisfaction. A gentleman never dodges; his eyes look straight +forward, and he assures the other party, first of all, that he has +been met. For what is it that we seek, in so many visits and +hospitalities? Is it your draperies, pictures, and decorations? Or, do +we not insatiably ask. Was a man in the house? I may <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>[169] </span> easily go into a +great household where there is much substance, excellent provision for +comfort, luxury, and taste, and yet not encounter there any +Amphitryon,<a name="FNanchor_414_414" id="FNanchor_414_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_414_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a> who shall subordinate these appendages. I may go into +a cottage, and find a farmer who feels that he is the man I have come +to see, and fronts me accordingly. It was therefore a very natural +point of old feudal etiquette, that a gentleman who received a visit, +though it were of his sovereign, should not leave his roof, but should +wait his arrival at the door of his house. No house, though it were +the Tuileries,<a name="FNanchor_415_415" id="FNanchor_415_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_415_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a> or the Escurial,<a name="FNanchor_416_416" id="FNanchor_416_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_416_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a> is good for anything without +a master. And yet we are not often gratified by this hospitality. +Everybody we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, +conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to +interpose between himself and his guests. Does it not seem as if man +was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a +full renconter front to front with his fellow? It were unmerciful, I +know, quite to abolish the use of these screens, which are of eminent +convenience, whether the guest is too great, or too little. We call +together many friends who keep each other in play, or by luxuries and +ornaments we amuse the young people, and guard our retirement. Or if, +perchance, a searching realist comes to our gate, before whose eyes we +have no care to stand, then again we run to our curtain, and hide +ourselves as Adam<a name="FNanchor_417_417" id="FNanchor_417_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_417_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a> at the voice of the Lord God in the garden. +Cardinal Caprara,<a name="FNanchor_418_418" id="FNanchor_418_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_418_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> the Pope's<a name="FNanchor_419_419" id="FNanchor_419_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_419_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a> legate at Paris, defended + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>[170] </span> himself from the glances of Napoleon, by an immense pair of green +spectacles. Napoleon remarked them, and speedily managed to rally them +off: and yet Napoleon, in his turn, was not great enough, with eight +hundred thousand troops at his back, to face a pair of free-born eyes, +but fenced himself with etiquette, and within triple barriers of +reserve: and, as all the world knows from Madame de Stael,<a name="FNanchor_420_420" id="FNanchor_420_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_420_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a> was +wont, when he found himself observed, to discharge his face of all +expression. But emperors and rich men are by no means the most +skillful masters of good manners. No rent roll nor army-list can +dignify skulking and dissimulations: and the first point of courtesy +must always be truth, as really all forms of good-breeding point that +way.</p> + +<p>12. I have just been reading, in Mr. Hazlitt's<a name="FNanchor_421_421" id="FNanchor_421_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_421_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a> translation, +Montaigne's<a name="FNanchor_422_422" id="FNanchor_422_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_422_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a> account of his journey into Italy, and am struck with +nothing more agreeably than the self-respecting fashions of the time. +His arrival in each place, the arrival of a gentleman of France, is an +event of some consequence. Wherever he goes, he pays a visit to +whatever prince or gentleman of note resides upon his road, as a duty +to himself and to civilization. When he leaves any house in which he +has lodged for a few weeks, he causes his arms to be painted and hung +up as a perpetual sign to the house, as was the custom of gentlemen.</p> + +<p>13. The complement of this graceful self-respect, and that of all the +points of good breeding I most require and insist upon, is deference. +I like that every chair should be a throne, and hold a king. I <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>[171] </span> prefer +a tendency to stateliness, to an excess of fellowship. Let the +incommunicable objects of nature and the metaphysical isolation of man +teach us independence. Let us not be too much acquainted. I would have +a man enter his house through a hall filled with heroic and sacred +sculptures, that he might not want the hint of tranquillity and +self-poise.<a name="FNanchor_423_423" id="FNanchor_423_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_423_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a> We should meet each morning, as from foreign +countries, and spending the day together, should depart at night, as +into foreign countries. In all things I would have the island of a man +inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all +round Olympus. No degree of affection need invade this religion. This +is myrrh and rosemary to keep the other sweet. Lovers should guard +their strangeness. If they forgive too much, all slides into confusion +and meanness. It is easy to push this deference to a Chinese +etiquette;<a name="FNanchor_424_424" id="FNanchor_424_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_424_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a> but coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate +fine qualities. A gentleman makes no noise: a lady is serene +Proportionate is our disgust at those invaders who fill a studious +house with blast and running, to secure some paltry convenience. Not +less I dislike a low sympathy of each with his neighbors's needs. Must +we have a good understanding with one another's palates? as foolish +people who have lived long together, know when each wants salt or +sugar. I pray my companion, if he wishes for bread, to ask me for +bread, and if he wishes for sassafras or arsenic, to ask me for them, +and not to hold out his plate, as if I knew already. Every natural + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>[172] </span> function can be dignified by deliberation and privacy. Let us leave +hurry to slaves. The compliments and ceremonies of our breeding should +recall,<a name="FNanchor_425_425" id="FNanchor_425_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_425_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a> however remotely, the grandeur of our destiny.</p> + +<p>14. The flower of courtesy does not very well bide handling, but if we +dare to open another leaf, and explore what parts go to its +conformation, we shall find also an intellectual quality. To the +leaders of men, the brain as well as the flesh and the heart must +furnish a proportion. Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine +perceptions. Men are too coarsely made for the delicacy of beautiful +carriage and customs. It is not quite sufficient to good breeding, a +union of kindness and independence. We imperatively require a +perception of, and a homage to, beauty in our companions. Other +virtues are in request in the field and work yard, but a certain +degree of taste is not to be spared in those we sit with. I could +better eat with one who did not respect the truth or the laws, than +with a sloven and unpresentable person. Moral qualities rule the +world, but at short distances the senses are despotic. The same +discrimination of fit and fair runs out, if with less rigor, into all +parts of life. The average spirit of the energetic class is good +sense, acting under certain limitations and to certain ends. It +entertains every natural gift. Social in its nature, it respects +everything which tends to unite men. It delights in measure.<a name="FNanchor_426_426" id="FNanchor_426_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_426_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a> The +love of beauty is mainly the love of measure or proportion. The person +who screams, or uses the superlative <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>[173] </span> degree, or converses with heat, +puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved, love +measure. You must have genius, or a prodigious usefulness, if you will +hide the want of measure. This perception comes in to polish and +perfect the parts of the social instrument. Society will pardon much +to genius and special gifts, but, being in its nature a convention, it +loves what is conventional, or what belongs to coming together. That +makes the good and bad of manners, namely, what helps or hinders +fellowship. For, fashion is not good sense absolute, but relative; not +good sense private, but good sense entertaining company. It hates +corners and sharp points of character, hates quarrelsome, egotistical, +solitary, and gloomy people; hates whatever can interfere with total +blending of parties; whilst it values all peculiarities as in the +highest degree refreshing, which can consist with good fellowship. And +besides the general infusion of wit to heighten civility, the direct +splendor of intellectual power is ever welcome in fine society as the +costliest addition to its rule and its credit.</p> + +<p>15. The dry light must shine in to adorn our festival, but it must be +tempered and shaded, or that will also offend. Accuracy is essential +to beauty, and quick perceptions to politeness, but not too quick +perceptions. One may be too punctual and too precise. He must leave +the omniscience of business at the door, when he comes into the palace +of beauty. Society loves creole natures,<a name="FNanchor_427_427" id="FNanchor_427_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_427_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a> and sleepy, languishing +manners, so that they cover sense, grace, and good-will: <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>[174] </span> the air of +drowsy strength, which disarms criticism; perhaps, because such a +person seems to reserve himself for the best of the game, and not +spend himself on surfaces; an ignoring eye, which does not see the +annoyances, shifts, and inconveniences, that cloud the brow and +smother the voice of the sensitive.</p> + +<p>16. Therefore, besides personal force and so much perception as +constitutes unerring taste, society demands in its patrician class, +another element already intimated, which it significantly terms +good-nature, expressing all degrees of generosity, from the lowest +willingness and faculty to oblige, up to the heights of magnanimity +and love. Insight we must have, or we shall run against one another, +and miss the way to our food; but intellect is selfish and barren. The +secret of success in society, is a certain heartiness and sympathy. A +man who is not happy in the company, cannot find any word in his +memory that will fit the occasion. All his information is a little +impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds in every turn of the +conversation equally lucky occasions for the introduction of that +which he has to say. The favorites of society, and what it calls +<i>whole souls</i>, are able men, and of more spirit than wit, who have no +uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and the company, +contented and contenting, at a marriage or a funeral, a ball or a +jury, a water-party or a shooting-match. England, which is rich in +gentlemen, furnished, in the beginning of the present century, a good +model of that genius which the world loves, in Mr. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>[175] </span> Fox,<a name="FNanchor_428_428" id="FNanchor_428_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_428_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> who +added to his great abilities the most social disposition, and real +love of men. Parliamentary history has few better passages than the +debate, in which Burke<a name="FNanchor_429_429" id="FNanchor_429_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_429_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a> and Fox separated in the House of Commons; +when Fox urged on his old friend the claims of old friendship with +such tenderness, that the house was moved to tears. Another anecdote +is so close to my matter, that I must hazard the story. A tradesman +who had long dunned him for a note of three hundred guineas, found him +one day counting gold, and demanded payment. "No," said Fox, "I owe +this money to Sheridan<a name="FNanchor_430_430" id="FNanchor_430_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_430_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a>: it is a debt of honor: if an accident +should happen to me, he has nothing to show." "Then," said the +creditor, "I change my debt into a debt of honor," and tore the note +in pieces. Fox thanked the man for his confidence, and paid him, +saying, "his debt was of older standing, and Sheridan must wait." +Lover of liberty, friend of the Hindoo, friend of the African slave, +he possessed a great personal popularity; and Napoleon said of him on +the occasion of his visit to Paris, in 1805, "Mr. Fox will always hold +the first place in an assembly at the Tuileries."</p> + +<p>17. We may easily seem ridiculous in our eulogy of courtesy, whenever +we insist on benevolence as its foundation. The painted phantasm +Fashion rises to cast a species of derision on what we say. But I will +neither be driven from some allowance to Fashion as a symbolic +institution, nor from the belief that love is the basis of courtesy. +"We must obtain <i>that</i>, if we <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>[176] </span> can; but by all means we must affirm +<i>this</i>. Life owes much of its spirit to these sharp contrasts. Fashion +which affects to be honor, is often, in all men's experience, only a +ballroom code. Yet, so long as it is the highest circle, in the +imagination of the best heads on the planet, there is something +necessary and excellent in it; for it is not to be supposed that men +have agreed to be the dupes of anything preposterous; and the respect +which these mysteries inspire in the most rude and sylvan characters, +and the curiosity with which details of high life are read, betray the +universality of the love of cultivated manners. I know that a comic +disparity would be felt, if we should enter the acknowledged 'first +circles,' and apply these terrific standards of justice, beauty, and +benefit, to the individuals actually found there. Monarchs and heroes, +sages and lovers, these gallants are not. Fashion has many classes and +many rules of probation and admission; and not the best alone. There +is not only the right of conquest, which genius pretends,—the +individual, demonstrating his natural aristocracy best of the +best;—but less claims will pass for the time; for Fashion loves +lions, and points, like Circe,<a name="FNanchor_431_431" id="FNanchor_431_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_431_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a> to her horned company. This +gentleman is this afternoon arrived from Denmark; and that is my Lord +Ride, who came yesterday from Bagdad; here is Captain Friese, from +Cape Turnagain, and Captain Symmes,<a name="FNanchor_432_432" id="FNanchor_432_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_432_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a> from the interior of the +earth; and Monsieur Jovaire, who came down this morning in a balloon; +Mr. Hobnail, the reformer; and Reverend Jul Bat, who has <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>[177] </span> converted +the whole torrid zone in his Sunday school; and Signer Torre del +Greco, who extinguished Vesuvius by pouring into it the Bay of Naples; +Spahr, the Persian ambassador; and Tul Wil Shan, the exiled nabob of +Nepaul, whose saddle is the new moon.—But these are monsters of one +day, and to-morrow will be dismissed to their holes and dens; for, in +these rooms every chair is waited for. The artist, the scholar, and, +in general, the clerisy,<a name="FNanchor_433_433" id="FNanchor_433_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_433_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a> wins its way up into these places, and +gets represented here, somewhat on this footing of conquest. Another +mode is to pass through all the degrees, spending a year and a day in +St. Michael's Square,<a name="FNanchor_434_434" id="FNanchor_434_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_434_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> being steeped in Cologne water,<a name="FNanchor_435_435" id="FNanchor_435_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_435_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a> and +perfumed, and dined, and introduced, and properly grounded in all the +biography, and politics, and anecdotes of the boudoirs.</p> + +<p>18. Yet these fineries may have grace and wit. Let there be grotesque +sculpture about the gates and offices of temples. Let the creed and +commandments even have the saucy homage of parody. The forms of +politeness universally express benevolence in superlative degrees. +What if they are in the mouths of selfish men, and used as means of +selfishness? What if the false gentleman almost bows the true out of +the world? What if the false gentleman contrives so to address his +companion, as civilly to exclude all others from his discourse, and +also to make them feel excluded? Real service will not lose its +nobleness. All generosity is not merely French and sentimental; nor is +it to be concealed, that living blood and a passion <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>[178] </span> of kindness does +at last distinguish God's gentleman from Fashion's. The epitaph of Sir +Jenkin Grout is not wholly unintelligible to the present age. "Here +lies Sir Jenkin Grout, who loved his friend, and persuaded his enemy: +what his mouth ate, his hand paid for: what his servants robbed, he +restored: if a woman gave him pleasure, he supported her in pain: he +never forgot his children: and whoso touched his finger, drew after it +his whole body." Even the line of heroes is not utterly extinct. There +is still ever some admirable person in plain clothes, standing on the +wharf, who jumps in to rescue a drowning man; there is still some +absurd inventor of charities; some guide and comforter of runaway +slaves; some friend of Poland;<a name="FNanchor_436_436" id="FNanchor_436_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_436_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a> some Philhellene;<a name="FNanchor_437_437" id="FNanchor_437_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_437_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a> some +fanatic who plants shade-trees for the second and third generation, +and orchards when he is grown old; some well-concealed piety; some +just man happy in an ill-fame; some youth ashamed of the favors of +fortune, and impatiently casting them on other shoulders. And these +are the centers of society, on which it returns for fresh impulses. +These are the creators of Fashion, which is an attempt to organize +beauty of behavior. The beautiful and the generous are in the theory, +the doctors and apostles of this church: Scipio, and the Cid, and Sir +Philip Sidney, and Washington, and every pure and valiant heart, who +worshiped Beauty by word and by deed. The persons who constitute the +natural aristocracy, are not found in the actual aristocracy, or only +on its edge; as the chemical <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>[179] </span> energy of the spectrum is found to be +greatest just outside of the spectrum. Yet that is the infirmity of +the seneschals, who do not know their sovereign, when he appears. The +theory of society supposes the existence and sovereignty of these. It +divines afar off their coming. It says with the elder gods,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"As Heaven and Earth are fairer far<a name="FNanchor_438_438" id="FNanchor_438_438"></a><a href="#Footnote_438_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In form and shape compact and beautiful;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, on our heels a fresh perfection treads;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A power, more strong in beauty, born of us,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fated to excel us, as we pass<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In glory that old Darkness:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">... for, 'tis the eternal law,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That first in beauty shall be first in might."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>19. Therefore, within the ethnical circle of good society, there is a +narrower and higher circle, concentration of its light, and flower of +courtesy, to which there is always a tacit appeal of pride and +reference, as to its inner and imperial court, the parliament of love +and chivalry. And this is constituted of those persons in whom heroic +dispositions are native, with the love of beauty, the delight in +society, and the power to embellish the passing day. If the +individuals who compose the purest circles of aristocracy in Europe, +the guarded blood of centuries, should pass in review, in such manner +as that we could, leisurely and critically, inspect their behavior, we +might find no gentleman, and no lady; for although excellent specimens + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>[180] </span> of courtesy and high-breeding would gratify us in the assemblage, in +the particulars, we should detect offense. Because, elegance comes of +no breeding, but of birth. There must be romance of character, or the +most fastidious exclusion of impertinencies will not avail. It must be +genius which takes that direction: it must be not courteous, but +courtesy. High behavior is as rare in fiction as it is in fact. Scott +is praised for the fidelity with which he painted the demeanor and +conversation of the superior classes. Certainly, kings and queens, +nobles and great ladies, had some right to complain of the absurdity +that had been put in their mouths, before the days of Waverley;<a name="FNanchor_439_439" id="FNanchor_439_439"></a><a href="#Footnote_439_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a> +but neither does Scott's dialogue bear criticism. His lords brave each +other in smart epigrammatic speeches, but the dialogue is in costume, +and does not please on the second reading; it is not warm with life. +In Shakespeare alone, the speakers do not strut and bridle, the +dialogue is easily great, and he adds to so many titles that of being +the best-bred man in England, and in Christendom. Once or twice in a +lifetime we are permitted to enjoy the charm of noble manners, in the +presence of a man or woman who have no bar in their nature, but whose +character emanates freely in their word and gesture. A beautiful form +is better than a beautiful face: a beautiful behavior is better than a +beautiful form: it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; +it is the finest of the fine arts. A man is but a little thing in the +midst of the objects of nature, yet, by the moral <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>[181] </span> quality radiating +from his countenance, he may abolish all considerations of magnitude, +and in his manners equal the majesty of the world. I have seen an +individual whose manners though wholly within the conventions of +elegant society, were never learned there, but were original and +commanding, and held out protection and prosperity; one who did not +need the aid of a court-suit, but carried the holiday in his eye; who +exhilarated the fancy by flinging wide the doors of new modes of +existence; who shook off the captivity of etiquette, with happy, +spirited bearing, good-natured and free as Robin Hood;<a name="FNanchor_440_440" id="FNanchor_440_440"></a><a href="#Footnote_440_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a> yet with +the port of an emperor,—if need be, calm, serious, and fit to stand +the gaze of millions.</p> + +<p>20. The open air and the fields, the street and public chambers, are +the places where Man executes his will; let him yield or divide the +scepter at the door of the house. Woman, with her instinct of +behavior, instantly detects in man a love of trifles, any coldness or +imbecility, or, in short, any want of that large, flowing, and +magnanimous deportment, which is indispensable as an exterior in the +hall. Our American institutions have been friendly to her, and at this +moment I esteem it a chief felicity of this country, that it excels in +women. A certain awkward consciousness of inferiority in the men, may +give rise to the new chivalry in behalf of Woman's Rights. Certainly, +let her be as much better placed in the laws and in social forms, as +the most zealous reformer can ask, but I confide so entirely in her +inspiring and <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>[182] </span> musical nature, that I believe only herself can show us +how she shall be served. The wonderful generosity of her sentiments +raises her at times into heroical and godlike regions, and verifies +the pictures of Minerva,<a name="FNanchor_441_441" id="FNanchor_441_441"></a><a href="#Footnote_441_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a> Juno,<a name="FNanchor_442_442" id="FNanchor_442_442"></a><a href="#Footnote_442_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a> or Polymnia;<a name="FNanchor_443_443" id="FNanchor_443_443"></a><a href="#Footnote_443_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a> and, by the +firmness with which she treads her upward path, she convinces the +coarsest calculators that another road exists than that which their +feet know. But besides those who make good in our imagination the +place of muses and of Delphic Sibyls,<a name="FNanchor_444_444" id="FNanchor_444_444"></a><a href="#Footnote_444_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a> are there not women who +fill our vase with wine and roses to the brim, so that the wine runs +over and fills the house with perfume; who inspire us with courtesy; +who unloose our tongues, and we speak; who anoint our eyes, and we +see? We say things we never thought to have said; for once, our walls +of habitual reserve vanished, and left us at large; we were children +playing with children in a wide field of flowers. Steep us, we cried, +in these influences, for days, for weeks, and we shall be sunny poets, +and will write out in many-colored words the romance that you are. Was +it Hafiz<a name="FNanchor_445_445" id="FNanchor_445_445"></a><a href="#Footnote_445_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a> or Firdousi<a name="FNanchor_446_446" id="FNanchor_446_446"></a><a href="#Footnote_446_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a> that said of his Persian Lilla, "She +was an elemental force, and astonished me by her amount of life, when +I saw her day after day radiating, every instant, redundant joy and +grace on all around her.<a name="FNanchor_447_447" id="FNanchor_447_447"></a><a href="#Footnote_447_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a> She was a solvent powerful to reconcile +all heterogeneous persons into one society; like air or water, an +element of such a great range of affinities, that it combines readily +with a thousand substances. Where she is present, all others will be +more than they are wont. She was a unit and <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>[183] </span> whole, so that whatsoever +she did, became her. She had too much sympathy and desire to please, +than that you could say, her manners were marked with dignity, yet no +princess could surpass her clear and erect demeanor on each occasion. +She did not study the Persian grammar, nor the books of the seven +poets, but all the poems of the seven seemed to be written upon her. +For, though the bias of her nature was not to thought, but to +sympathy, yet was she so perfect in her own nature, as to meet +intellectual persons by the fullness of her heart, warming them by her +sentiments; believing, as she did, that by dealing nobly with all, all +would show themselves noble."</p> + +<p>21. I know that this Byzantine<a name="FNanchor_448_448" id="FNanchor_448_448"></a><a href="#Footnote_448_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a> pile of chivalry of Fashion, which +seems so fair and picturesque to those who look at the contemporary +facts for science or for entertainment, is not equally pleasant to all +spectators. The constitution of our society makes it a giant's castle +to the ambitious youth who have not found their names enrolled in its +Golden Book,<a name="FNanchor_449_449" id="FNanchor_449_449"></a><a href="#Footnote_449_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a> and whom it has excluded from its coveted honors and +privileges. They have yet to learn that its seeming grandeur is +shadowy and relative: it is great by their allowance: its proudest +gates will fly open at the approach of their courage and virtue. For +the present distress, however, of those who are predisposed to suffer +from the tyrannies of this caprice, there are easy remedies. To remove +your residence a couple of miles, or at most four, will commonly +relieve the most extreme susceptibility. For, the advantages which + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>[184] </span> fashion values are plants which thrive in very confined localities, +in a few streets, namely. Out of this precinct, they go for nothing; +are of no use in the farm, in the forest, in the market, in war, in +the nuptial society, in the literary or scientific circle, at sea, in +friendship, in the heaven of thought or virtue.</p> + +<p>22. But we have lingered long enough in these painted courts. The +worth of the thing signified must vindicate our taste for the emblem. +Everything that is called fashion and courtesy humbles itself before +the cause and fountain of honor, creator of titles and dignities, +namely, the heart of love. This is the royal blood, this the fire, +which, in all countries and contingencies, will work after its kind +and conquer ind expand all that approaches it. This gives new meanings +to every fact. This impoverishes the rich, suffering no grandeur but +its own. What <i>is</i> rich? Are you rich enough to help anybody? to +succor the unfashionable and the eccentric? rich enough to make the +Canadian in his wagon, the itinerant with his consul's paper which +commends him "To the charitable," the swarthy Italian with his few +broken words of English, the lame pauper hunted by overseers from town +to town, even the poor insane or besotted wreck of man or woman, feel +the noble exception of your presence and your house, from the general +bleakness and stoniness; to make such feel that they were greeted with +a voice which made them both remember and hope? What is vulgar, but to +refuse the claim on acute and conclusive reasons? What is gentle, but + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>[185] </span> to allow it, and give their heart and yours lone holiday from the +national caution? Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar. +The king of Schiraz<a name="FNanchor_450_450" id="FNanchor_450_450"></a><a href="#Footnote_450_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a> could not afford to be so bountiful as the +poor Osman<a name="FNanchor_451_451" id="FNanchor_451_451"></a><a href="#Footnote_451_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a> who dwelt at his gate. Osman had a humanity so broad +and deep, that although his speech was so bold and free with the +Koran<a name="FNanchor_452_452" id="FNanchor_452_452"></a><a href="#Footnote_452_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a> as to disgust all the dervishes, yet was there never a poor +outcast, eccentric, or insane man, some fool who had cut off his +beard, or who had been mutilated under a vow, or had a pet madness in +his brain, but fled at once to him,—that great heart lay there so +sunny and hospitable in the center of the country,—that it seemed as +if the instinct of all sufferers drew them to his side. And the +madness which he harbored, he did not share. Is not this to be rich? +this only to be rightly rich?</p> + +<p>23. But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, +and talk of that which I do not well understand. It is easy to see, +that what is called by distinction society and fashion, has good laws +as well as bad, has much that is necessary, and much that is absurd. +Too good for banning, and too bad for blessing, it reminds us of a +tradition of the pagan mythology, in any attempt to settle its +character. "I overheard Jove,<a name="FNanchor_453_453" id="FNanchor_453_453"></a><a href="#Footnote_453_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a> one day," said Silenus,<a name="FNanchor_454_454" id="FNanchor_454_454"></a><a href="#Footnote_454_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a> +"talking of destroying the earth; he said, it had failed; they were +all rogues and vixens, who went from bad to worse, as fast as the days +succeeded each other. Minerva said, she hoped not; they were only +ridiculous little creatures, with this odd circumstance, that they had +a <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>[186] </span> blur, or indeterminate aspect, seen far or seen near; if you called +them bad, they would appear so; if you called them good, they would +appear so; and there was no one person or action among them, which +would not puzzle her owl,<a name="FNanchor_455_455" id="FNanchor_455_455"></a><a href="#Footnote_455_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a> much more all Olympus, to know whether +it was fundamentally bad or good."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>[187] </span></p> +<h2><a name="GIFTS" id="GIFTS"></a>GIFTS<a name="FNanchor_456_456" id="FNanchor_456_456"></a><a href="#Footnote_456_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a></h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Gifts of one who loved me—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas high time they came;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When he ceased to love me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time they stopped for shame.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>1. It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the +world owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into +chancery,<a name="FNanchor_457_457" id="FNanchor_457_457"></a><a href="#Footnote_457_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a> and be sold. I do not think this general insolvency, +which involves in some sort all the population, to be the reason of +the difficulty experienced at Christmas and New Year, and other times, +in bestowing gifts; since it is always so pleasant to be generous, +though very vexatious to pay debts. But the impediment lies in the +choosing. If, at any time, it comes into my head that a present is due +from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity +is gone. Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because +they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the +utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat +stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of +a work-house. Nature does not cocker us:<a name="FNanchor_458_458" id="FNanchor_458_458"></a><a href="#Footnote_458_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a> we are children, not +pets: she is not fond: everything <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>[188] </span> is dealt to us without fear or +favor, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look +like the frolic and interference of love and beauty. Men use to tell +us that we love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, +because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted. +Something like that pleasure, the flowers give us: what am I to whom +these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable gifts,<a name="FNanchor_459_459" id="FNanchor_459_459"></a><a href="#Footnote_459_459" class="fnanchor">[459]</a> +because they are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic +values being attached to them. If a man should send to me to come a +hundred miles to visit him, and should set before me a basket of fine +summer-fruit, I should think there was some proportion between the +labor and the reward.</p> + +<p>2. For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty every day, +and one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option, since if the +man at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you +could procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a +man eat bread or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is +always a great satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity +does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it +seems heroic to let the petitioner<a name="FNanchor_460_460" id="FNanchor_460_460"></a><a href="#Footnote_460_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a> be the judge of his necessity, +and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience. If it be +a fantastic desire, it is better to leave to others the office of +punishing him. I can think of many parts I should prefer playing to +that of the Furies.<a name="FNanchor_461_461" id="FNanchor_461_461"></a><a href="#Footnote_461_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a> Next to things of necessity, the rule for a +gift, which one <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>[189] </span> of my friends prescribed, is that we might convey to +some person that which properly belonged to his character, and was +easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment +and love are for the most part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are +not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of +thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; +the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the +sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a +handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it +restores society in so far to its primary basis, when a man's +biography<a name="FNanchor_462_462" id="FNanchor_462_462"></a><a href="#Footnote_462_462" class="fnanchor">[462]</a> is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an +index of his merit. But it is a cold lifeless business when you go to +the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and +talent, but a goldsmith's. That is fit for kings, and rich men who +represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of +gold and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering,<a name="FNanchor_463_463" id="FNanchor_463_463"></a><a href="#Footnote_463_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a> or +payment of blackmail.<a name="FNanchor_464_464" id="FNanchor_464_464"></a><a href="#Footnote_464_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a></p> + +<p>3. The law of benefits is a difficult channel, which requires careful +sailing, or rude boats. It is not the office of a man to receive +gifts. How dare you give them? We wish to be self-sustained. We do not +quite forgive a forgiver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of +being bitten. We can receive anything from love, for that is a way of +receiving it from ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to +bestow. We sometimes hate the meat which we <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>[190] </span> eat, because there seems +something of degrading dependence in living by it.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Brother, if Jove<a name="FNanchor_465_465" id="FNanchor_465_465"></a><a href="#Footnote_465_465" class="fnanchor">[465]</a> to thee a present make,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take heed that from his hands thou nothing take."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>We ask the whole. Nothing less will content us. We arraign society, if +it do not give us besides earth, and fire, and water, opportunity, +love, reverence, and objects of veneration.</p> + +<p>4. He is a good man, who can receive a gift well. We are either glad +or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. Some violence, I +think, is done, some degradation borne, when I rejoice or grieve at a +gift. I am sorry when my independence is invaded, or when a gift comes +from such as do not know my spirit, and so the act is not supported; +and if the gift pleases me overmuch, then I should be ashamed that the +donor should read my heart, and see that I love his commodity, and not +him. The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, +correspondent to my flowing unto him. When the waters are at level, +then my goods pass to him, and his to me. All his are mine, all mine +his. I say to him, How can you give me this pot of oil, or this flagon +of wine, when all your oil and wine is mine, which belief of mine this +gift seems to deny? Hence the fitness of beautiful, not useful things +for gifts. This giving is flat usurpation, and therefore when the +beneficiary is ungrateful, as all beneficiaries hate all Timons,<a name="FNanchor_466_466" id="FNanchor_466_466"></a><a href="#Footnote_466_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a> +not at all considering the value of the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>[191] </span> gift, but looking back to the +greater store it was taken from, I rather sympathize with the +beneficiary, than with the anger of my lord, Timon. For, the +expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually punished by the +total insensibility of the obliged person. It is a great happiness to +get off without injury and heart-burning, from one who has had the ill +luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business,<a name="FNanchor_467_467" id="FNanchor_467_467"></a><a href="#Footnote_467_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a> this of +being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap. A +golden text for these gentlemen is that which I admire in the +Buddhist,<a name="FNanchor_468_468" id="FNanchor_468_468"></a><a href="#Footnote_468_468" class="fnanchor">[468]</a> who never thanks, and who says, "Do not flatter your +benefactors."</p> + +<p>5. The reason of these discords I conceive to be, that there is no +commensurability between a man and any gift. You cannot give anything +to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts +you in debt by his magnanimity. The service a man renders his friend +is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend +stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve +his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my +friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small. +Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so +incidental and at random, that we can seldom hear the acknowledgments +of any person who would thank us for a benefit, without some shame and +humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct stroke, but must be content +with an oblique one; we seldom have the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>[192] </span> satisfaction of yielding a +direct benefit, which is directly received. But rectitude scatters +favors on every side without knowing it, and receives with wonder the +thanks of all people.</p> + +<p>6. I fear to breathe any treason against the majesty of love, which is +the genius and god of gifts, and to whom we must not affect to +prescribe. Let him give kingdoms or flower-leaves indifferently. There +are persons from whom we always expect fairy tokens; let us not cease +to expect them. This is prerogative, and not to be limited by our +municipal rules. For the rest, I like to see that we cannot be bought +and sold. The best of hospitality and of generosity is also not in the +will, but in fate. I find that I am not much to you; you do not need +me; you do not feel me; then am I thrust out of doors, though you +proffer me house and lands. No services are of any value, but only +likeness. When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, +it proved an intellectual trick—no more. They eat your service like +apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel for you, and +delight in you all the time.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>[193] </span></p> +<h2><a name="NATURE" id="NATURE"></a>NATURE<a name="FNanchor_469_469" id="FNanchor_469_469"></a><a href="#Footnote_469_469" class="fnanchor">[469]</a></h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The rounded world is fair to see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nine times folded in mystery:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though baffled seers cannot impart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The secret of its laboring heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all is clear from east to west.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spirit that lurks each form within<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beckons to spirit of its kin;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Self-kindled every atom glows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hints the future which it owes.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>1. There are days<a name="FNanchor_470_470" id="FNanchor_470_470"></a><a href="#Footnote_470_470" class="fnanchor">[470]</a> which occur in this climate, at almost any +season of the year, wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the +air, the heavenly bodies, and the earth, make a harmony, as if nature +would indulge her offspring; when, in these bleak upper sides of the +planet, nothing is to desire that we have heard of the happiest +latitudes, and we bask in the shining hours of Florida and Cuba; when +everything that has life gives sign of satisfaction, and the cattle +that lie on the ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts. These +halcyons<a name="FNanchor_471_471" id="FNanchor_471_471"></a><a href="#Footnote_471_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a> may be looked for with a little more assurance in that +pure October weather, which we distinguish by the name of Indian +Summer.<a name="FNanchor_472_472" id="FNanchor_472_472"></a><a href="#Footnote_472_472" class="fnanchor">[472]</a> The day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills +and warm wide fields. To have lived <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>[194] </span> through all its sunny hours, +seems longevity enough. The solitary places do not seem quite lonely. +At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced +to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish. The +knapsack of custom falls off his back with the first step he makes +into these precincts. Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and +reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be the +circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a +god all men that come to her. We have crept out of our close and +crowded houses into the night and morning, and we see what majestic +beauties daily wrap us in their bosom. How willingly we would escape +the barriers which render them comparatively impotent, escape the +sophistication and second thought, and suffer nature to entrance us. +The tempered light of the woods is like a perpetual morning, and is +stimulating and heroic. The anciently reported spells of these places +creep on us. The stems of pines, hemlocks, and oaks, almost gleam like +iron on the excited eye. The incommunicable trees begin to persuade us +to live with them, and quit our life of solemn trifles. Here no +history, or church, or state, is interpolated on the divine sky and +the immortal year. How easily we might walk onward into opening +landscape, absorbed by new pictures, and by thoughts fast succeeding +each other, until by degrees the recollection of home was crowded out +of the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>[195] </span> mind, all memory obliterated by the tyranny of the present, +and we were led in triumph by nature.</p> + +<p>2. These enchantments are medicinal, they sober and heal us. These are +plain pleasures, kindly and native to us. We come to our own, and make +friends with matter, which the ambitious chatter of the schools would +persuade us to despise. We never can part with it; the mind loves its +old home: as water to our thirst, so is the rock, the ground, to our +eyes, and hands, and feet. It is firm water: it is cold flame: what +health, what affinity! Ever an old friend, ever like a dear friend and +brother, when we chat affectedly with strangers, comes in this honest +face, and takes a grave liberty with us, and shames us out of our +nonsense. Cities give not the human senses room enough. We go out +daily and nightly to feed the eyes on the horizon, and require so much +scope, just as we need water for our bath. There are all degrees of +natural influence, from these quarantine powers of nature, up to her +dearest and gravest ministrations to the imagination and the soul. +There is the bucket of cold water from the spring, the wood-fire to +which the chilled traveler rushes for safety,—and there is the +sublime moral of autumn and of noon. We nestle in nature, and draw our +living as parasites from her roots and grains, and we receive glances +from the heavenly bodies, which call us to solitude, and foretell the +remotest future. The blue zenith is the point in which romance and + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>[196] </span> reality meet. I think, if we should be rapt away into all that we +dream of heaven, and should converse with Gabriel<a name="FNanchor_473_473" id="FNanchor_473_473"></a><a href="#Footnote_473_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a> and Uriel,<a name="FNanchor_474_474" id="FNanchor_474_474"></a><a href="#Footnote_474_474" class="fnanchor">[474]</a> +the upper sky would be all that would remain of our furniture.</p> + +<p>3. It seems as if the day was not wholly profane, in which we have +given heed to some natural object. The fall of snowflakes in a still +air, preserving to each crystal its perfect form; the blowing of sleet +over a wide sheet of water, and over plains; the waving rye-fields; +the mimic waving of acres of houstonia, whose innumerable florets +whiten and ripple before the eye; the reflections of trees and flowers +in glassy lakes; the musical steaming odorous south wind, which +converts all trees to wind-harps;<a name="FNanchor_475_475" id="FNanchor_475_475"></a><a href="#Footnote_475_475" class="fnanchor">[475]</a> the crackling and spurting of +hemlock in the flames; or of pine-logs, which yield glory to the walls +and faces in the sitting-room,—these are the music and pictures of +the most ancient religion. My house stands in low land, with limited +outlook, and on the skirt of the village.<a name="FNanchor_476_476" id="FNanchor_476_476"></a><a href="#Footnote_476_476" class="fnanchor">[476]</a> But I go with my +friend<a name="FNanchor_477_477" id="FNanchor_477_477"></a><a href="#Footnote_477_477" class="fnanchor">[477]</a> to the shore of our little river,<a name="FNanchor_478_478" id="FNanchor_478_478"></a><a href="#Footnote_478_478" class="fnanchor">[478]</a> and with one stroke +of the paddle, I leave the village politics and personalities, yes, +and the world of villages and personalities behind, and pass into a +delicate realm of sunset and moonlight, too bright almost for spotted +man to enter without novitiate and probation.<a name="FNanchor_479_479" id="FNanchor_479_479"></a><a href="#Footnote_479_479" class="fnanchor">[479]</a> We penetrate bodily +this incredible beauty: we dip our hands in this painted element: our +eyes are bathed in these lights and forms. A holiday, a +villeggiatura,<a name="FNanchor_480_480" id="FNanchor_480_480"></a><a href="#Footnote_480_480" class="fnanchor">[480]</a> a royal revel, the proudest, most heart-rejoicing +festival that valor and <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>[197] </span> beauty, power and taste, ever decked and +enjoyed, establishes itself on the instant. These sunset clouds, these +delicately emerging stars, with their private and ineffable glances, +signify it and proffer it. I am taught the poorness of our invention, +the ugliness of towns and palaces. Art and luxury have early learned +that they must work as enhancement and sequel to this original beauty. +I am overinstructed for my return. Henceforth I shall be hard to +please. I cannot go back to toys. I am grown expensive and +sophisticated. I can no longer live without elegance: but a countryman +shall be my master of revels. He who knows the most, he who knows what +sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the +heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal +man. Only as far as masters of the world have called in nature to +their aid, can they reach the height of magnificence. This is the +meaning of their hanging-gardens,<a name="FNanchor_481_481" id="FNanchor_481_481"></a><a href="#Footnote_481_481" class="fnanchor">[481]</a> villas, garden-houses, islands, +parks, and preserves, to back their faulty personality with these +strong accessories. I do not wonder that the landed interest should be +invincible in the state with these dangerous auxiliaries. These bribe +and invite; not kings, not palaces, not men, not women, but these +tender and poetic stars, eloquent of secret promises. We heard what +the rich man said, we knew of his villa, his grove, his wine, and his +company, but the provocation and point of the invitation came out of +these beguiling stars. In their soft glances, I see what men strove to +realize in some <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>[198] </span> Versailles,<a name="FNanchor_482_482" id="FNanchor_482_482"></a><a href="#Footnote_482_482" class="fnanchor">[482]</a> or Paphos,<a name="FNanchor_483_483" id="FNanchor_483_483"></a><a href="#Footnote_483_483" class="fnanchor">[483]</a> or Ctesiphon.<a name="FNanchor_484_484" id="FNanchor_484_484"></a><a href="#Footnote_484_484" class="fnanchor">[484]</a> +Indeed, it is the magical lights of the horizon, and the blue sky for +the background, which save all our works of art, which were otherwise +baubles. When the rich tax the poor with servility and obsequiousness, +they should consider the effect of man reputed to be the possessors of +nature, on imaginative minds. Ah! if the rich were rich as the poor +fancy riches! A boy hears a military band play on the field at night, +and he has kings and queens, and famous chivalry palpably before him. +He hears the echoes of a horn in a hill country, in the Notch +Mountains,<a name="FNanchor_485_485" id="FNanchor_485_485"></a><a href="#Footnote_485_485" class="fnanchor">[485]</a> for example, which converts the mountains into an +Æolian harp,<a name="FNanchor_486_486" id="FNanchor_486_486"></a><a href="#Footnote_486_486" class="fnanchor">[486]</a> and this supernatural <i>tiralira</i> restores to him the +Dorian<a name="FNanchor_487_487" id="FNanchor_487_487"></a><a href="#Footnote_487_487" class="fnanchor">[487]</a> mythology, Apollo,<a name="FNanchor_488_488" id="FNanchor_488_488"></a><a href="#Footnote_488_488" class="fnanchor">[488]</a> Diana,<a name="FNanchor_489_489" id="FNanchor_489_489"></a><a href="#Footnote_489_489" class="fnanchor">[489]</a> and all divine hunters +and huntresses. Can a musical note be so lofty, so haughtily +beautiful! To the poor young poet, thus fabulous is his picture of +society; he is loyal; he respects the rich; they are rich for the sake +of his imagination; how poor his fancy would be, if they were not +rich! That they have some high-fenced grove, which they call a park; +that they live in larger and better-garnished saloons than he has +visited, and go in coaches, keeping only the society of the elegant, +to watering-places, and to distant cities, are the groundwork from +which he has delineated estates of romance, compared with which their +actual possessions are shanties and paddocks. The muse herself betrays +her son, and enhances the gift of wealthy and well-born beauty, by a +radiation out <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>[199] </span> of the air, and clouds, and forests that skirt the +road,—a certain haughty favor, as if from patrician genii to +patricians, a kind of aristocracy in nature, a prince of the power of +the air.</p> + +<p>4. The moral sensibility which makes Edens<a name="FNanchor_490_490" id="FNanchor_490_490"></a><a href="#Footnote_490_490" class="fnanchor">[490]</a> and Tempes<a name="FNanchor_491_491" id="FNanchor_491_491"></a><a href="#Footnote_491_491" class="fnanchor">[491]</a> so +easily, may not be always found, but the material landscape is never +far off. We can find these enchantments without visiting the Como +Lake,<a name="FNanchor_492_492" id="FNanchor_492_492"></a><a href="#Footnote_492_492" class="fnanchor">[492]</a> or the Madeira Islands.<a name="FNanchor_493_493" id="FNanchor_493_493"></a><a href="#Footnote_493_493" class="fnanchor">[493]</a> We exaggerate the praises of +local scenery. In every landscape, the point of astonishment is the +meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the first +hillock as well as from the top of the Alleghanies. The stars at night +stoop down over the brownest, homeliest common,<a name="FNanchor_494_494" id="FNanchor_494_494"></a><a href="#Footnote_494_494" class="fnanchor">[494]</a> with all the +spiritual magnificence which they shed on the Campagna,<a name="FNanchor_495_495" id="FNanchor_495_495"></a><a href="#Footnote_495_495" class="fnanchor">[495]</a> or on the +marble deserts of Egypt. The uprolled clouds and the colors of morning +and evening, will transfigure maples and alders. The difference +between landscape and landscape is small, but there is great +difference in the beholders. There is nothing so wonderful in any +particular landscape, as the necessity of being beautiful under which +every landscape lies. Nature cannot be surprised in undress. Beauty +breaks in everywhere.</p> + +<p>5. But it is very easy to outrun the sympathy of readers on this +topic, which school-men called <i>natura naturata</i>, or nature passive. +One can hardly speak directly of it without excess. It is as easy to +broach in mixed companies what is called "the subject of religion." A +susceptible person does not like to <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>[200] </span> indulge his tastes in this kind, +without the apology of some trivial necessity: he goes to see a +wood-lot, or to look at the crops, or to fetch a plant or a mineral +from a remote locality, or he carries a fowling-piece, or a +fishing-rod. I suppose this shame must have a good reason. A +dilettantism<a name="FNanchor_496_496" id="FNanchor_496_496"></a><a href="#Footnote_496_496" class="fnanchor">[496]</a> in nature is barren and unworthy. The fop of fields +is no better than his brother of Broadway. Men are naturally hunters +and inquisitive of woodcraft and I suppose that such a gazetteer as +wood-cutters and Indians should furnish facts for would take place in +the most sumptuous drawing-rooms of all the "Wreaths" and "Flora's +chaplets"<a name="FNanchor_497_497" id="FNanchor_497_497"></a><a href="#Footnote_497_497" class="fnanchor">[497]</a> of the book-shops; yet ordinarily, whether we are too +clumsy for so subtle a topic, or from whatever cause, as soon as men +begin to write on nature, they fall into euphuism. Frivolity is a most +unfit tribute to Pan,<a name="FNanchor_498_498" id="FNanchor_498_498"></a><a href="#Footnote_498_498" class="fnanchor">[498]</a> who ought to be represented in the +mythology as the most continent of gods. I would not be frivolous +before the admirable reserve and prudence of time, yet I cannot +renounce the right of returning often to this old topic. The multitude +of false churches<a name="FNanchor_499_499" id="FNanchor_499_499"></a><a href="#Footnote_499_499" class="fnanchor">[499]</a> accredits the true religion. Literature, +poetry, science, are the homage of man to this unfathomed secret, +concerning which no sane man can affect an indifference or +incuriosity. Nature is loved by what is best in us. It is loved as the +city of God, although, or rather because there is no citizen. The +sunset is unlike anything that is underneath it: it wants men. And the +beauty of nature must always seem unreal and mocking, until the +landscape <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>[201] </span> has human figures, that are as good as itself. If there +were good men, there would never be this rapture in nature. If the +king is in the palace nobody looks at the walls. It is when he is +gone, and the house is filled with grooms and gazers, that we turn +from the people, to find relief in the majestic men that are suggested +by the pictures and architecture. The critics who complain of the +sickly separation of the beauty of nature from the thing to be done, +must consider that our hunting of the picturesque is inseparable from +our protest against false society. Man is fallen; nature is erect, and +serves as a differential thermometer, detecting the presence or +absence of the divine sentiment in man. By fault of our dulness and +selfishness, we are looking up to nature, but when we are +convalescent, nature will look up to us. We see the foaming brook with +compunction; if our own life flowed with the right energy, we should +shame the brook. The stream of zeal sparkles with real fire, and not +with reflex rays of sun and moon. Nature may be as selfishly studied +as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, +mesmerism (with intent to show where our spoons are gone); and anatomy +and physiology become phrenology and palmistry.</p> + +<p>6. But taking timely warning, and leaving many things unsaid on this +topic, but not longer omit our homage to the Efficient Nature, <i>natura +naturans</i>, the quick cause, before which all forms flee as the driven +snows, itself secret, its works driven before it <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>[202] </span> in flocks and +multitudes, (as the ancient represented nature by Proteus,<a name="FNanchor_500_500" id="FNanchor_500_500"></a><a href="#Footnote_500_500" class="fnanchor">[500]</a> a +shepherd), and in undescribable variety. It publishes itself in +creatures, reaching from particles and spicula, through transformation +on transformation to the highest symmetries, arriving at consummate +results without a shock or a leap. A little heat, that is, a little +motion, is all that differences the bald, dazzling white, and deadly +cold poles of the earth from the prolific tropical climates. All +changes pass without violence, by reason of the two cardinal +conditions of boundless space and boundless time. Geology has +initiated us into the secularity of nature, and taught us to disuse +our dame-school measures, and exchange our Mosaic<a name="FNanchor_501_501" id="FNanchor_501_501"></a><a href="#Footnote_501_501" class="fnanchor">[501]</a> and Ptolemaic +schemes<a name="FNanchor_502_502" id="FNanchor_502_502"></a><a href="#Footnote_502_502" class="fnanchor">[502]</a> for her large style. We know nothing rightly, for want of +perspective. Now we learn what patient periods must round themselves +before the rock is formed, then before the rock is broken, and the +first lichen race has disintegrated the thinnest external plate into +soil, and opened the door for the remote Flora,<a name="FNanchor_503_503" id="FNanchor_503_503"></a><a href="#Footnote_503_503" class="fnanchor">[503]</a> Fauna,<a name="FNanchor_504_504" id="FNanchor_504_504"></a><a href="#Footnote_504_504" class="fnanchor">[504]</a> +Ceres,<a name="FNanchor_505_505" id="FNanchor_505_505"></a><a href="#Footnote_505_505" class="fnanchor">[505]</a> and Pomona,<a name="FNanchor_506_506" id="FNanchor_506_506"></a><a href="#Footnote_506_506" class="fnanchor">[506]</a> to come in. How far off yet is the +trilobite! how far the quadruped! how inconceivably remote is man! All +duly arrive,<a name="FNanchor_507_507" id="FNanchor_507_507"></a><a href="#Footnote_507_507" class="fnanchor">[507]</a> and then race after race of men. It is a long way +from granite to the oyster; farther yet to Plato,<a name="FNanchor_508_508" id="FNanchor_508_508"></a><a href="#Footnote_508_508" class="fnanchor">[508]</a> +and the preaching of the immortality of the soul. Yet all must come, +as surely as the first atom has two sides.</p> + +<p>7. Motion or change, and identity or rest, are the first and second +secrets of nature: Motion and Rest. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>[203] </span> The whole code of her laws may be +written on the thumb-nail, or the signet of a ring. The whirling +bubble on the surface of a brook, admits us to the secret of the +mechanics of the sky. Every shell on the beach is a key to it. A +little water made to rotate in a cup explains the formation of the +simpler shells; the addition of matter from year to year, arrives at +last at the most complex forms; and yet so poor is nature with all her +craft, that, from the beginning to the end of the universe, she has +but one stuff,—but one stuff with its two ends, to serve up all her +dream-like variety. Compound it how she will, star, sand, fire, water, +tree, man, it is still one stuff, and betrays the same properties.</p> + +<p>8. Nature is always consistent, though she feigns to contravene her +own laws. She keeps her laws, and seems to transcend them. She arms +and equips an animal to find its place and living in the earth, and, +at the same time, she arms and equips another animal to destroy it. +Space exists to divide creatures; but by clothing the sides of a bird +with a few feathers, she gives him a petty omnipresence. The direction +is forever onward, but the artist still goes back for materials, and +begins again with the first elements on the most advanced stage: +otherwise, all goes to ruin. If we look at her work, we seem to catch +a glance of a system in transition. Plants are the young of the world, +vessels of health and vigor; but they grope ever upward toward +consciousness; the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>[204] </span> imprisonment, rooted in the ground. The animal is the novice and +probationer of a more advanced order. The men, though young, having +tasted the first drop from the cup of thought, are already dissipated: +the maples and ferns are still uncorrupt; yet no doubt, when they come +to consciousness, they too will curse and swear. Flowers so strictly +belong to youth, that we adult men soon come to feel, that their +beautiful generations concern not us: we have had our day; now let the +children have theirs. The flowers jilt us, and we are old bachelors +with our ridiculous tenderness.</p> + +<p>9. Things are so strictly related, that according to the skill of the +eye, from any one object the parts and properties of any other may be +predicted. If we had eyes to see it, a bit of stone from the city wall +would certify us of the necessity that man must exist, as readily as +the city. That identity makes us all one, and reduces to nothing great +intervals on our customary scale. We talk of deviations from natural +life, as if artificial life were not also natural. The smoothest +curled courtier in the boudoirs of a palace has an animal nature, rude +and aboriginal as a white bear, omnipotent to its own ends, and is +directly related, there amid essences and billets-doux, to Himalaya +mountain-chains<a name="FNanchor_509_509" id="FNanchor_509_509"></a><a href="#Footnote_509_509" class="fnanchor">[509]</a> and the axis of the globe. If we consider how +much we are nature's, we need not be superstitious about towns, as if +that terrific or benefic force did not find us there also, and fashion +cities. Nature, who made the mason, made the house. We may easily hear +too much of rural influences. The <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>[205] </span> cool, disengaged air of natural +objects, makes them enviable to us, chafed and irritable creatures +with red faces, and we think we shall be as grand as they, if we camp +out and eat roots, but let us be men instead of wood-chucks, and the +oak and the elm shall gladly serve us, though we sit in chairs of +ivory on carpets of silk.</p> + +<p>10. This guiding identity runs through all the surprises and contrasts +of the piece, and characterizes every law. Man carries the world in +his head, the whole astronomy and chemistry suspended in a thought. +Because the history of nature is charactered in his brain, therefore +is he the prophet and discoverer of her secrets. Every known fact in +natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it +was actually verified. A man does not tie his shoe without recognizing +laws which bind the farthest regions of nature: moon, plant, gas, +crystal, are concrete geometry and numbers. Common sense knows its +own, and recognizes the fact at first sight in chemical experiment. +The common sense of Franklin,<a name="FNanchor_510_510" id="FNanchor_510_510"></a><a href="#Footnote_510_510" class="fnanchor">[510]</a> Dalton,<a name="FNanchor_511_511" id="FNanchor_511_511"></a><a href="#Footnote_511_511" class="fnanchor">[511]</a> Davy<a name="FNanchor_512_512" id="FNanchor_512_512"></a><a href="#Footnote_512_512" class="fnanchor">[512]</a> and +Black,<a name="FNanchor_513_513" id="FNanchor_513_513"></a><a href="#Footnote_513_513" class="fnanchor">[513]</a> is the same common sense which made the arrangements which +now it discovers.</p> + +<p>11. If the identity expresses organized rest, the counter action runs +also into organization. The astronomers said,<a name="FNanchor_514_514" id="FNanchor_514_514"></a><a href="#Footnote_514_514" class="fnanchor">[514]</a> "Give us matter, +and a little motion, and we will construct the universe. It is not +enough that we should have matter, we must also have a single impulse, +one shove to launch the mass, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>[206] </span> and generate the harmony of the +centrifugal and centripetal<a name="FNanchor_515_515" id="FNanchor_515_515"></a><a href="#Footnote_515_515" class="fnanchor">[515]</a> forces. Once heave the ball from the +hand, and we can show how all this mighty order grew." "A very +unreasonable postulate," said the metaphysicians, "and a plain begging +of the question. Could you not prevail to know the genesis of +projection, as well as the continuation of it?" Nature, meanwhile, had +not waited for the discussion, but, right or wrong, bestowed the +impulse, and the balls rolled. It was no great affair, a mere push, +but the astronomers were right in making much of it, for there is no +end of the consequences of the act. That famous aboriginal push +propagates itself through all the balls of the system, and through +every atom of every ball, through all the races of creatures, and +through the history and performances of every individual. Exaggeration +is in the course of things. Nature sends no creature, no man into the +world, without adding a small excess of his proper quality. Given the +planet, it is still necessary to add the impulse; so, to every +creature nature added a little violence of direction in its proper +path, a shove to put it on its way; in every instance, a slight +generosity, a drop too much. Without electricity the air would rot, +and without this violence of direction which men and women have, +without a spice of bigot and fanatic, no excitement, no efficiency. We +aim above the mark, to hit the mark. Every act hath some falsehood of +exaggeration in it. And when now and then comes along some sad, + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>[207] </span> sharp-eyed man, who sees how paltry a game is played, and refuses to +play, but blabs the secret;—how then? is the bird flown? O no, the +wary Nature sends a new troop of fairer forms, of lordlier youths, +with a little more excess of direction to hold them fast to their +several aims; makes them a little wrongheaded in that direction in +which they are rightest, and on goes the game again with new whirl, +for a generation or two more. The child with his sweet pranks, the +fool of his senses, commanded by every sight and sound, without any +power to compare and rank his sensations, abandoned to a whistle or a +painted chip, to a lead dragoon, or a ginger-bread dog, +individualizing everything, generalizing nothing, delighted with every +new thing, lies down at night overpowered by the fatigue, which this +day of continual petty madness has incurred. But Nature has answered +her purpose with the curly, dimpled lunatic. She has tasked every +faculty, and has secured the symmetrical growth of the bodily frame, +by all these attitudes and exertions,—an end of the first importance, +which could not be trusted to any care less perfect than her own. This +glitter, this opaline luster plays round the top of every toy to his +eye, to insure his fidelity, and he is deceived to his good. We are +made alive and kept alive by the same arts. Let the Stoics<a name="FNanchor_516_516" id="FNanchor_516_516"></a><a href="#Footnote_516_516" class="fnanchor">[516]</a> say +what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because +the meat is savory and the appetite is keen. The vegetable life does +not content itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single +seed, but it fills the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>[208] </span> air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, +that if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves, that +hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity, that, at least, +one may replace the parent. All things betray the same calculated +profusion. The excess of fear with which the animal frame is hedged +round, shrinking from cold, starting at sight of a snake, or a sudden +noise, protects us, through a multitude of groundless alarms, from +some one real danger at last. The lover seeks in marriage his private +felicity and perfection, with no prospective end; and nature hides in +his happiness her own end, namely, progeny, or the perpetuity of the +race.</p> + +<p>12. But the craft with which the world is made runs also into the mind +and character of men. No man is quite sane; each has a vein of folly +in his composition, a slight determination of blood to the head, to +make sure of holding him hard to some one point which nature had taken +to heart. Great causes are never tried on their merits; but the cause +is reduced to particulars to suit the size of the partisans, and the +contention is ever hottest on minor matters. Not less remarkable is +the overfaith of each man in the importance of what he has to do or +say. The poet, the prophet, has a higher value for what he utters than +any hearer, and therefore it gets spoken. The strong, self-complacent +Luther<a name="FNanchor_517_517" id="FNanchor_517_517"></a><a href="#Footnote_517_517" class="fnanchor">[517]</a> declares with an emphasis, not to be mistaken, that "God +himself cannot do without wise men." Jacob Behmen<a name="FNanchor_518_518" id="FNanchor_518_518"></a><a href="#Footnote_518_518" class="fnanchor">[518]</a> and George +Fox<a name="FNanchor_519_519" id="FNanchor_519_519"></a><a href="#Footnote_519_519" class="fnanchor">[519]</a> betray their egotism in the pertinacity of their + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>[209] </span> controversial tracts, and James Naylor<a name="FNanchor_520_520" id="FNanchor_520_520"></a><a href="#Footnote_520_520" class="fnanchor">[520]</a> once suffered himself to +be worshiped as the Christ. Each prophet comes presently to identify +himself with his thought, and to esteem his hat and shoes sacred. +However this may discredit such persons with the judicious, it helps +them with the people, as it gives heat, pungency, and publicity to +their words. A similar experience is not infrequent in private life. +Each young and ardent person writes a diary, in which, when the hours +of prayer and penitence arrive, he inscribes his soul. The pages thus +written are, to him, burning and fragrant: he reads them on his knees +by midnight and by the morning star; he wets them with his +tears: they are sacred; too good for the world, +and hardly yet to be shown to the dearest friend. This is the +man-child that is born to the soul, and her life still circulates in +the babe. The umbilical cord has not yet been cut. After some time has +elapsed, he begins to wish to admit his friend to this hallowed +experience, and with hesitation, yet with firmness, exposes the pages +to his eye. Will they not burn his eyes? The friend coldly turns them +over, and passes from the writing to conversation, with easy +transition, which strikes the other party with astonishment and +vexation. He cannot suspect the writing itself. Days and nights of +fervid life, of communion with angels of darkness and of light, have +engraved their shadowy characters on that tear-stained book. He +suspects the intelligence or the heart of his friend. Is there then no +friend? He cannot yet credit that <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>[210] </span> one may have impressive experience, +and yet may not know how to put his private fact into literature; and +perhaps the discovery that wisdom has other tongues and ministers than +we, that though we should hold our peace, the truth would not the less +be spoken, might check injuriously the flames of our zeal. A man can +only speak, so long as he does not feel his speech to be partial and +inadequate. It is partial, but he does not see it to be so, whilst he +utters it. As soon as he is released from the instinctive and +particular, and sees its partiality, he shuts his mouth in disgust. +For, no man can write anything, who does not think that what he writes +is for the time the history of the world; or do anything well, who +does not esteem his work to be of importance. My work may be of none, +but I must not think it is of none, or I shall not do it with +impunity.</p> + +<p>13. In like manner, there is throughout nature something mocking, +something that leads us on and on, but arrives nowhere, keeps no faith +with us. All promise outruns the performance. We live in a system of +approximations. Every end is prospective of some other end, which is +also temporary; a round and final success nowhere. We are encamped in +nature, not domesticated. Hunger and thirst lead us on to eat and to +drink; but bread and wine, mix and cook them how you will, leave us +hungry and thirsty, after the stomach is full. It is the same with all +our arts and performances. Our music, our poetry, our language itself +are not satisfactions, but suggestions. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>[211] </span> The hunger for wealth, which +reduces the planet to a garden, fools the eager pursuer. What is the +end sought? Plainly to secure the ends of good sense and beauty, from +the intrusion of deformity or vulgarity of any kind. But what an +operose<a name="FNanchor_521_521" id="FNanchor_521_521"></a><a href="#Footnote_521_521" class="fnanchor">[521]</a> method! What a train of means to secure a little +conversation! This palace of brick and stone, these servants, this +kitchen, these stables, horses and equipage, this bank-stock, and file +of mortgages; trade to all the world, country-house and cottage by the +water-side, all for a little conversation, high, clear, and spiritual! +Could it not be had as well by beggars on the highway? No, all these +things came from successive efforts of these beggars to remove +friction from the wheels of life, and give opportunity. Conversation, +character, were the avowed ends; wealth was good as it appeased the +animal cravings, cured the smoky chimney, silenced the creaking door, +brought friends together in a warm and quiet room, and kept the +children and the dinner-table in a different apartment. Thought, +virtue, beauty, were the ends; but it was known that men of thought +and virtue sometimes had the headache, or wet feet, or could lose good +time, whilst the room was getting warm in winter days. Unluckily, in +the exertions necessary to remove these inconveniences, the main +attention has been diverted to this object; the old aims have been +lost sight of, and to remove friction has come to be the end. That is +the ridicule of rich men, and Boston, London, Vienna, and now the +governments generally of the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>[212] </span> world, are cities and governments of the +rich, and the masses are not men, but <i>poor men</i>, that is, men who +would be rich; this is the ridicule of the class, that they arrive +with pains and sweat and fury nowhere; when all is done, it is for +nothing. They are like one who has interrupted the conversation of a +company to make his speech, and now has forgotten what he went to say. +The appearance strikes the eye everywhere of an aimless society, of +aimless nations. Were the ends of nature so great and cogent, as to +exact this immense sacrifice of men?</p> + +<p>14. Quite analogous to the deceits in life, there is, as might be +expected, a similar effect on the eye from the face of external +nature. There is in woods and waters a certain enticement and +flattery, together with a failure to yield a present satisfaction. +This disappointment is felt in every landscape. I have seen the +softness and beauty of the summer clouds floating feathery overhead, +enjoying, as it seemed, their height and privilege of motion, whilst +yet they appeared not so much the drapery of this place and hour, as +fore-looking to such pavilions and gardens of festivity beyond. It is +an odd jealousy; but the poet finds himself not near enough to this +object. The pine tree, the river, the bank of flowers before him, does +not seem to be nature. Nature is still elsewhere. This or this is but +outskirt and far-off reflection<a name="FNanchor_522_522" id="FNanchor_522_522"></a><a href="#Footnote_522_522" class="fnanchor">[522]</a> and echo of the triumph that has +passed by, and is now at its glancing splendor and heyday, perchance +in the neighboring fields, or, if you stand in the field, then in the + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>[213] </span> adjacent woods. The present object shall give you this sense of +stillness that follows a pageant which has just gone by. What splendid +distance, what recesses of ineffable pomp and loveliness in the +sunset! But who can go where they are, or lay his hand or plant his +foot thereon? Off they fall from the round world forever and ever. It +is the same among men and women as among the silent trees; always a +referred existence, an absence, never a presence and satisfaction. Is +it, that beauty can never be grasped? in persons and in landscapes is +equally inaccessible? The accepted and betrothed lover has lost the +wildest charm of his maiden in her acceptance of him. She was heaven +whilst he pursued her as a star: she cannot be heaven, if she stoops +to such a one as he.</p> + +<p>15. What shall we say of this omnipresent appearance of that first +projectile impulse, of this flattery and balking of so many +well-meaning creatures? Must we not suppose somewhere in the universe +a slight treachery and derision? Are we not engaged to a serious +resentment of this use that is made of us? Are we tickled trout, and +fools of nature? One looks at the face of heaven and earth lays all +petulance at rest, and soothes us to wiser convictions. To the +intelligent, nature converts itself into a vast promise, and will not +be rashly explained. Her secret is untold. Many and many an +Oedipus<a name="FNanchor_523_523" id="FNanchor_523_523"></a><a href="#Footnote_523_523" class="fnanchor">[523]</a> arrives: he has the whole mystery teeming in his brain. +Alas! the same sorcery has spoiled his skill; no syllable can he shape +on his lips. Her mighty orbit vaults like the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>[214] </span> fresh rainbow into the +deep, but no archangel's wing was yet strong enough to follow it, and +report of the return of the curve. But it also appears, that our +actions are seconded and disposed to greater conclusions than we +designed. We are escorted on every hand through life by spiritual +agents, and a beneficent purpose lies in wait for us. We cannot bandy +words with nature, or deal with her as we deal with persons. If we +measure our individual forces against hers, we may easily feel as if +we were the sport of an insuperable destiny. But if, instead of +identifying ourselves with the work, we feel that the soul of the +workman streams through us, we shall find the peace of the morning +dwelling first in our hearts, and the fathomless powers of gravity and +chemistry, and, over them, of life preëxisting within us in their +highest form.</p> + +<p>16. The uneasiness which the thought of our helplessness in the chain +of causes occasions us, results from looking too much at one condition +of nature, namely, Motion. But the drag is never taken from the wheel. +Wherever the impulse exceeds the Rest or Identity insinuates its +compensation. All over the wide fields of earth grows the +prunella<a name="FNanchor_524_524" id="FNanchor_524_524"></a><a href="#Footnote_524_524" class="fnanchor">[524]</a> or self-heal. After every foolish day we sleep off the +fumes and furies of its hours; and though we are always engaged with +particulars, and often enslaved to them, we bring with us to every +experiment the innate universal laws. These, while they exist in the +mind as ideas, stand around us in nature forever embodied, a present +sanity to expose and cure the insanity of men. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>[215] </span> Our servitude to +particulars betrays us into a hundred foolish expectations. We +anticipate a new era from the invention of a locomotive, or a balloon; +the new engine brings with it the old checks. They say that by +electro-magnetism, your salad shall be grown from the seed whilst your +fowl is roasting for dinner: it is a symbol of our modern aims and +endeavors,—of our condensation and acceleration of objects: but +nothing is gained: nature cannot be cheated: man's life is but seventy +salads long, grow they swift or grow they slow. In these checks and +impossibilities, however, we find our advantage, not less than in +impulses. Let the victory fall where it will, we are on that side. And +the knowledge that we traverse the whole scale of being, from the +center to the poles of nature, and have some stake in every +possibility, lends that sublime luster to death, which philosophy and +religion have too outwardly and literally striven to express in the +popular doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The reality is more +excellent than the report. Here is no ruin, no discontinuity, no spent +ball. The divine circulations never rest nor linger. Nature is the +incarnation of a thought, and turns to a thought again, as ice becomes +water and gas. The world is mind precipitated, and the volatile +essence is forever escaping again into the state of free thought. +Hence the virtue and pungency of the influence on the mind, of natural +objects, whether inorganic or organized. Man imprisoned, man +crystallized, man vegetative, speaks to man impersonated. That power + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a>[216] </span> which does not respect quantity, which makes the whole and the +particle its equal channel, delegates its smile to the morning, and +distills its essence into every drop of rain. Every moment instructs +and every object: for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been +poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as +pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of +cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence, until after a long +time.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>[217] </span> </p> +<h2><a name="SHAKSPEARE_OR_THE_POET" id="SHAKSPEARE_OR_THE_POET"></a>SHAKSPEARE;<a name="FNanchor_525_525" id="FNanchor_525_525"></a><a href="#Footnote_525_525" class="fnanchor">[525]</a> OR, THE POET</h2> +<p class="tr">Transcriber's Note: Shakspeare is spelled as "Shakspeare" as well as "Shakespeare" in this book. The original spellings have been retained.</p> +<p>1. Great men are more distinguished by range and extent, than by +originality. If we require the originality which consists in weaving, +like a spider, their web from their own bowels; in finding clay, and +making bricks, and building the house; no great men are original. Nor +does valuable originality consist in unlikeness to other men. The hero +is in the press of knights, and the thick of events; and, seeing what +men want, and sharing their desire, he adds the needful length of +sight and of arm, to come to the desired point. The greatest genius is +the most indebted man. A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes +uppermost and, because he says everything, saying, at last, something +good; but a heart in unison with his time and country. There is +nothing whimsical and fantastic in his production, but sweet and sad +earnest, freighted with the weightiest convictions, and pointed with +the most determined aim which any man or class knows of in his times.</p> + +<p>2. The Genius<a name="FNanchor_526_526" id="FNanchor_526_526"></a><a href="#Footnote_526_526" class="fnanchor">[526]</a> of our life is jealous of individuals and will not +have any individual great, except through the general. There is no +choice to genius. A great man does not wake up on some fine morning, +and say, "I am full of life, I will go to sea, and find an <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a>[218] </span> Antarctic +continent: to-day I will square the circle: I will ransack botany, and +find a new food for man: I have a new architecture in my mind: I +foresee a new mechanic power:" no, but he finds himself in the river +of the thoughts and events, forced onward by the ideas and necessities +of his contemporaries. He stands where all the eyes of men look one +way, and their hands all point in the direction in which he should go. +The church has reared him amidst rites and pomps, and he carries out +the advice which her music gave him, and builds a cathedral needed by +her chants and processions. He finds a war raging: it educates him, by +trumpet, in barracks, and he betters the instruction. He finds two +counties groping to bring coal, or flour, or fish, from the place of +production to the place of consumption, and he hits on a railroad. +Every master has found his materials collected, and his power lay in +his sympathy with his people, and in his love of the materials he +wrought in. What an economy of power! and what a compensation for the +shortness of life! All is done to his hand. The world has brought him +thus far on his way. The human race has gone out before him, sunk the +hills, filled the hollows, and bridged the rivers. Men, nations, +poets, artisans, women, all have worked for him, and he enters into +their labors. Choose any other thing, out of the line of tendency, out +of the national feeling and history, and he would have all to do for +himself: his powers would be expended in the first preparations. Great +genial power, one would almost <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>[219] </span> say, consists in not being original at +all; in being altogether receptive; in letting the world do all, and +suffering the spirit of the hour to pass unobstructed through the +mind.</p> + +<p>3. Shakspeare's youth<a name="FNanchor_527_527" id="FNanchor_527_527"></a><a href="#Footnote_527_527" class="fnanchor">[527]</a> fell in a time when the English people were +importunate for dramatic entertainments. The court took offense easily +at political allusions, and attempted to suppress them. The +Puritans,<a name="FNanchor_528_528" id="FNanchor_528_528"></a><a href="#Footnote_528_528" class="fnanchor">[528]</a> a growing and energetic party and the religious among +the Anglican Church,<a name="FNanchor_529_529" id="FNanchor_529_529"></a><a href="#Footnote_529_529" class="fnanchor">[529]</a> would suppress them. But the people wanted +them. Inn-yards, houses without roofs, and extemporaneous inclosures +at country fairs, were the ready theaters of strolling players. The +people had tasted this new joy; and, as we could not hope to suppress +newspapers now,—no, not by the strongest party,—neither then could +king, prelate, or puritan,—alone or united, suppress an organ, which +was ballad, epic, newspaper, caucus, lecture, Punch,<a name="FNanchor_530_530" id="FNanchor_530_530"></a><a href="#Footnote_530_530" class="fnanchor">[530]</a> and library, +at the same time. Probably king, prelate, and puritan, all found their +own account in it. It had become, by all causes, a national +interest,—by no means conspicuous, so that some great scholar would +have thought of treating it in an English history,—but not a whit +less considerable, because it was cheap, and of no account, like a +baker's shop. The best proof of its vitality is the crowd of writers +which suddenly broke into this field; Kyd, Marlow, Greene,<a name="FNanchor_531_531" id="FNanchor_531_531"></a><a href="#Footnote_531_531" class="fnanchor">[531]</a> +Jonson, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Peele, Ford, +Massinger, Beaumont, and Fletcher.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a>[220] </span> </p> + +<p>4. The secure possession, by the stage, of the public mind, is of the +first importance to the poet who works for it. He loses no time in +idle experiments. Here is audience and expectation prepared. In the +case of Shakspeare there is much more. At the time when<a name="FNanchor_532_532" id="FNanchor_532_532"></a><a href="#Footnote_532_532" class="fnanchor">[532]</a> he left +Stratford, and went up to London, a great body of stage-plays, of all +dates and writers, existed in manuscript, and were in turn produced on +the boards. Here is the Tale of Troy,<a name="FNanchor_533_533" id="FNanchor_533_533"></a><a href="#Footnote_533_533" class="fnanchor">[533]</a> which the audience will +bear hearing some part of, every week; the Death of Julius Cæsar,<a name="FNanchor_534_534" id="FNanchor_534_534"></a><a href="#Footnote_534_534" class="fnanchor">[534]</a> +and other stories out of Plutarch,<a name="FNanchor_535_535" id="FNanchor_535_535"></a><a href="#Footnote_535_535" class="fnanchor">[535]</a> which they never tire of; a +shelf full of English history, from the chronicles of Brut<a name="FNanchor_536_536" id="FNanchor_536_536"></a><a href="#Footnote_536_536" class="fnanchor">[536]</a> and +Arthur,<a name="FNanchor_537_537" id="FNanchor_537_537"></a><a href="#Footnote_537_537" class="fnanchor">[537]</a> down to the royal Henries,<a name="FNanchor_538_538" id="FNanchor_538_538"></a><a href="#Footnote_538_538" class="fnanchor">[538]</a> which men hear eagerly; +and a string of doleful tragedies, merry Italian tales,<a name="FNanchor_539_539" id="FNanchor_539_539"></a><a href="#Footnote_539_539" class="fnanchor">[539]</a> and +Spanish voyages,<a name="FNanchor_540_540" id="FNanchor_540_540"></a><a href="#Footnote_540_540" class="fnanchor">[540]</a> which all the London prentices know. All the +mass has been treated, with more or less skill, by every playwright, +and the prompter has the soiled and tattered manuscripts. It is now no +longer possible to say who wrote them first. They have been the +property of the Theater so long, and so many rising geniuses have +enlarged or altered them, inserting a speech, or a whole scene, or +adding a song, that no man can any longer claim copyright in this work +of numbers. Happily, no man wishes to. They are not yet desired in +that way. We have few readers, many spectators and hearers. They had +best lie where they are.</p> + +<p>5. Shakspeare, in common with his comrades, esteemed the mass of old +plays, waste stock, in which <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>[221] </span> any experiment could be freely tried. +Had the <i>prestige</i><a name="FNanchor_541_541" id="FNanchor_541_541"></a><a href="#Footnote_541_541" class="fnanchor">[541]</a> which hedges about a modern tragedy existed, +nothing could have been done. The rude warm blood of the living +England circulated in the play, as in street-ballads, and gave body +which he wanted to his airy and majestic fancy. The poet needs a +ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, +may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the +people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so +much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full +strength for the audacities of his imagination. In short, the poet +owes to his legend what sculpture owed to the temple. Sculpture in +Egypt, and in Greece, grew up in subordination to architecture. It was +the ornament of the temple wall: at first, a rude relief carved on +pediments, then the relief became bolder, and a head or arm was +projected from the wall, the groups being still arranged with +reference to the building, which serves also as a frame to hold the +figures; and when, at last, the greatest freedom of style and +treatment was reached, the prevailing genius of architecture still +enforced a certain calmness and continence in the statue. As soon as +the statue was begun for itself, and with no reference to the temple +or palace, the art began to decline: freak, extravagance, and +exhibition, took the place of the old temperance. This balance-wheel, +which the sculptor found in architecture, the perilous irritability of +poetic talent found in the accumulated dramatic materials to which the + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a>[222] </span> people were already wonted, and which had a certain excellence which +no single genius,<a name="FNanchor_542_542" id="FNanchor_542_542"></a><a href="#Footnote_542_542" class="fnanchor">[542]</a> however extraordinary, could hope to create.</p> + +<p>6. In point of fact, it appears that Shakspeare did owe debts in all +directions, and was able to use whatever he found; and the amount of +indebtedness may be inferred from Malone's<a name="FNanchor_543_543" id="FNanchor_543_543"></a><a href="#Footnote_543_543" class="fnanchor">[543]</a> laborious computations +in regard to the First, Second, and Third parts of Henry VI., in +which, "out of 6043 lines, 1771 were written by some author preceding +Shakspeare; 2373 by him, on the foundation laid by his predecessors; +and 1899 were entirely his own." And the proceeding investigation +hardly leaves a single drama of his absolute invention. Malone's +sentence is an important piece of external history. In Henry VIII, I +think I see plainly the cropping out of the original rock on which his +own finer stratum was laid. The first play was written by a superior, +thoughtful man, with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, and know +well their cadence. See Wolsey's soliloquy,<a name="FNanchor_544_544" id="FNanchor_544_544"></a><a href="#Footnote_544_544" class="fnanchor">[544]</a> and the following +scene from Cromwell,<a name="FNanchor_545_545" id="FNanchor_545_545"></a><a href="#Footnote_545_545" class="fnanchor">[545]</a> where,—instead of the meter of Shakspeare, +whose secret is, that the thought constructs the tune, so that reading +for the sense will best bring out the rhythm,—here the lines are +constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit +eloquence. But the play contains, through all its length, unmistakable +traits of Shakspeare's hand, and some passages, as the account of the +coronation,<a name="FNanchor_546_546" id="FNanchor_546_546"></a><a href="#Footnote_546_546" class="fnanchor">[546]</a> are like autographs. What is odd, the compliment to +Queen Elizabeth<a name="FNanchor_547_547" id="FNanchor_547_547"></a><a href="#Footnote_547_547" class="fnanchor">[547]</a> is in bad rhythm.<a name="FNanchor_548_548" id="FNanchor_548_548"></a><a href="#Footnote_548_548" class="fnanchor">[548]</a></p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>[223] </span> </p> + +<p>7. Shakspeare knew that tradition supplies a better fable than any +invention can. If he lost any credit of design, he augmented his +resources; and, at that day, our petulant demand for originality was +not so much pressed. There was no literature for the million. The +universal reading, the cheap press, were unknown. A great poet, who +appears in illiterate times, absorbs into his sphere all the light +which is anywhere radiating. Every intellectual jewel, every flower of +sentiment, it is his fine office to bring to his people; and he comes +to value his memory<a name="FNanchor_549_549" id="FNanchor_549_549"></a><a href="#Footnote_549_549" class="fnanchor">[549]</a> equally with his invention. He is therefore +little solicitous whence his thoughts have been derived; whether +through translation, whether through tradition, whether by travel in +distant countries, whether by inspiration; from whatever source, they +are equally welcome to his uncritical audience. Nay, he borrows very +near home. Other men say wise things as well as he; only they say a +good many foolish things, and do not know when they have spoken +wisely. He knows the sparkle of the true stone, and puts it in high +place, wherever he finds it. Such is the happy position of Homer,<a name="FNanchor_550_550" id="FNanchor_550_550"></a><a href="#Footnote_550_550" class="fnanchor">[550]</a> +perhaps; of Chaucer,<a name="FNanchor_551_551" id="FNanchor_551_551"></a><a href="#Footnote_551_551" class="fnanchor">[551]</a> of Saadi.<a name="FNanchor_552_552" id="FNanchor_552_552"></a><a href="#Footnote_552_552" class="fnanchor">[552]</a> They felt that all wit was +their wit. And they are librarians and historiographers, as well as +poets. Each romancer was heir and dispenser of all the hundred tales +of the world,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><span class="i0">"Presenting Thebes'<a name="FNanchor_553_553" id="FNanchor_553_553"></a><a href="#Footnote_553_553" class="fnanchor">[553]</a> and Pelops' line<br /> +</span> +<span class="i0"> And the tale of Troy divine."<br /> +</span> +</div> +</div> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>[224] </span> </p> + +<p>The influence of Chaucer is conspicuous in all our early literature; +and, more recently, not only Pope<a name="FNanchor_554_554" id="FNanchor_554_554"></a><a href="#Footnote_554_554" class="fnanchor">[554]</a> and Dryden<a name="FNanchor_555_555" id="FNanchor_555_555"></a><a href="#Footnote_555_555" class="fnanchor">[555]</a> have been +beholden to him, but, in the whole society of English writers, a large +unacknowledged debt is easily traced. One is charmed with the opulence +which feeds so many pensioners. But Chaucer is a huge borrower.<a name="FNanchor_556_556" id="FNanchor_556_556"></a><a href="#Footnote_556_556" class="fnanchor">[556]</a> +Chaucer, it seems, drew continually, through Lydgat<a name="FNanchor_557_557" id="FNanchor_557_557"></a><a href="#Footnote_557_557" class="fnanchor">[557]</a> and +Caxton,<a name="FNanchor_558_558" id="FNanchor_558_558"></a><a href="#Footnote_558_558" class="fnanchor">[558]</a> from Guido di Colonna,<a name="FNanchor_559_559" id="FNanchor_559_559"></a><a href="#Footnote_559_559" class="fnanchor">[559]</a> whose Latin romance of the +Trojan war was in turn a compilation from Dares Phrygius,<a name="FNanchor_560_560" id="FNanchor_560_560"></a><a href="#Footnote_560_560" class="fnanchor">[560]</a> +Ovid,<a name="FNanchor_561_561" id="FNanchor_561_561"></a><a href="#Footnote_561_561" class="fnanchor">[561]</a> and Statius.<a name="FNanchor_562_562" id="FNanchor_562_562"></a><a href="#Footnote_562_562" class="fnanchor">[562]</a> Then Petrarch,<a name="FNanchor_563_563" id="FNanchor_563_563"></a><a href="#Footnote_563_563" class="fnanchor">[563]</a> Boccaccio,<a name="FNanchor_564_564" id="FNanchor_564_564"></a><a href="#Footnote_564_564" class="fnanchor">[564]</a> and +the Provençal poets,<a name="FNanchor_565_565" id="FNanchor_565_565"></a><a href="#Footnote_565_565" class="fnanchor">[565]</a> and his benefactors: the Romaunt of the +Rose<a name="FNanchor_566_566" id="FNanchor_566_566"></a><a href="#Footnote_566_566" class="fnanchor">[566]</a> is only judicious translation from William of Lorris and +John of Meung: Troilus and Creseide,<a name="FNanchor_567_567" id="FNanchor_567_567"></a><a href="#Footnote_567_567" class="fnanchor">[567]</a> from Lollius of Urbino: The +Cock and the Fox,<a name="FNanchor_568_568" id="FNanchor_568_568"></a><a href="#Footnote_568_568" class="fnanchor">[568]</a> from the <i>Lais</i> of Marie: The House of +Fame,<a name="FNanchor_569_569" id="FNanchor_569_569"></a><a href="#Footnote_569_569" class="fnanchor">[569]</a> from the French or Italian: and poor Gower<a name="FNanchor_570_570" id="FNanchor_570_570"></a><a href="#Footnote_570_570" class="fnanchor">[570]</a> he uses as +if he were only a brick-kiln or stone-quarry, out of which to build +his house. He steals by this apology,—that what he takes has no worth +where he finds it, and the greatest where he leaves it. It has come to +be practically a sort of rule in literature, that a man, having once +shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to +steal from the writings of others at discretion. Thought is the +property of him who can entertain it; and of him who can adequately +place it. A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; +but, as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our +own.</p> + +<p>8. Thus, all originality is relative. Every thinker <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>[225] </span> is retrospective. +The learned member of the legislature, at Westminister,<a name="FNanchor_571_571" id="FNanchor_571_571"></a><a href="#Footnote_571_571" class="fnanchor">[571]</a> or at +Washington, speaks and votes for thousands. Show us the constituency, +and the now invisible channels by which the senator is made aware of +their wishes, the crowd of practical and knowing men, who, by +correspondence or conversation, are feeding him with evidence, +anecdotes, and estimates, and it will bereave his fine attitude and +resistance of something of their impressiveness. As Sir Robert +Peel<a name="FNanchor_572_572" id="FNanchor_572_572"></a><a href="#Footnote_572_572" class="fnanchor">[572]</a> and Mr. Webster<a name="FNanchor_573_573" id="FNanchor_573_573"></a><a href="#Footnote_573_573" class="fnanchor">[573]</a> vote, so Locke<a name="FNanchor_574_574" id="FNanchor_574_574"></a><a href="#Footnote_574_574" class="fnanchor">[574]</a> and Rousseau<a name="FNanchor_575_575" id="FNanchor_575_575"></a><a href="#Footnote_575_575" class="fnanchor">[575]</a> +think for thousands; and so there were foundations all around +Homer,<a name="FNanchor_576_576" id="FNanchor_576_576"></a><a href="#Footnote_576_576" class="fnanchor">[576]</a> Menu,<a name="FNanchor_577_577" id="FNanchor_577_577"></a><a href="#Footnote_577_577" class="fnanchor">[577]</a> Saada,<a name="FNanchor_578_578" id="FNanchor_578_578"></a><a href="#Footnote_578_578" class="fnanchor">[578]</a> or Milton,<a name="FNanchor_579_579" id="FNanchor_579_579"></a><a href="#Footnote_579_579" class="fnanchor">[579]</a> from which they +drew; friends, lovers, books, traditions, proverbs,—all +perished,—which, if seen, would go to reduce the wonder. Did the bard +speak with authority? Did he feel himself overmatched by any +companion? The appeal is to the consciousness of the writer. Is there +at last in his breast a Delphi<a name="FNanchor_580_580" id="FNanchor_580_580"></a><a href="#Footnote_580_580" class="fnanchor">[580]</a> whereof to ask concerning any +thought or thing whether it be verily so, yea or nay? and to have +answer, and rely on that? All the debts which such a man could +contract to other wit, would never disturb his consciousness of +originality: for the ministrations of books, and of other minds, are a +whiff of smoke to that most private reality with which he has +conversed.</p> + +<p>9. It is easy to see that what is best written or done by genius, in +the world, was no man's work, but came by wide social labor, when a +thousand wrought like one, sharing the same impulse. Our English +Bible<a name="FNanchor_581_581" id="FNanchor_581_581"></a><a href="#Footnote_581_581" class="fnanchor">[581]</a> is a wonderful specimen of the strength and music <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>[226] </span> of the +English language. But it was not made by one man, or at one time; but +centuries and churches brought it to perfection. There never was a +time when there was not some translation existing. The Liturgy,<a name="FNanchor_582_582" id="FNanchor_582_582"></a><a href="#Footnote_582_582" class="fnanchor">[582]</a> +admired for its energy and pathos, is an anthology of the piety of +ages and nations, a translation of the prayers and forms of the +Catholic church,—these collected, too, in long periods, from the +prayers and meditations of every saint and sacred writer all over the +world. Grotius<a name="FNanchor_583_583" id="FNanchor_583_583"></a><a href="#Footnote_583_583" class="fnanchor">[583]</a> makes the like remark in respect to the Lord's +Prayer, that the single clauses of which it is composed were already +in use, in the time of Christ, in the rabbinical forms.<a name="FNanchor_584_584" id="FNanchor_584_584"></a><a href="#Footnote_584_584" class="fnanchor">[584]</a> He picked +out the grains of gold. The nervous language of the Common Law,<a name="FNanchor_585_585" id="FNanchor_585_585"></a><a href="#Footnote_585_585" class="fnanchor">[585]</a> +the impressive forms of our courts, and the precision and substantial +truth of the legal distinctions, are the contribution of all the +sharp-sighted, strong-minded men who have lived in the countries where +these laws govern. The translation of Plutarch gets its excellence by +being translation on translation. There never was a time when there +was none. All the truly idiomatic and national phrases are kept, and +all others successively picked out, and thrown away. Something like +the same process had gone on, long before, with the originals of these +books. The world takes liberties with world-books. Vedas,<a name="FNanchor_586_586" id="FNanchor_586_586"></a><a href="#Footnote_586_586" class="fnanchor">[586]</a> Æsop's +Fables,<a name="FNanchor_587_587" id="FNanchor_587_587"></a><a href="#Footnote_587_587" class="fnanchor">[587]</a> Pilpay,<a name="FNanchor_588_588" id="FNanchor_588_588"></a><a href="#Footnote_588_588" class="fnanchor">[588]</a> Arabian Nights,<a name="FNanchor_589_589" id="FNanchor_589_589"></a><a href="#Footnote_589_589" class="fnanchor">[589]</a> Cid,<a name="FNanchor_590_590" id="FNanchor_590_590"></a><a href="#Footnote_590_590" class="fnanchor">[590]</a> Iliad,<a name="FNanchor_591_591" id="FNanchor_591_591"></a><a href="#Footnote_591_591" class="fnanchor">[591]</a> +Robin Hood,<a name="FNanchor_592_592" id="FNanchor_592_592"></a><a href="#Footnote_592_592" class="fnanchor">[592]</a> Scottish Minstrelsy,<a name="FNanchor_593_593" id="FNanchor_593_593"></a><a href="#Footnote_593_593" class="fnanchor">[593]</a> are not the work of single +men. In the composition of such works, the time thinks, the market +thinks, the mason, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>[227] </span> the carpenter, the merchant, the farmer, the fop, +all think for us. Every book supplies its time with one good word; +every municipal law, every trade, every folly of the day, and the +generic catholic genius who is not afraid or ashamed to owe his +originality to the originality of all, stands with the next age as the +recorder and embodiment of his own.</p> + +<p>10. We have to thank the researches of antiquaries, and the Shakspeare +Society,<a name="FNanchor_594_594" id="FNanchor_594_594"></a><a href="#Footnote_594_594" class="fnanchor">[594]</a> for ascertaining the steps of the English drama, from +the Mysteries<a name="FNanchor_595_595" id="FNanchor_595_595"></a><a href="#Footnote_595_595" class="fnanchor">[595]</a> celebrated in churches and by churchmen, and the +final detachment from the church, and the completion of secular plays, +from Ferrex and Porrex,<a name="FNanchor_596_596" id="FNanchor_596_596"></a><a href="#Footnote_596_596" class="fnanchor">[596]</a> and Gammer Gurton's Needle,<a name="FNanchor_597_597" id="FNanchor_597_597"></a><a href="#Footnote_597_597" class="fnanchor">[597]</a> down to +the possession of the stage by the very pieces which Shakspeare +altered, remodelled, and finally made his own. Elated with success, +and piqued by the growing interest of the problem, they have left no +book-stall unsearched, no chest in a garret unopened, no file of old +yellow accounts to decompose in damp and worms, so keen was the hope +to discover whether the boy Shakspeare poached<a name="FNanchor_598_598" id="FNanchor_598_598"></a><a href="#Footnote_598_598" class="fnanchor">[598]</a> or not, whether he +held horses at the theater-door, whether he kept school, and why he +left in his will only his second-best bed to Ann Hathaway, his wife.</p> + +<p>11. There is somewhat touching in the madness with which the passing +age mischooses the object on which all candles shine, and all eyes are +turned; the care with which it registers every trifle touching Queen +Elizabeth,<a name="FNanchor_599_599" id="FNanchor_599_599"></a><a href="#Footnote_599_599" class="fnanchor">[599]</a> and King James,<a name="FNanchor_600_600" id="FNanchor_600_600"></a><a href="#Footnote_600_600" class="fnanchor">[600]</a> and the Essexes,<a name="FNanchor_601_601" id="FNanchor_601_601"></a><a href="#Footnote_601_601" class="fnanchor">[601]</a> +Leicesters,<a name="FNanchor_602_602" id="FNanchor_602_602"></a><a href="#Footnote_602_602" class="fnanchor">[602]</a> Burleighs,<a name="FNanchor_603_603" id="FNanchor_603_603"></a><a href="#Footnote_603_603" class="fnanchor">[603]</a> and Buckinghams<a name="FNanchor_604_604" id="FNanchor_604_604"></a><a href="#Footnote_604_604" class="fnanchor">[604]</a>; and lets pass + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>[228] </span> without a single valuable note the founder of another dynasty, which +alone will cause the Tudor dynasty<a name="FNanchor_605_605" id="FNanchor_605_605"></a><a href="#Footnote_605_605" class="fnanchor">[605]</a> to be remembered,—the man who +carries the Saxon race in him by the inspiration which feeds him, and +on whose thoughts the foremost people of the world are now for some +ages to be nourished, and minds to receive this and not another bias. +A popular player,—nobody suspected he was the poet of the human race; +and the secret was kept as faithfully from poets and intellectual men, +as from courtiers and frivolous people. Bacon,<a name="FNanchor_606_606" id="FNanchor_606_606"></a><a href="#Footnote_606_606" class="fnanchor">[606]</a> who took the +inventory of the human understanding for his times, never mentioned +his name. Ben Jonson,<a name="FNanchor_607_607" id="FNanchor_607_607"></a><a href="#Footnote_607_607" class="fnanchor">[607]</a> though we have strained his few words of +regard and panegyric, had no suspicion of the elastic fame whose first +vibrations he was attempting. He no doubt thought the praise he has +conceded to him generous, and esteemed himself, out of all question, +the better poet of the two.</p> + +<p>12. If it need wit to know wit, according to the proverb, Shakspeare's +time should be capable of recognizing it. Sir Henry Wotton<a name="FNanchor_608_608" id="FNanchor_608_608"></a><a href="#Footnote_608_608" class="fnanchor">[608]</a> was +born four years after Shakspeare, and died twenty-three years after +him; and I find, among his correspondents and acquaintances, the +following persons:<a name="FNanchor_609_609" id="FNanchor_609_609"></a><a href="#Footnote_609_609" class="fnanchor">[609]</a> Theodore Beza, Isaac Casaubon, Sir Philip +Sidney, Earl of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, +Sir Henry Vane, Isaac Walton, Dr. Donne, Abraham Cowley, Berlarmine, +Charles Cotton, John Pym, John Hales, Kepler, Vieta, Albericus +Gentilis, Paul Sarpi, Arminius; with all of whom exists some token of +his <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>[229] </span> having communicated, without enumerating many others, whom +doubtless<a name="FNanchor_610_610" id="FNanchor_610_610"></a><a href="#Footnote_610_610" class="fnanchor">[610]</a> he saw,—Shakspeare, Spenser, Jonson, Beaumont, +Massinger, two Herberts, Marlow, Chapman and the rest. Since the +constellation of great men who appeared in Greece in the time of +Pericles,<a name="FNanchor_611_611" id="FNanchor_611_611"></a><a href="#Footnote_611_611" class="fnanchor">[611]</a> there was never any such society;—yet their genius +failed them to find out the best head in the universe. Our poet's mask +was impenetrable. You cannot see the mountain near. It took a century +to make it suspected; and not until two centuries had passed, after +his death, did any criticism which we think adequate begin to appear. +It was not possible to write the history of Shakspeare till now; for +he is the father of German literature: it was on the introduction of +Shakspeare into German, by Lessing,<a name="FNanchor_612_612" id="FNanchor_612_612"></a><a href="#Footnote_612_612" class="fnanchor">[612]</a> and the translation of his +works by Wieland<a name="FNanchor_613_613" id="FNanchor_613_613"></a><a href="#Footnote_613_613" class="fnanchor">[613]</a> and Schlegel,<a name="FNanchor_614_614" id="FNanchor_614_614"></a><a href="#Footnote_614_614" class="fnanchor">[614]</a> that the rapid burst of +German literature was most intimately connected. It was not until the +nineteenth century, whose speculative genius is a sort of living +Hamlet,<a name="FNanchor_615_615" id="FNanchor_615_615"></a><a href="#Footnote_615_615" class="fnanchor">[615]</a> that the tragedy of Hamlet could find such wondering +readers. Now, literature, philosophy, and thought, are Shakspearized. +His mind is the horizon beyond which, at present, we do not see. Our +ears are educated to music by his rhythm. Coleridge<a name="FNanchor_616_616" id="FNanchor_616_616"></a><a href="#Footnote_616_616" class="fnanchor">[616]</a> and +Goethe<a name="FNanchor_617_617" id="FNanchor_617_617"></a><a href="#Footnote_617_617" class="fnanchor">[617]</a> are the only critics who have expressed our convictions +with any adequate fidelity; but there is in all cultivated minds a +silent appreciation of his superlative power and beauty, which, like +Christianity, qualifies the period.</p> + +<div class="tr">[Transcriber's Note: Number runs from 12 to 14. Number 13 omitted]</div> + +<p>14. The Shakspeare Society have inquired in all <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>[230] </span> directions, +advertised the missing facts, offered money for any information that +will lead to proof; and with what result? Beside some important +illustration of the history of the English stage, to which I have +adverted, they have gleaned a few facts touching the property, and +dealings in regard to property, of the poet. It appears that, from +year to year, he owned a larger share in the Blackfriars' +Theater<a name="FNanchor_618_618" id="FNanchor_618_618"></a><a href="#Footnote_618_618" class="fnanchor">[618]</a>: its wardrobe and other appurtenances were his: and he +bought an estate in his native village, with his earnings, as writer +and shareholder; that he lived in the best house in Stratford;<a name="FNanchor_619_619" id="FNanchor_619_619"></a><a href="#Footnote_619_619" class="fnanchor">[619]</a> +was intrusted by his neighbors with their commissions in London, as of +borrowing money, and the like; and he was a veritable farmer. About +the time when he was writing Macbeth,<a name="FNanchor_620_620" id="FNanchor_620_620"></a><a href="#Footnote_620_620" class="fnanchor">[620]</a> he sues Philip Rogers, in +the borough-court of Stratford, for thirty-five shillings, ten pence, +for corn delivered to him at different times; and, in all respects, +appears as a good husband with no reputation for eccentricity or +excess. He was a good-natured sort of man, an actor and shareholder in +the theater, not in any striking manner distinguished from other +actors and managers. I admit the importance of this information. It is +well worth the pains that have been taken to procure it.</p> + +<p>15. But whatever scraps of information concerning his condition these +researches may have rescued, they can shed no light upon that infinite +invention which is the concealed magnet of his attraction for us. We +are very clumsy writers of history. We tell the chronicle <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>[231] </span> of +parentage, birth, birth-place, schooling, schoolmates, earning of +money, marriage, publication of books, celebrity, death; and when we +have come to an end of this gossip no ray of relation appears between +it and the goddess-born; and it seems as if, had we dipped at random +into the "Modern Plutarch," and read any other life there, it would +have fitted the poems as well. It is the essence of poetry to spring, +like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish +the past, and refuse all history. Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and +Collier,<a name="FNanchor_621_621" id="FNanchor_621_621"></a><a href="#Footnote_621_621" class="fnanchor">[621]</a> have wasted their oil. The famed theaters, Covent +Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont,<a name="FNanchor_622_622" id="FNanchor_622_622"></a><a href="#Footnote_622_622" class="fnanchor">[622]</a> have vainly assisted. +Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready,<a name="FNanchor_623_623" id="FNanchor_623_623"></a><a href="#Footnote_623_623" class="fnanchor">[623]</a> dedicate their +lives to this genius; him they crown, elucidate, obey, and express. +The genius knows them not. The recitation begins; one golden word +leaps out immortal from all this painted pedantry, and sweetly +torments us with invitations to its own inaccessible homes. I +remember, I went once to see the Hamlet of a famed performer,<a name="FNanchor_624_624" id="FNanchor_624_624"></a><a href="#Footnote_624_624" class="fnanchor">[624]</a> the +pride of the English stage; and all I then heard, and all I now +remember, of the tragedian, was that in which the tragedian had no +part; simply, Hamlet's question to the ghost,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"What may this mean,<a name="FNanchor_625_625" id="FNanchor_625_625"></a><a href="#Footnote_625_625" class="fnanchor">[625]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That imagination which dilates the closet he writes in to the world's +dimension, crowds it with agents in <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>[232] </span> rank and order, as quickly +reduces the big reality to be the glimpses of the moon. These tricks +of his magic spoil for us the illusions of the green-room. Can any +biography shed light on the localities into which the Midsummer +Night's Dream<a name="FNanchor_626_626" id="FNanchor_626_626"></a><a href="#Footnote_626_626" class="fnanchor">[626]</a> admits me? Did Shakspeare confide to any notary or +parish recorder, sacristan, or surrogate, in Stratford, the genesis of +that delicate creation? The forest of Arden,<a name="FNanchor_627_627" id="FNanchor_627_627"></a><a href="#Footnote_627_627" class="fnanchor">[627]</a> the nimble air of +Scone Castle,<a name="FNanchor_628_628" id="FNanchor_628_628"></a><a href="#Footnote_628_628" class="fnanchor">[628]</a> the moonlight of Portia's villa,<a name="FNanchor_629_629" id="FNanchor_629_629"></a><a href="#Footnote_629_629" class="fnanchor">[629]</a> "the antres +vast<a name="FNanchor_630_630" id="FNanchor_630_630"></a><a href="#Footnote_630_630" class="fnanchor">[630]</a> and desarts idle," of Othello's captivity,—where is the +third cousin, or grand-nephew, the chancellor's file of accounts, or +private letter, that has kept one word of those transcendent secrets? +In fine, in this drama, as in all great works of art,—in the +Cyclopean architecture<a name="FNanchor_631_631" id="FNanchor_631_631"></a><a href="#Footnote_631_631" class="fnanchor">[631]</a> of Egypt and India; in the Phidian +sculpture<a name="FNanchor_632_632" id="FNanchor_632_632"></a><a href="#Footnote_632_632" class="fnanchor">[632]</a>; the Gothic ministers<a name="FNanchor_633_633" id="FNanchor_633_633"></a><a href="#Footnote_633_633" class="fnanchor">[633]</a>; the Italian painting<a name="FNanchor_634_634" id="FNanchor_634_634"></a><a href="#Footnote_634_634" class="fnanchor">[634]</a>; +the Ballads of Spain and Scotland,<a name="FNanchor_635_635" id="FNanchor_635_635"></a><a href="#Footnote_635_635" class="fnanchor">[635]</a>—the Genius draws up the +ladder after him, when the creative age goes up to heaven, and gives +way to a new, which sees the works, and ask in vain for a history.</p> + +<p>16. Shakspeare is the only biographer of Shakspeare; and even he can +tell nothing, except to the Shakspeare in us; that is, to our most +apprehensive and sympathetic hour. He cannot step from off his +tripod,<a name="FNanchor_636_636" id="FNanchor_636_636"></a><a href="#Footnote_636_636" class="fnanchor">[636]</a> and give us anecdotes of his inspirations. Read the +antique documents extricated, analyzed, and compared, by the assiduous +Dyce and Collier; and now read one of those skyey +sentences,—aerolites,—which seem to have fallen out of heaven, and +which, not your <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a>[233] </span> experience, but the man within the breast, has +accepted, as words of fate; and tell me if they match; if the former +account in any manner for the latter; or, which gives the most +historical insight into the man.</p> + +<p>17. Hence, though our external history is so meager, yet, with +Shakspeare for biographer, instead of Aubrey<a name="FNanchor_637_637" id="FNanchor_637_637"></a><a href="#Footnote_637_637" class="fnanchor">[637]</a> and Rowe,<a name="FNanchor_638_638" id="FNanchor_638_638"></a><a href="#Footnote_638_638" class="fnanchor">[638]</a> we +have really the information which is material, that which describes +character and fortune, that which, if we were about to meet the man +and deal with him, would most import us to know. We have his recorded +convictions on those questions which knock for answer at every +heart,—on life and death, on love, on wealth and poverty, on the +prizes of life, and the ways whereby we come at them; on the +characters of men, and the influences, occult and open, which affect +their fortunes; and on those mysterious and demoniacal powers which +defy our science, and which yet interweave their malice and their gift +in our brightest hours. Who ever read the volume of the Sonnets, +without finding that the poet had there revealed, under masks that are +no masks to the intelligent, the lore of friendship and of love; the +confusion of sentiments in the most susceptible, and, at the same +time, the most intellectual of men? What trait of his private mind has +he hidden in his dramas? One can discern, in his ample pictures of the +gentleman and the king, what forms and humanities pleased him; his +delight in troops of friends, in large hospitality, in cheerful +giving. Let Timon,<a name="FNanchor_639_639" id="FNanchor_639_639"></a><a href="#Footnote_639_639" class="fnanchor">[639]</a> let Warwick,<a name="FNanchor_640_640" id="FNanchor_640_640"></a><a href="#Footnote_640_640" class="fnanchor">[640]</a> let Antonio<a name="FNanchor_641_641" id="FNanchor_641_641"></a><a href="#Footnote_641_641" class="fnanchor">[641]</a> the +merchant, answer for his <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>[234] </span> great heart. So far from Shakspeare's being +the least known, he is the one person, in all modern history, known to +us. What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of philosophy, of +religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not settled? What +mystery has he not signified his knowledge of? What office, or +function, or district of man's work, has he not remembered? What king +has he not taught state, as Talma<a name="FNanchor_642_642" id="FNanchor_642_642"></a><a href="#Footnote_642_642" class="fnanchor">[642]</a> taught Napoleon? What maiden +has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not +out-loved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not +instructed in the rudeness of his behavior?</p> + +<p>18. Some able and appreciating critics think no criticism on +Shakspeare valuable, that does not rest purely on the dramatic merit; +that he is falsely judged as poet and philosopher. I think as highly +as these critics of his dramatic merit, who still think it secondary. +He was a full man, who liked to talk; a brain exhaling thoughts and +images, which, seeking vent, found the drama next at hand. Had he been +less, we should have had to consider how well he filled his place, how +good a dramatist he was,—and he is the best in the world. But it +turns out, that what he has to say is of that weight, as to withdraw +some attention from the vehicle; and he is like some saint whose +history is to be rendered into all languages, into verse and prose, +into songs and pictures, and cut up into proverbs; so that the +occasion which gave the saint's meaning the form of a conversation, or +of a <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>[235] </span> prayer, or of a code of laws, is immaterial, compared with the +universality of its application. So it fares with the wise Shakspeare +and his book of life. He wrote the airs for all our modern music: he +wrote the text of modern life; the text of manners: he drew the man of +England and Europe; the father of the man in America: he drew the man, +and described the day, and what is done in it: he read the hearts of +men and women, their probity, and their second thought, and wiles; the +wiles of innocence, and the transitions by which virtues and vices +slide into their contraries: he could divide the mother's part from +the father's part in the face of the child, or draw the fine +demarcations of freedom and of fate: he knew the laws of repression +which make the police of nature: and all the sweets and all the +terrors of human lot lay in his mind as truly but as softly as the +landscape lies on the eye. And the importance of this wisdom of life +sinks the form, as of Drama or Epic, out of notice. 'Tis like making a +question concerning the paper on which a king's message is written.</p> + +<p>19. Shakspeare is as much out of the category of eminent authors, as +he is out of the crowd. He is inconceivably wise; the others, +conceivably. A good reader can, in a sort, nestle into Plato's brain, +and think from thence; but not into Shakspeare's. We are still out of +doors. For executive faculty, for creation, Shakspeare is unique. No +man can imagine it better. He was the farthest reach of subtlety +compatible with an individual self,—the subtilest of <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>[236] </span> authors, and +only just within the possibility of authorship. With this wisdom of +life, is the equal endowment of imaginative and of lyric power. He +clothed the creatures of his legend with form and sentiments, as if +they were people who had lived under his roof; and few real men have +left such distinct characters as these fictions. And they spoke in +language as sweet as it was fit. Yet his talents never seduced him +into an ostentation, nor did he harp on one string. An omnipresent +humanity<a name="FNanchor_643_643" id="FNanchor_643_643"></a><a href="#Footnote_643_643" class="fnanchor">[643]</a> coördinates all his faculties. Give a man of talents a +story to tell, and his partiality will presently appear. He has +certain observations, opinions, topics, which have some accidental +prominence, and which he disposes all to exhibit. He crams this part, +and starves that other part, consulting not the fitness of the thing, +but his fitness and strength. But Shakspeare has no peculiarity, no +importunate topic; but all is duly given; no veins, no curiosities: no +cow-painter, no bird-fancier, no mannerist is he: he has no +discoverable egotism: the great he tells greatly; the small, +subordinately. He is wise without emphasis or assertion; he is strong, +as nature is strong, who lifts the land into mountain slopes without +effort, and by the same rule as she floats a bubble in the air, and +likes as well to do the one as the other. This makes that equality of +power in farce, tragedy, narrative, and love-songs; a merit so +incessant, that each reader is incredulous of the perception of other +readers.</p> + +<p>20. This power of expression, or of transferring <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>[237] </span> the inmost truth of +things into music and verse, makes him the type of the poet, and has +added a new problem to metaphysics. This is that which throws him into +natural history, as a main production of the globe, and as announcing +new eras and ameliorations. Things were mirrored in his poetry without +loss or blur; he could paint the fine with precision, the great with +compass: the tragic and the comic indifferently, and without any +distortion or favor. He carried his powerful execution into minute +details, to a hair point; finishes an eyelash or a dimple as firmly as +he draws a mountain; and yet these, like nature's, will bear the +scrutiny of the solar microscope.</p> + +<p>21. In short, he is the chief example to prove that more or less of +production, more or fewer pictures, is a thing indifferent. He had the +power to make one picture. Daguerre<a name="FNanchor_644_644" id="FNanchor_644_644"></a><a href="#Footnote_644_644" class="fnanchor">[644]</a> learned how to let one flower +etch its image on his plate of iodine; and then proceeds at leisure to +etch a million. There are always objects; but there was never +representation. Here is perfect representation, at last; and now let +the world of figures sit for their portraits. No recipe can be given +for the making of a Shakspeare; but the possibility of the translation +of things into song is demonstrated.</p> + +<p>22. His lyric power lies in the genius of the piece. The sonnets, +though their excellence is lost in the splendor of the dramas, are as +inimitable as they: and it is not a merit of lines, but a total merit +of the piece; like the tone of voice of some incomparable person, so + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>[238] </span> is this a speech of poetic beings, and any clause as unproducible now +as a whole poem.</p> + +<p>23. Though the speeches in the plays, and single lines, have a beauty +which tempts the ear to pause on them for their euphuism,<a name="FNanchor_645_645" id="FNanchor_645_645"></a><a href="#Footnote_645_645" class="fnanchor">[645]</a> yet the +sentence is so loaded with meaning, and so linked with its foregoers +and followers, that the logician is satisfied. His means are as +admirable as his ends; every subordinate invention, by which he helps +himself to connect some irreconcilable opposites, is a poem too. He is +not reduced to dismount and walk, because his horses are running off +with him in some distant direction; he always rides.</p> + +<p>24. The finest poetry was first experienced: but the thought has +suffered a transformation since it was an experience. Cultivated men +often attain a good degree of skill in writing verses; but it is easy +to read, through their poems, their personal history: any one +acquainted with parties can name every figure: this is Andrew, and +that is Rachael. The sense thus remains prosaic. It is a caterpillar +with wings, and not yet a butterfly. In the poet's mind, the fact has +gone quite over into the new element of thought, and has lost all that +is exuvial. This generosity bides with Shakspeare. We say, from the +truth and closeness of his pictures, that he knows the lesson by +heart. Yet there is not a trace of egotism.</p> + +<p>25. One more royal trait properly belongs to the poet. I mean his +cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,—for beauty is his +aim. He loves <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>[239] </span> virtue, not for its obligation, but for its grace: he +delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that +sparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds +over the universe. Epicurus<a name="FNanchor_646_646" id="FNanchor_646_646"></a><a href="#Footnote_646_646" class="fnanchor">[646]</a> relates, that poetry hath such charms +that a lover might forsake his mistress to partake of them. And the +true bards have been noted for their firm and cheerful temper. Homer +lies in sunshine; Chaucer is glad and erect; and Saadi says, "It was +rumored abroad that I was penitent; but what had I to do with +repentance?" Not less sovereign and cheerful,—much more sovereign and +cheerful, is the tone of Shakspeare. His name suggests joy and +emancipation to the heart of men. If he should appear in any company +of human souls, who would not march in his troop? He touches nothing +that does not borrow health and longevity from his festal style.</p> + +<p>26. And now, how stands the account of man with this bard and +benefactor, when in solitude, shutting our ears to the reverberations +of his fame, we seek to strike the balance? Solitude has austere +lessons; it can teach us to spare both heroes and poets; and it weighs +Shakspeare also, and finds him to share the halfness and imperfection +of humanity.</p> + +<p>27. Shakspeare, Homer, Dante,<a name="FNanchor_647_647" id="FNanchor_647_647"></a><a href="#Footnote_647_647" class="fnanchor">[647]</a> Chaucer, saw the splendor of +meaning that plays over the visible world; knew that a tree had +another use than for apples, and corn another than for meal, and the +ball of the earth, than for tillage and roads: that these things bore +a second and finer harvest to the mind, being emblems <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>[240] </span> of its +thoughts, and conveying in all their natural history a certain mute +commentary on human life. Shakspeare employed them as colors to +compose his picture. He rested in their beauty; and never took the +step which seemed inevitable to such genius, namely, to explore the +virtue which resides in these symbols, and imparts this power,—what +is that which they themselves say? He converted the elements, which +waited on his command, into entertainments. He was master of the +revels<a name="FNanchor_648_648" id="FNanchor_648_648"></a><a href="#Footnote_648_648" class="fnanchor">[648]</a> to mankind. Is it not as if one should have, through +majestic powers of science, the comets given into his hand, or the +planets and their moons, and should draw them from their orbits to +glare with the municipal fireworks on a holiday night, and advertise +in all towns, "very superior pyrotechny this evening!" Are the agents +of nature, and the power to understand them, worth no more than a +street serenade, or the breath of a cigar? One remembers again the +trumpet-text in the Koran,<a name="FNanchor_649_649" id="FNanchor_649_649"></a><a href="#Footnote_649_649" class="fnanchor">[649]</a>—"The heavens and the earth, and all +that is between them, think ye we have created them in jest?" As long +as the question is of talent and mental power, the world of men has +not his equal to show. But when the question is to life, and its +materials, and its auxiliaries, how does he profit me? What does it +signify? It is but a Twelfth Night,<a name="FNanchor_650_650" id="FNanchor_650_650"></a><a href="#Footnote_650_650" class="fnanchor">[650]</a> or Midsummer Night's Dream, +or a Winter Evening's Tale: what signifies another picture more or +less? The Egyptian verdict<a name="FNanchor_651_651" id="FNanchor_651_651"></a><a href="#Footnote_651_651" class="fnanchor">[651]</a> of the Shakspeare Societies comes to +mind, that he was a jovial actor and manager. I cannot <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>[241] </span> marry this +fact to his verse. Other admirable men have led lives in some sort of +keeping with their thought; but this man, in wide contrast. Had he +been less, had he reached only the common measure of great authors, of +Bacon, Milton, Tasso,<a name="FNanchor_652_652" id="FNanchor_652_652"></a><a href="#Footnote_652_652" class="fnanchor">[652]</a> Cervantes,<a name="FNanchor_653_653" id="FNanchor_653_653"></a><a href="#Footnote_653_653" class="fnanchor">[653]</a> we might leave the fact in +the twilight of human fate: but, that this man of men, he who gave to +the science of mind a new and larger subject than had ever existed, +and planted the standard of humanity some furlongs forward into +Chaos,—that he should not be wise for himself,—it must even go into +the world's history, that the best poet led an obscure and profane +life, using his genius for the public amusement.</p> + +<p>28. Well, other men, priest and prophet, Israelite,<a name="FNanchor_654_654" id="FNanchor_654_654"></a><a href="#Footnote_654_654" class="fnanchor">[654]</a> German,<a name="FNanchor_655_655" id="FNanchor_655_655"></a><a href="#Footnote_655_655" class="fnanchor">[655]</a> +and Swede,<a name="FNanchor_656_656" id="FNanchor_656_656"></a><a href="#Footnote_656_656" class="fnanchor">[656]</a> beheld the same objects: they also saw through them +that which was contained. And to what purpose? The beauty straightway +vanished; they read commandments, all-excluding mountainous duty; an +obligation, a sadness, as of piled mountains, fell on them, and life +became ghastly, joyless, a pilgrim's progress,<a name="FNanchor_657_657" id="FNanchor_657_657"></a><a href="#Footnote_657_657" class="fnanchor">[657]</a> a probation, +beleaguered round with doleful histories, of Adam's fall<a name="FNanchor_658_658" id="FNanchor_658_658"></a><a href="#Footnote_658_658" class="fnanchor">[658]</a> and +curse, behind us; with doomsdays and purgatorial<a name="FNanchor_659_659" id="FNanchor_659_659"></a><a href="#Footnote_659_659" class="fnanchor">[659]</a> and penal fires +before us; and the heart of the seer and the heart of the listener +sank in them.</p> + +<p>29. It must be conceded that these are half-views of half-men. The +world still wants its poet-priest, a reconciler, who shall not trifle +with Shakspeare the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>[242] </span> the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act, with equal +inspiration. For knowledge will brighten the sunshine; right is more +beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with +universal wisdom.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>[243] </span> </p> +<h2><a name="PRUDENCE" id="PRUDENCE"></a>PRUDENCE.<a name="FNanchor_660_660" id="FNanchor_660_660"></a><a href="#Footnote_660_660" class="fnanchor">[660]</a></h2> + + +<p>What right have I to write on Prudence, whereof I have little, and +that of the negative sort? My prudence consists in avoiding and going +without, not in the inventing of means and methods, not in adroit +steering, not in gentle repairing. I have no skill to make money spend +well, no genius in my economy, and whoever sees my garden discovers +that I must have some other garden. Yet I love facts, and hate +lubricity<a name="FNanchor_661_661" id="FNanchor_661_661"></a><a href="#Footnote_661_661" class="fnanchor">[661]</a> and people without perception. Then I have the same +title to write on prudence that I have to write on poetry or holiness. +We write from aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. +We paint those qualities which we do not possess. The poet admires the +man of energy and tactics; the merchant breeds his son for the church +or the bar; and where a man is not vain and egotistic you shall find +what he has not by his praise. Moreover it would be hardly honest in +me not to balance these fine lyric words of Love and Friendship<a name="FNanchor_662_662" id="FNanchor_662_662"></a><a href="#Footnote_662_662" class="fnanchor">[662]</a> +with words of coarser sound, and whilst my debt to my senses is real +and constant, not to own it in passing.</p> + +<p>Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of +appearances. It is the outmost action of the inward life. It is God +taking thought for oxen. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>[244] </span> It moves matter after the laws of matter. It +is content to seek health of body by complying with physical +conditions, and health of mind by the laws of the intellect.</p> + +<p>The world of the senses is a world of shows; it does not exist for +itself, but has a symbolic character; and a true prudence or law of +shows recognizes the co-presence of other laws and knows that its own +office is subaltern; knows that it is surface and not centre where it +works. Prudence is false when detached. It is legitimate when it is +the Natural History of the soul incarnate, when it unfolds the beauty +of laws within the narrow scope of the senses.</p> + +<p>There are all degrees of proficiency in knowledge of the world. It is +sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three. One class lives +to the utility of the symbol, esteeming health and wealth a final +good. Another class live above this mark of the beauty of the symbol, +as the poet and artist and the naturalist and man of science. A third +class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing +signified; these are wise men. The first class have common sense; the +second, taste; and the third, spiritual perception. Once in a long +time, a man traverses the whole scale, and sees and enjoys the symbol +solidly, then also has a clear eye for its beauty, and lastly, whilst +he pitches his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature, does not +offer to build houses and barns thereon reverencing the splendor of +the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a>[245] </span> God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny.</p> + +<p>The world is filled with the proverbs<a name="FNanchor_663_663" id="FNanchor_663_663"></a><a href="#Footnote_663_663" class="fnanchor">[663]</a> and acts and winkings of a +base prudence, which is a devotion to matter, as if we possessed no +other faculties than the palate, the nose, the touch, the eye and ear; +a prudence which adores the Rule of Three, which never subscribes, +which gives never, which seldom lends, and asks but one question of +any project,—Will it bake bread? This is a disease like a thickening +of the skin until the vital organs are destroyed. But culture, +revealing the high origin of the apparent world and aiming at the +perfection of the man as the end, degrades everything else, as health +and bodily life, into means. It sees prudence not to be a several +faculty, but a name for wisdom and virtue conversing with the body and +its wants. Cultivated men always feel and speak so as if a great +fortune, the achievement of a civil or social measure, great personal +influence, a graceful and commanding address, had their value as +proofs of the energy of the spirit. If a man lose his balance and +immerse himself in any trades or pleasures for their own sake, he may +be a good wheel or pin,<a name="FNanchor_664_664" id="FNanchor_664_664"></a><a href="#Footnote_664_664" class="fnanchor">[664]</a> but he is not a cultivated man.</p> + +<p>The spurious prudence, making the senses final, is the god of sots and +cowards, and is the subject of all comedy. It is nature's joke, and +therefore literature's. The true prudence limits this sensualism by +admitting the knowledge of an internal and real world. This +recognition once made,—the order of <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a>[246] </span> the world and the distribution +of affairs and times being studied with the co-perception of their +subordinate place, will reward any degree of attention. For, our +existence, thus apparently attached in nature to the sun and the +returning moon and the periods which they mark; so susceptible to +climate and to country, so alive to social good and evil, so fond of +splendor and so tender to hunger and cold and debt,—reads all its +primary lessons out of these books.</p> + +<p>Prudence does not go behind nature and ask whence it is? It takes the +laws of the world whereby man's being is conditioned, as they are, and +keeps these laws that it may enjoy their proper good. It respects +space and time, climate, want, sleep, the law of polarity,<a name="FNanchor_665_665" id="FNanchor_665_665"></a><a href="#Footnote_665_665" class="fnanchor">[665]</a> growth +and death. There revolve, to give bound and period to his being on all +sides, the sun and moon, the great formalists in the sky: here lies +stubborn matter, and will not swerve from its chemical routine. Here +is a planted globe, pierced and belted with natural laws and fenced +and distributed externally with civil partitions and properties which +impose new restraints on the young inhabitant.</p> + +<p>We eat of the bread which grows in the field. We live by the air which +blows around us and we are poisoned by the air that is too cold or too +hot, too dry or too wet. Time, which shows so vacant, indivisible and +divine in its coming, is slit and peddled into trifles and tatters. A +door is to be painted, a <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a>[247] </span> lock to be repaired. I want wood or oil, or +meal, or salt; the house smokes, or I have a headache; then the tax; +and an affair to be transacted with a man without heart or brains, and +the stinging recollection of an injurious or very awkward word,—these +eat up the hours. Do what we can, summer will have its flies.<a name="FNanchor_666_666" id="FNanchor_666_666"></a><a href="#Footnote_666_666" class="fnanchor">[666]</a> If +we walk in the woods we must feed mosquitoes. If we go a-fishing we +must expect a wet coat. Then climate is a great impediment to idle +persons. We often resolve to give up the care of the weather, but +still we regard the clouds and the rain.</p> + +<p>We are instructed by these petty experiences which usurp the hours and +years. The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitant of +the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys +the fixed smile of the tropics. The islander may ramble all day at +will. At night he may sleep on a mat under the moon, and wherever a +wild date-tree grows, nature has, without a prayer even, spread a +table for his morning meal. The northerner is perforce a householder. +He must brew, bake, salt and preserve his food. He must pile wood and +coal. But as it happens that not one stroke can labor lay to without +some new acquaintance with nature; and as nature is inexhaustibly +significant, the inhabitants of these climates<a name="FNanchor_667_667" id="FNanchor_667_667"></a><a href="#Footnote_667_667" class="fnanchor">[667]</a> have always +excelled the southerner in force. Such is the value of these matters +that a man who knows other things can never know too much of these. +Let him have accurate perceptions. Let him, if he have hands, handle; +if eyes, measure and <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>[248] </span> discriminate; let him accept and hive every fact +of chemistry, natural history and economics; the more he has, the less +is he willing to spare any one. Time is always bringing the occasions +that disclose their value. Some wisdom comes out of every natural and +innocent action. The domestic man, who loves no music so well as his +kitchen clock and the airs which the logs sing to him as they burn on +the hearth, has solaces which others never dream of. The application +of means to ends ensures victory and the songs of victory not less in +a farm or a shop than in the tactics of party or of war. The good +husband finds method as efficient in the packing of fire-wood in a +shed or in the harvesting of fruits in the cellar, as in Peninsular +campaigns<a name="FNanchor_668_668" id="FNanchor_668_668"></a><a href="#Footnote_668_668" class="fnanchor">[668]</a> or the files of the Department of State. In the rainy +day he builds a work-bench, or gets his tool-box set in the corner of +the barn-chamber, and stored with nails, gimlet, pincers, screwdriver +and chisel. Herein he tastes an old joy of youth and childhood, the +cat-like love of garrets, presses and corn-chambers, and of the +conveniences of long housekeeping. His garden or his +poultry-yard—very paltry places it may be—tells him many pleasant +anecdotes. One might find argument for optimism in the abundant flow +of this saccharine element of pleasure in every suburb and extremity +of the good world. Let a man keep the law—any law,—and his way will +be strown with satisfactions. There is more difference in the quality +of our pleasures than in the amount.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, nature punishes any neglect of <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a>[249] </span> prudence. If you +think the senses final, obey their law. If you believe in the soul, do +not clutch at sensual sweetness before it is ripe on the slow tree of +cause and effect. It is vinegar to the eyes to deal with men of loose +and imperfect perception. Dr. Johnson is reported to have +said,<a name="FNanchor_669_669" id="FNanchor_669_669"></a><a href="#Footnote_669_669" class="fnanchor">[669]</a>—"If the child says he looked out of this window, when he +looked out of that,—whip him." Our American character is marked by a +more than average delight in accurate perception, which is shown by +the currency of the by-word, "No mistake."</p> + +<p>But the discomfort of unpunctuality, of confusion of thought about +facts, inattention to the wants of to-morrow, is of no nation. The +beautiful laws of time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude, +are holes and dens. If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, +instead of honey it will yield us bees. Our words and actions to be +fair must be timely. A gay and pleasant sound is the whetting of the +scythe in the mornings of June; yet what is more lonesome and sad than +the sound of a whetstone or mower's rifle<a name="FNanchor_670_670" id="FNanchor_670_670"></a><a href="#Footnote_670_670" class="fnanchor">[670]</a> when it is too late in +the season to make hay? Scatter brained and "afternoon men" spoil much +more than their own affairs in spoiling the temper of those who deal +with them. I have seen a criticism on some paintings, of which I am +reminded when I see the shiftless and unhappy men who are not true to +their senses. The last Grand Duke of Weimar,<a name="FNanchor_671_671" id="FNanchor_671_671"></a><a href="#Footnote_671_671" class="fnanchor">[671]</a> a man of superior +understanding, said: "I have sometimes remarked in the presence of +great works of art, and just now especially in Dresden, how <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a>[250] </span> much a +certain property contributes to the effect which gives life to the +figures, and to the life an irresistible truth. This property is the +hitting, in all the figures we draw, the right centre of gravity. I +mean the placing the figures firm upon their feet, making the hands +grasp, and fastening the eyes on the spot where they should look. Even +lifeless figures, as vessels and stools—let them be drawn ever so +correctly—lose all effect so soon as they lack the resting upon their +centre of gravity, and have a certain swimming and oscillating +appearance. The Raphael in the Dresden gallery<a name="FNanchor_672_672" id="FNanchor_672_672"></a><a href="#Footnote_672_672" class="fnanchor">[672]</a> (the only great +affecting picture which I have seen) is the quietest and most +passionless piece you can imagine; a couple of saints who worship the +Virgin and child. Nevertheless it awakens a deeper impression than the +contortions of ten crucified martyrs. For, beside all the resistless +beauty of form, it possesses in the highest degree the property of the +perpendicularity of all the figures." This perpendicularity we demand +of all the figures in this picture of life. Let them stand on their +feet, and not float and swing. Let us know where to find them. Let +them discriminate between what they remember and what they dreamed. +Let them call a spade a spade.<a name="FNanchor_673_673" id="FNanchor_673_673"></a><a href="#Footnote_673_673" class="fnanchor">[673]</a> Let them give us facts, and honor +their own senses with trust.</p> + +<p>But what man shall dare task another with imprudence? Who is prudent? +The men we call greatest are least in this kingdom. There is a certain +fatal dislocation in our relation to nature, distorting all <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>[251] </span> our modes +of living and making every law our enemy, which seems at last to have +aroused all the wit and virtue in the world to ponder the question of +Reform. We must call the highest prudence to counsel, and ask why +health and beauty and genius should now be the exception rather than +the rule of human nature? We do not know the properties of plants and +animals and the laws of nature, through our sympathy with the same; +but this remains the dream of poets. Poetry and prudence should be +coincident. Poets should be lawgivers; that is, the boldest lyric +inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead +the civil code and the day's work. But now the two things seem +irreconcilably parted. We have violated law upon law until we stand +amidst ruins, and when by chance we espy a coincidence between reason +and the phenomena, we are surprised. Beauty should be the dowry of +every man and woman, as invariably as sensation; but it is rare. +Health or sound organization should be universal. Genius should be the +child of genius, and every child should be inspired; but now it is not +to be predicted of any child, and nowhere is it pure. We call partial +half lights, by courtesy, genius; talent which converts itself to +money; talent which glitters to-day that it may dine and sleep well +to-morrow; and society is officered by <i>men of parts</i>,<a name="FNanchor_674_674" id="FNanchor_674_674"></a><a href="#Footnote_674_674" class="fnanchor">[674]</a> as they +are properly called, and not by divine men. These use their gifts to +refine luxury, not to abolish it. Genius is always ascetic; and piety, +and love. Appetite shows to the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>[252] </span> finer souls as a disease, and they +find beauty in rites and bounds that resist it.</p> + +<p>We have found out<a name="FNanchor_675_675" id="FNanchor_675_675"></a><a href="#Footnote_675_675" class="fnanchor">[675]</a> fine names to cover our sensuality withal, but +no gifts can raise intemperance. The man of talent affects to call his +transgressions of the laws of the senses trivial and to count them +nothing considered with his devotion to his art. His art rebukes him. +That never taught him lewdness, nor the love of wine, nor the wish to +reap where he had not sowed. His art is less for every deduction from +his holiness, and less for every defect of common sense. On him who +scorned the world, as he said, the scorned world wreaks its revenge. +He that despiseth small things will perish by little and little. +Goethe's Tasso<a name="FNanchor_676_676" id="FNanchor_676_676"></a><a href="#Footnote_676_676" class="fnanchor">[676]</a> is very likely to be a pretty fair historical +portrait, and that is true tragedy. It does not seem to me so genuine +grief when some tyrannous Richard III.<a name="FNanchor_677_677" id="FNanchor_677_677"></a><a href="#Footnote_677_677" class="fnanchor">[677]</a> oppresses and slays a +score of innocent persons, as when Antonio and Tasso, both apparently +right, wrong each other. One living after the maxims of this world and +consistent and true to them, the other fired with all divine +sentiments, yet grasping also at the pleasures of sense, without +submitting to their law. That is a grief we all feel, a knot we cannot +untie. Tasso's is no infrequent case in modern biography. A man of +genius, of an ardent temperament, reckless of physical laws, +self-indulgent, becomes presently unfortunate, querulous, a +"discomfortable cousin," a thorn to himself and to others.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>[253] </span> </p> + +<p>The scholar shames us by his bifold<a name="FNanchor_678_678" id="FNanchor_678_678"></a><a href="#Footnote_678_678" class="fnanchor">[678]</a> life. Whilst something higher +than prudence is active, he is admirable; when common sense is wanted, +he is an encumbrance. Yesterday, Cæsar<a name="FNanchor_679_679" id="FNanchor_679_679"></a><a href="#Footnote_679_679" class="fnanchor">[679]</a> was not so great; to-day, +Job<a name="FNanchor_680_680" id="FNanchor_680_680"></a><a href="#Footnote_680_680" class="fnanchor">[680]</a> not so miserable. Yesterday, radiant with the light of an +ideal world in which he lives, the first of men, and now oppressed by +wants and by sickness, for which he must thank himself, none is so +poor to do him reverence. He resembles the opium eaters whom +travellers describe as frequenting the bazaars of Constantinople, who +skulk about all day, the most pitiful drivellers, yellow, emaciated, +ragged, sneaking; then at evening, when the bazaars are open, they +slink to the opium-shop, swallow their morsel and become tranquil, +glorious and great. And who has not seen the tragedy of imprudent +genius struggling for years with paltry pecuniary difficulties, at +last sinking, chilled, exhausted and fruitless, like a giant +slaughtered by pins?</p> + +<p>Is it not better that a man should accept the first pains and +mortifications of this sort, which nature is not slack in sending him, +as hints that he must expect no other good than the just fruit of his +own labor and self-denial? Health, bread, climate, social position, +have their importance, and he will give them their due. Let him esteem +Nature a perpetual counsellor, and her perfections the exact measure +of our deviations. Let him make the night night, and the day day. Let +him control the habit of expense. Let him see that as much wisdom may +be expended on a <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>[254] </span> private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom +may be drawn from it. The laws of the world are written out for him on +every piece of money in his hand. There is nothing he will not be the +better for knowing, were it only the wisdom of Poor Richard,<a name="FNanchor_681_681" id="FNanchor_681_681"></a><a href="#Footnote_681_681" class="fnanchor">[681]</a> or +the State-street<a name="FNanchor_682_682" id="FNanchor_682_682"></a><a href="#Footnote_682_682" class="fnanchor">[682]</a> prudence of buying by the acre to sell by the +foot; or the thrift of the agriculturist, to stick<a name="FNanchor_683_683" id="FNanchor_683_683"></a><a href="#Footnote_683_683" class="fnanchor">[683]</a> in a tree +between whiles, because it will grow whilst he sleeps; or the prudence +which consists in husbanding little strokes of the tool, little +portions of time, particles of stock and small gains. The eye of +prudence may never shut. Iron, if kept at the ironmonger's, will rust; +beer, if not brewed in the right state of the atmosphere, will sour; +timber of ships will rot at sea, or if laid up high and dry, will +strain, warp and dry-rot. Money, if kept by us, yields no rent and is +liable to loss; if invested, is liable to depreciation of the +particular kind of stock. Strike, says the smith, the iron is white. +Keep the rake, says the haymaker, as nigh the scythe as you can, and +the cart as nigh the rake. Our Yankee trade is reputed to be very much +on the extreme of this prudence. It saves itself by its activity. It +takes bank notes,—good, bad, clean, ragged, and saves itself by the +speed with which it passes them off. Iron cannot rust, nor beer sour, +nor timber rot, nor calicoes go out of fashion, nor money stocks +depreciate, in the few swift moments in which the Yankee suffers any +one of them to remain in his <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>[255] </span> possession. In skating over thin ice our +safety is in our speed.</p> + +<p>Let him learn a prudence of a higher strain. Let him learn that +everything in nature, even motes and feathers, go by law and not by +luck, and that what he sows he reaps. By diligence and self-command +let him put the bread he eats at his own disposal, and not at that of +others, that he may not stand in bitter and false relations to other +men; for the best good of wealth is freedom. Let him practise the +minor virtues.<a name="FNanchor_684_684" id="FNanchor_684_684"></a><a href="#Footnote_684_684" class="fnanchor">[684]</a> How much of human life is lost in waiting! Let him +not make his fellow creatures wait. How many words and promises are +promises of conversation! Let his be words of fate. When he sees a +folded and sealed scrap of paper float around the globe in a pine ship +and come safe to the eye for which it was written, amidst a swarming +population, let him likewise feel the admonition to integrate his +being across all these distracting forces, and keep a slender human +word among the storms, distances and accidents that drive us hither +and thither, and, by persistency, make the paltry force of one man +reappear to redeem its pledge after months and years in the most +distant climates.</p> + +<p>We must not try to write the laws of any one virtue, looking at that +only. Human nature loves no contradictions, but is symmetrical. The +prudence which secures an outward well-being is not to be studied by +one set of men, whilst heroism and holiness <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>[256] </span> are studied by another, +but they are reconcilable. Prudence concerns the present time, +persons, property and existing forms. But as every fact hath its roots +in the soul, and, if the soul were changed, would cease to be, or +would become some other thing, therefore the proper administration of +outward things will always rest on a just apprehension of their cause +and origin; that is, the good man will be the wise man, and the +single-hearted the politic man. Every violation of truth is not only a +sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human +society. On the most profitable lie the course of events presently +lays a destructive tax; whilst frankness proves to be the best +tactics, for it invites frankness, puts the parties on a convenient +footing and makes their business a friendship. Trust men and they will +be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves +great, though they make an exception in your favor to all their rules +of trade.</p> + +<p>So, in regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does not +consist in evasion or in flight, but in courage. He who wishes to walk +in the most peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw +himself up to resolution. Let him front the object of his worst +apprehension, and his stoutness will commonly make his fears +groundless. The Latin proverb says,<a name="FNanchor_685_685" id="FNanchor_685_685"></a><a href="#Footnote_685_685" class="fnanchor">[685]</a> "in battles the eye is first +overcome." The eye is daunted and greatly exaggerates the perils of +the hour. Entire self-possession may make a battle very little more +dangerous to life than a match at <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>[257] </span> foils or at football. Examples are +cited by soldiers of men who have seen the cannon pointed and the fire +given to it, and who have stepped aside from the path of the ball. The +terrors of the storm are chiefly confined to the parlor and the cabin. +The drover, the sailor, buffets it all day, and his health renews +itself at as vigorous a pulse under the sleet as under the sun of +June.</p> + +<p>In the occurrence of unpleasant things among neighbors, fear comes +readily to heart and magnifies the consequence of the other party; but +it is a bad counsellor. Every man is actually weak and apparently +strong. To himself he seems weak; to others formidable. You are afraid +of Grim; but Grim also is afraid of you. You are solicitous of the +good will of the meanest person, uneasy at his ill will. But the +sturdiest offender of your peace and of the neighborhood, if you rip +up <i>his</i> claims, is as thin and timid as any; and the peace of society +is often kept, because, as children say, one is afraid and the other +dares not. Far off, men swell, bully and threaten: bring them hand to +hand, and they are a feeble folk.</p> + +<p>It is a proverb that "courtesy costs nothing"; but calculation might +come to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be blind, but +kindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an +eye-water. If you meet a sectary or a hostile partisan, never +recognize the dividing lines, but meet on what common ground +remains,—if only that the sun shines and the rain rains for +both,—the area will widen <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a>[258] </span> very fast, and ere you know it, the +boundary mountains on which the eye had fastened have melted into air. +If he set out to contend,<a name="FNanchor_686_686" id="FNanchor_686_686"></a><a href="#Footnote_686_686" class="fnanchor">[686]</a> almost St. Paul will lie, almost St. +John will hate. What low, poor, paltry, hypocritical people an +argument on religion will make of the pure and chosen souls. Shuffle +they will and crow, crook and hide, feign to confess here, only that +they may brag and conquer there, and not a thought has enriched either +party, and not an emotion of bravery, modesty, or hope. So neither +should you put yourself in a false position to your contemporaries by +indulging a vein of hostility and bitterness. Though your views are in +straight antagonism<a name="FNanchor_687_687" id="FNanchor_687_687"></a><a href="#Footnote_687_687" class="fnanchor">[687]</a> to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, +assume that you are saying precisely that which all think, and in the +flow of wit and love roll out your paradoxes in solid column, with not +the infirmity of a doubt. So at least shall you get an adequate +deliverance. The natural emotions of the soul are so much better than +the voluntary ones that you will never do yourself justice in dispute. +The thought is not then taken hold of by the right handle, does not +show itself proportioned and in its true bearings, but bears extorted, +hoarse, and half witness. But assume a consent and it shall presently +be granted, since really and underneath their all external +diversities, all men are of one heart and mind.</p> + +<p>Wisdom will never let us stand with any man or men on an unfriendly +footing. We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if we waited +for some <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>[259] </span> better sympathy and intimacy to come. But whence and when? +To-morrow will be like to-day. Life wastes itself whilst we are +preparing to live. Our friends and fellow-workers die off from us. +Scarcely can we say we see new men, new women, approaching us. We are +too old to regard fashion, too old to expect patronage of any greater +or more powerful. Let us suck the sweetness of those affections and +consuetudes<a name="FNanchor_688_688" id="FNanchor_688_688"></a><a href="#Footnote_688_688" class="fnanchor">[688]</a> that grow near us. These old shoes are easy to the +feet. Undoubtedly we can easily pick faults in our company, can easily +whisper names prouder and that tickle the fancy more. Every man's +imagination hath its friends; and pleasant would life be with such +companions. But if you cannot have them on good mutual terms, you +cannot have them. If not the Deity but our ambition hews and shapes +the new relations, their virtue escapes, as strawberries lose their +flavor in garden beds.</p> + +<p>Thus truth, frankness, courage, love, humility, and all the virtues +range themselves on the side of prudence, or the art of securing a +present well-being. I do not know if all matter will be found to be +made of one element, as oxygen or hydrogen, at last, but the world of +manners and actions is wrought of one stuff, and begin where we +will<a name="FNanchor_689_689" id="FNanchor_689_689"></a><a href="#Footnote_689_689" class="fnanchor">[689]</a> we are pretty sure in a short space to be mumbling our ten +commandments.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>[260] </span> </p> +<h2><a name="CIRCLES" id="CIRCLES"></a>CIRCLES.<a name="FNanchor_690_690" id="FNanchor_690_690"></a><a href="#Footnote_690_690" class="fnanchor">[690]</a></h2> + + +<p>The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; +and throughout nature this primary picture is repeated without end. It +is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine<a name="FNanchor_691_691" id="FNanchor_691_691"></a><a href="#Footnote_691_691" class="fnanchor">[691]</a> +described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere +and its circumference nowhere. We are all our lifetime reading the +copious sense of this first of forms. One moral we have already +deduced in considering the circular or compensatory character of every +human action. Another analogy we shall now trace, that every action +admits of being outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth +that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in +nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another +dawn risen on mid-noon,<a name="FNanchor_692_692" id="FNanchor_692_692"></a><a href="#Footnote_692_692" class="fnanchor">[692]</a> and under every deep a lower deep opens.</p> + +<p>This fact, as far as it symbolizes the moral fact of the Unattainable, +the flying Perfect, around which the hands of man can never meet, at +once the inspirer and the condemner of every success, may conveniently +serve us to connect many illustrations of human power in every +department.</p> + +<p>There are no fixtures in nature. The universe <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>[261] </span> is fluid and volatile. +Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a +transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and +holds its fluid. Our culture is the predominance of an idea which +draws after it all this train of cities and institutions. Let us rise +into another idea; they will disappear. The Greek sculpture<a name="FNanchor_693_693" id="FNanchor_693_693"></a><a href="#Footnote_693_693" class="fnanchor">[693]</a> is +all melted away, as if it had been statues of ice: here and there a +solitary figure or fragment remaining, as we see flecks and scraps of +snow left in cold dells and mountain clefts in June and July. For the +genius that created it creates now somewhat else. The Greek +letters<a name="FNanchor_694_694" id="FNanchor_694_694"></a><a href="#Footnote_694_694" class="fnanchor">[694]</a> last a little longer, but are already passing under the +same sentence and tumbling into the inevitable pit which the creation +of new thought opens for all that is old. The new continents are built +out of the ruins of an old planet; the new races fed out of the +decomposition of the foregoing. New arts destroy the old.<a name="FNanchor_695_695" id="FNanchor_695_695"></a><a href="#Footnote_695_695" class="fnanchor">[695]</a> See the +investment of capital in aqueducts, made useless by hydraulics; +fortifications, by gunpowder; roads and canals, by railways; sails, by +steam; steam, by electricity.</p> + +<p>You admire this tower of granite, weathering the hurts of so many +ages. Yet a little waving hand built this huge wall, and that which +builds is better than that which is built. The hand that built can +topple it down much faster. Better than the hand and nimbler was the +invisible thought which wrought through it; and thus ever, behind the +coarse effect, is a fine cause, which, being narrowly seen, is itself + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>[262] </span> the effect of a finer cause. Everything looks permanent until its +secret is known. A rich estate appears to women and children a firm +and lasting fact; to a merchant, one easily created out of any +materials, and easily lost. An orchard, good tillage, good grounds, +seem a fixture, like a gold mine, or a river, to a citizen; but to a +large farmer, not much more fixed than the state of the crop. Nature +looks provokingly stable and secular, but it has a cause like all the +rest; and when once I comprehend that, will these fields stretch so +immovably wide, these leaves hang so individually considerable? +Permanence is a word of degrees. Every thing is medial. Moons are no +more bounds to spiritual power than bat-balls.</p> + +<p>The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he +look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all +his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new +idea which commands his own. The life of man is a self-evolving +circle,<a name="FNanchor_696_696" id="FNanchor_696_696"></a><a href="#Footnote_696_696" class="fnanchor">[696]</a> which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all +sides outwards to new and larger circles, and that without end. The +extent to which this generation of circles, wheel without wheel, will +go, depends on the force or truth of the individual soul. For it is +the inert effort of each thought, having formed itself into a circular +wave of circumstance, as for instance an empire, rules of an art, a +local usage, a religious rite, to heap itself on that ridge and to +solidify and hem in the life. But if the soul is quick and strong it +bursts over that <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>[263] </span> boundary on all sides and expands another orbit on +the great deep, which also runs up into a high wave, with attempt +again to stop and to bind. But the heart refuses to be +imprisoned;<a name="FNanchor_697_697" id="FNanchor_697_697"></a><a href="#Footnote_697_697" class="fnanchor">[697]</a> in its first and narrowest pulses it already tends +outward with a vast force and to immense and innumerable expansions.</p> + +<p>Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series. Every general +law only a particular fact of some more general law presently to +disclose itself. There is no outside, no inclosing wall, no +circumference to us. The man finishes his story,—how good! how final! +how it puts a new face on all things! He fills the sky. Lo, on the +other side rises also a man and draws a circle around the circle we +had just pronounced the outline of the sphere. Then already is our +first speaker not man, but only a first speaker. His only redress is +forthwith to draw a circle outside of his antagonist. And so men do by +themselves. The result of to-day, which haunts the mind and cannot be +escaped will presently be abridged into a word, and the principle that +seemed to explain nature will itself be included as one example of a +bolder generalization. In the thought of to-morrow there is a power to +upheave all thy creed, all the creeds, all the literatures of the +nations, and marshal thee to a heaven which no epic dream has yet +depicted. Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a +suggestion of that he should be. Men walk as prophecies of the next +age.</p> + +<p>Step by step we scale this mysterious ladder; the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a>[264] </span> steps are actions, +the new prospect is power. Every several result is threatened and +judged by that which follows. Every one seems to be contradicted by +the new; it is only limited by the new. The new statement is always +hated by the old, and, to those dwelling in the old, comes like an +abyss of scepticism. But the eye soon gets wonted to it, for the eye +and it are effects of one cause; then its innocency and benefit +appear, and presently, all its energy spent, it pales and dwindles +before the revelation of the new hour.</p> + +<p>Fear not the new generalization. Does the fact look crass<a name="FNanchor_698_698" id="FNanchor_698_698"></a><a href="#Footnote_698_698" class="fnanchor">[698]</a> and +material, threatening to degrade thy theory of spirit? Resist it not; +it goes to refine and raise thy theory of matter just as much.</p> + +<p>There are no fixtures to men, if we appeal to consciousness. Every man +supposes himself not to be fully understood; and if there is any truth +in him, if he rests at last on the divine soul, I see not how it can +be otherwise. The last chamber, the last closet, he must feel was +never opened; there is always a residuum unknown, unanalyzable. That +is, every man believes that he has a greater possibility.</p> + +<p>Our moods do not believe in each other. To-day I am full of thoughts +and can write what I please. I see no reason why I should not have the +same thought, the same power of expression, to-morrow. What I write, +whilst I write it, seems the most natural thing in the world: but +yesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now I see + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>[265] </span> so much; and a month hence, I doubt not, I shall wonder who he was +that wrote so many continuous pages. Alas for this infirm faith, this +will not strenuous, this vast ebb of a vast flow! I am God in nature; +I am a weed by the wall.</p> + +<p>The continual effort to raise himself above himself,<a name="FNanchor_699_699" id="FNanchor_699_699"></a><a href="#Footnote_699_699" class="fnanchor">[699]</a> to work a +pitch above his last height, betrays itself in a man's relations. We +thirst for approbation, yet cannot forgive the approver. The sweet of +nature is love; yet if I have a friend I am tormented by my +imperfections. The love of me accuses the other party. If he were high +enough<a name="FNanchor_700_700" id="FNanchor_700_700"></a><a href="#Footnote_700_700" class="fnanchor">[700]</a> to slight me, then could I love him, and rise by my +affection to new heights. A man's growth is seen in the successive +choirs of his friends. For every friend whom he loses for truth, he +gains a better. I thought as I walked in the woods and mused on any +friends, why should I play with them this game of idolatry? I know and +see too well, when not voluntarily blind, the speedy limits of persons +called high and worthy. Rich, noble and great they are by the +liberality of our speech, but truth is sad. O blessed Spirit, whom I +forsake for these, they are not thee! Every personal consideration +that we allow costs us heavenly state. We sell the thrones of angels +for a short and turbulent pleasure.</p> + +<p>How often must we learn this lesson? Men cease to interest us when we +find their limitations. The only sin is limitation. As soon as you +once come up with a man's limitations, it is all over with him. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a>[266] </span> Has +he talents? has he enterprises? has he knowledge? It boots not. +Infinitely alluring and attractive was he to you yesterday, a great +hope, a sea to swim in; now, you have found his shores, found it a +pond, and you care not if you never see it again.</p> + +<p>Each new step we take in thought reconciles twenty seemingly +discordant facts, as expressions of one law. Aristotle and Plato<a name="FNanchor_701_701" id="FNanchor_701_701"></a><a href="#Footnote_701_701" class="fnanchor">[701]</a> +are reckoned the respective heads of two schools. A wise man will see +that Aristotle platonizes. By going one step farther back in thought, +discordant opinions are reconciled by being seen to be two extremes of +one principle, and we can never go so far back as to preclude a still +higher vision.</p> + +<p>Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then +all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out +in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. +There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; +there is not any literary reputation, not the so-called eternal names +of fame, that may not be revised and condemned. The very hopes of man, +the thoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and +morals of mankind are all at the mercy of a new generalization. +Generalization is always a new influx of the divinity into the mind. +Hence the thrill that attends it.</p> + +<p>Valor consists in the power of self-recovery, so that a man cannot +have his flank turned, cannot be out-generalled, but put him where you +will, he stands. <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a>[267] </span> This can only be by his preferring truth to his past +apprehension of truth, and his alert acceptance of it from whatever +quarter; the intrepid conviction that his laws, his relations to +society, his Christianity, his world, may at any time be superseded +and decease.</p> + +<p>There are degrees in idealism. We learn first to play with it +academically, as the magnet was once a toy. Then we see in the heyday +of youth and poetry that it may be true, that it is true in gleams and +fragments. Then, its countenance waxes stern and grand, and we see +that it must be true. It now shows itself ethical and practical. We +learn that God is; that he is in me; and that all things are shadows +of him. The idealism of Berkeley<a name="FNanchor_702_702" id="FNanchor_702_702"></a><a href="#Footnote_702_702" class="fnanchor">[702]</a> is only a crude statement of the +idealism of Jesus, and that again is a crude statement of the fact +that all nature is the rapid efflux of goodness executing and +organizing itself. Much more obviously is history and the state of the +world at any one time directly dependent on the intellectual +classification then existing in the minds of men. The things which are +dear to men at this hour are so on account of the ideas which have +emerged on their mental horizon, and which cause the present order of +things, as a tree bears its apples. A new degree of culture would +instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits.</p> + +<p>Conversation is a game of circles. In conversation we pluck up the +<i>termini</i><a name="FNanchor_703_703" id="FNanchor_703_703"></a><a href="#Footnote_703_703" class="fnanchor">[703]</a> which bound the common of silence on every side. The +parties are not <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a>[268] </span> to be judged by the spirit they partake and even +express under this Pentecost.<a name="FNanchor_704_704" id="FNanchor_704_704"></a><a href="#Footnote_704_704" class="fnanchor">[704]</a> To-morrow they will have receded +from this high-water mark. To-morrow you shall find them stooping +under the old pack-saddles. Yet let us enjoy the cloven flame whilst +it glows on our walls. When each new speaker strikes a new light, +emancipates us from the oppression of the last speaker to oppress us +with the greatness and exclusiveness of his own thought, then yields +us to another redeemer, we seem to recover our rights, to become men. +O, what truths profound and executable only in ages and orbs, are +supposed in the announcement of every truth! In common hours, society +sits cold and statuesque. We all stand waiting, empty,—knowing, +possibly, that we can be full, surrounded by mighty symbols which are +not symbols to us, but prose and trivial toys. Then cometh the god and +converts the statues into fiery men, and by a flash of his eye burns +up the veil which shrouded all things, and the meaning of the very +furniture, of cup and saucer, of chair and clock and tester, is +manifest. The facts which loomed so large in the fogs of +yesterday,—property, climate, breeding, personal beauty and the like, +have strangely changed their proportions. All that we reckoned settled +shakes and rattles; and literatures, cities, climates, religions, +leave their foundations and dance before our eyes. And yet here again +see the swift circumscription! Good as is discourse, silence is +better, and shames it. The length of the discourse indicates the +distance of <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a>[269] </span> thought betwixt the speaker and the hearer. If they were +at a perfect understanding in any part, no words would be necessary +thereon. If at one in all parts, no words would be suffered.</p> + +<p>Literature is a point outside of our hodiernal<a name="FNanchor_705_705" id="FNanchor_705_705"></a><a href="#Footnote_705_705" class="fnanchor">[705]</a> circle through +which a new one may be described. The use of literature is to afford +us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a +purchase by which we may move it. We fill ourselves with ancient +learning, install ourselves the best we can in Greek, in Punic,<a name="FNanchor_706_706" id="FNanchor_706_706"></a><a href="#Footnote_706_706" class="fnanchor">[706]</a> +in Roman houses, only that we may wiselier see French, English and +American houses and modes of living. In like manner<a name="FNanchor_707_707" id="FNanchor_707_707"></a><a href="#Footnote_707_707" class="fnanchor">[707]</a> we see +literature best from the midst of wild nature, or from the din of +affairs, or from a high religion. The field cannot be well seen from +within the field. The astronomer must have his diameter of the earth's +orbit as a base to find the parallax of any star.</p> + +<p>Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is +not in the encyclopædia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body +of Divinity, but in the sonnet or the play. In my daily work I incline +to repeat my old steps, and do not believe in remedial force, in the +power of change and reform. But some Petrarch<a name="FNanchor_708_708" id="FNanchor_708_708"></a><a href="#Footnote_708_708" class="fnanchor">[708]</a> or Ariosto,<a name="FNanchor_709_709" id="FNanchor_709_709"></a><a href="#Footnote_709_709" class="fnanchor">[709]</a> +filled with the new wine of his imagination, writes me an ode or a +brisk romance, full of daring thought and action. He smites and +arouses me with his shrill tones, breaks up my whole chain of habits, +and I open my eye on my own possibilities. He claps wings to the sides + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a>[270] </span> of all the solid old lumber of the world, and I am capable once more +of choosing a straight path in theory and practice.</p> + +<p>We have the same need to command a view of the religion of the world. +We can never see Christianity from the catechism:—from the pastures, +from a boat in the pond, from amidst the songs of wood-birds we +possibly may. Cleansed by the elemental light and wind, steeped in the +sea of beautiful forms which the field offers us, we may chance to +cast a right glance back upon biography. Christianity is rightly dear +to the best of mankind; yet was there never a young philosopher whose +breeding had fallen into the Christian church by whom that brave text +of Paul's was not specially prized, "Then shall also the Son be +subject unto Him who put all things under him, that God may be all in +all."<a name="FNanchor_710_710" id="FNanchor_710_710"></a><a href="#Footnote_710_710" class="fnanchor">[710]</a> Let the claims and virtues of persons be never so great and +welcome, the instinct of man presses eagerly onward to the impersonal +and illimitable, and gladly arms itself against the dogmatism of +bigots with this generous word out of the book itself.</p> + +<p>The natural world may be conceived of as a system of concentric +circles, and we now and then detect in nature slight dislocations +which apprize us that this surface on which we now stand is not fixed, +but sliding. These manifold tenacious qualities,<a name="FNanchor_711_711" id="FNanchor_711_711"></a><a href="#Footnote_711_711" class="fnanchor">[711]</a> this chemistry +and vegetation, these metals and animals, which seem to stand there +for their own sake, are means and methods only, are words of God, and +as <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a>[271] </span> fugitive as other words. Has the naturalist or chemist learned his +craft, who has explored the gravity of atoms and the elective +affinities, who has not yet discerned the deeper law whereof this is +only a partial or approximate statement, namely that like draws to +like, and that the goods which belong to you gravitate to you and need +not be pursued with pains and cost? Yet is that statement approximate +also, and not final. Omnipresence is a higher fact. Not through subtle +subterranean channels need friend and fact be drawn to their +counterpart, but, rightly considered, these things proceed from the +eternal generation of the soul. Cause and effect are two sides of one +fact.</p> + +<p>The same law of eternal procession ranges all that we call the +virtues, and extinguishes each in the light of a better. The great man +will not be prudent in the popular sense; all his prudence will be so +much deduction from his grandeur. But it behooves each to see, when he +sacrifices prudence, to what god he devotes it; if to ease and +pleasure, he had better be prudent still; if to a great trust, he can +well spare his mule and panniers who has a winged chariot instead. +Geoffrey draws on his boots to go through the woods, that his feet may +be safer from the bite of snakes; Aaron never thinks of such a peril. +In many years neither is harmed by such an accident. Yet it seems to +me that with every precaution you take against such an evil you put +yourself into the power of the evil. I suppose that the highest + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a>[272] </span> prudence is the lowest prudence. Is this too sudden a rushing from +the centre to the verge of our orbit? Think how many times we shall +fall back into pitiful calculations before we take up our rest in the +great sentiment, or make the verge of to-day the new centre. Besides, +your bravest sentiment is familiar to the humblest men. The poor and +the low have their way of expressing the last facts of philosophy as +well as you. "Blessed be nothing" and "The worse things are, the +better they are" are proverbs which express the transcendentalism of +common life.</p> + +<p>One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's +ugliness; one man's wisdom another's folly; as one beholds the same +objects from a higher point of view. One man thinks justice consists +in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who +is very remiss in this duty and makes the creditor wait tediously. But +that second man has his own way of looking at things; asks himself +which debt must I pay first, the debt to the rich, or the debt to the +poor? the debt of money, or the debt of thought to mankind, of genius +to nature? For you, O broker, there is no other principle but +arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth +of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I +detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my +forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. Let me live onward; you +shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will +liquidate <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"></a>[273] </span> all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a +man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this be +injustice? Owes he no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be +postponed to a landlord's or a banker's?</p> + +<p>There is no virtue which is final; all are initial. The virtues of +society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery +that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed +such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Forgive his crimes, forgive his virtues too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those smaller faults, half converts to the right.<a name="FNanchor_712_712" id="FNanchor_712_712"></a><a href="#Footnote_712_712" class="fnanchor">[712]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is the highest power of divine moments that they abolish our +contritions also. I accuse myself of sloth and unprofitableness day by +day; but when these waves of God flow into me I no longer reckon lost +time. I no longer poorly compute my possible achievement by what +remains to me of the month or the year; for these moments confer a +sort of omnipresence and omnipotence which asks nothing of duration, +but sees that the energy of the mind is commensurate with the work to +be done, without time.</p> + +<p>And thus, O circular philosopher, I hear some reader exclaim, you have +arrived at a fine pyrrhonism,<a name="FNanchor_713_713" id="FNanchor_713_713"></a><a href="#Footnote_713_713" class="fnanchor">[713]</a> at an equivalence and indifferency +of all actions, and would fain teach us that <i>if we are true</i>, +forsooth, our crimes may be lively stones out of which we shall +construct the temple of the true God.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"></a>[274] </span> </p> + +<p>I am not careful to justify myself. I own I am gladdened<a name="FNanchor_714_714" id="FNanchor_714_714"></a><a href="#Footnote_714_714" class="fnanchor">[714]</a> by +seeing the predominance of the saccharine principle throughout +vegetable nature, and not less by beholding in morals that +unrestrained inundation of the principle of good into every chink and +hole that selfishness has left open, yea into selfishness and sin +itself; so that no evil is pure, nor hell itself without its extreme +satisfactions. But lest I should mislead any when I have my own head +and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an +experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least +discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as +true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none +are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no Past at my +back.</p> + +<p>Yet this incessant movement and progression which all things partake +could never become sensible to us but by contrast to some principle of +fixture or stability in the soul. Whilst the eternal generation of +circles proceeds, the eternal generator abides. That central life is +somewhat superior to creation, superior to knowledge and thought, and +contains all its circles. For ever it labors to create a life and +thought as large and excellent as itself; but in vain; for that which +is made instructs how to make a better.</p> + +<p>Thus there is no sleep, no pause, no preservation, but all things +renew, germinate and spring. Why should we import rags and relics into +the new hour? <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a>[275] </span> Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only +disease: all others run into this one. We call it by many +names,—fever, intemperance, insanity, stupidity and crime: they are +all forms of old age: they are rest, conservatism, appropriation, +inertia; not newness, not the way onward. We grizzle every day. I see +no need of it. Whilst we converse with what is above us, we do not +grow old, but grow young. Infancy, youth, receptive, aspiring, with +religious eye looking upward, counts itself nothing and abandons +itself to the instruction flowing from all sides. But the man and +woman of seventy assume to know all; throw up their hope; renounce +aspiration; accept the actual for the necessary and talk down to the +young. Let them then become organs of the Holy Ghost; let them be +lovers; let them behold truth; and their eyes are uplifted, their +wrinkles smoothed, they are perfumed again with hope and power. This +old age ought not to creep on a human mind. In nature every moment is +new; the past is always swallowed and forgotten; the coming only is +sacred. Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit. +No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher +love. No truth so sublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light +of new thoughts. People wish to be settled: only as far as they are +unsettled is there any hope for them.</p> + +<p>Life is a series of surprises. We do not guess to-day the mood, the +pleasure, the power of to-morrow, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a>[276] </span> when we are building up our being. +Of lower states,—of acts of routine and sense, we can tell somewhat, +but the masterpieces of God, the total growths and universal movements +of the soul, he hideth; they are incalculable. I can know that truth +is divine and helpful; but how it shall help me I can have no guess, +for <i>so to be</i> is the sole inlet of <i>so to know</i>. The new position of +the advancing man has all the powers of the old, yet has them all new. +It carries in its bosom all the energies of the past, yet is itself an +exhalation of the morning. I cast away in this new moment all my once +hoarded knowledge, as vacant and vain. Now for the first time seem I +to know any thing rightly. The simplest words,—we do not know what +they mean except when we love and aspire.</p> + +<p>The difference between talents and character is adroitness to keep the +old and trodden round, and power and courage to make a new road to new +and better goals. Character makes an overpowering present, a cheerful, +determined hour, which fortifies all the company by making them see +that much is possible and excellent that was not thought of. Character +dulls the impression of particular events. When we see the conqueror +we do not think much of any one battle or success. We see that we had +exaggerated the difficulty. It was easy to him. The great man is not +convulsible or tormentable. He is so much that events pass over him +without much impression. People say sometimes, "See what I have + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"></a>[277] </span> overcome; see how cheerful I am; see how completely I have triumphed +over these black events." Not if they still remind me of the black +event,—they have not yet conquered. Is it conquest to be a gay and +decorated sepulchre, or a half-crazed widow, hysterically laughing? +True conquest is the causing the black event to fade and disappear as +an early cloud of insignificant result in a history so large and +advancing.</p> + +<p>The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget +ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our +sempiternal<a name="FNanchor_715_715" id="FNanchor_715_715"></a><a href="#Footnote_715_715" class="fnanchor">[715]</a> memory and to do something without knowing how or +why; in short to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved +without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful. It is by +abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of +performance through the strength of ideas, as the works of genius and +religion. "A man," said Oliver Cromwell,<a name="FNanchor_716_716" id="FNanchor_716_716"></a><a href="#Footnote_716_716" class="fnanchor">[716]</a> "never rises so high as +when he knows not whither he is going." Dreams and drunkenness, the +use of opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this +oracular genius, and hence their dangerous attraction for men. For the +like reason they ask the aid of wild passions, as in the gaming and +war, ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart.</p> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"></a>[279] </span> </p> +<div class="footnotes"> +<h2><a name="NOTES" id="NOTES"></a>NOTES</h2> + +<h3>THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR</h3> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <b>Games of strength.</b> The public games of Greece +were athletic and intellectual contests of various kinds. There were +four of importance: the Olympic, held every four years; the Pythian, +held every third Olympic year; and the Nemean and Isthmian, held +alternate years between the Olympic periods. These great national +festivals exercised a strong influence in Greece. They were a secure +bond of union between the numerous independent states and did much to +help the nation to repel its foreign invaders. In Greece the +accomplished athlete was reverenced almost as a god, and cases have +been recorded where altars were erected and sacrifices made in his +honor. The extreme care and cultivation of the body induced by this +national spirit is one of the most significant features of Greek +culture, and one which might wisely be imitated in the modern world.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <b>Troubadours.</b> In southern France during the +eleventh century, wandering poets went from castle to castle reciting +or singing love-songs, composed in the old Provençal dialect, a sort +of vulgarized Latin. The life in the great feudal chateaux was so dull +that the lords and ladies seized with avidity any amusement which +promised to while away an idle hour. The troubadours were made much of +and became a strong element in the development of the Southern spirit. +So-called Courts of Love were formed where questions of an amorous +nature were discussed in all their bearings; learned opinions were +expressed on the most trivial matters, and offenses were tried. +</p><p> +Some of the Provençal poetry is of the highest artistic significance, +though the mass of it is worthless high-flown trash.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> At the time this oration was delivered (1837), many +of the authors who have since given America a place in the world's +literature were young men writing their first books. "We were," says +James Russell Lowell, "still socially and intellectually moored to +English thought, till Emerson cut <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></a>[280] </span> the cable and gave us a chance at +the dangers and glories of blue water."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <b>Pole-star.</b> Polaris is now the nearest conspicuous +star to the north pole of the celestial equator. Owing to the motion +of the pole of the celestial equator around that of the ecliptic, this +star will in course of time recede from its proud position, and the +brilliant star Vega in the constellation Harp will become the +pole-star.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> It is now a well-recognized fact in the development +of animal life that as any part of the body falls into disuse it in +time disappears. Good examples of this are the disappearance of +powerful fangs from the mouth of man, the loss of power in the wings +of barnyard fowls; and, <i>vice versa</i>, as new uses for a member arise, +its structure changes to meet the new needs. An example of this is the +transformation from the hoof of a horse through the cloven hoofs of +the cow to the eventual development of highly expert fingers in the +monkey and man. Emerson assumed the doctrine of evolution to be +sufficiently established by the anatomical evidence of gradual +development. In his own words: "Man is no up-start in the creation. +His limbs are only a more exquisite organization—say rather the +finish—of the rudimental forms that have been already sweeping the +sea and creeping in the mud. The brother of his hand is even now +cleaving the arctic sea in the fin of the whale, and innumerable ages +since was pawing the marsh in the flipper of the saurian." A view +afterwards condensed into his memorable couplet: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Striving to be man, the worm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mounts through all the spires of form."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <b>Stint.</b> A prescribed or allotted task, a share of +labor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <b>Ridden.</b> Here used in the sense of dominated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <b>Monitory pictures.</b> Instructive warning pictures.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> The Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus is the author +of this saying, not "the old oracle." It occurs in the Encheiridion, +or manual, a work put together by a pupil of Epictetus. The original +saying of Epictetus is as follows: "Every thing has two handles, the +one by which it may be borne, the other by which it may not. If your +brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold of the act by that handle +wherein he acts unjustly, for this is the handle which cannot be +borne: but lay hold of the other, that he is your brother, that he <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_281" id="Page_281"></a>[281] </span> +was nurtured with you, and you will lay hold of the thing by that +handle by which it can be borne."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Every day, the sun (shines).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <b>Beholden.</b> Emerson here uses this past participle +with its original meaning instead of in its present sense of +"indebted."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Here we have a reminder of Emerson's pantheism. He +means the inexplicable continuity "of what I call God, and fools +nature," as Browning expressed it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> His expanding knowledge will become a creator.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <b>Know thyself.</b> Plutarch ascribes this saying to +Plato. It is also ascribed to Pythagoras, Chilo, Thales, Cleobulus, +Bias, and Socrates; also to Phemonië, a mythical Greek poetess of the +ante-Homeric period. Juvenal (Satire XI. 27) says that this precept +descended from heaven. "Know thyself" and "Nothing too much" were +inscribed upon the Delphic oracle. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The proper study of mankind is man."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Observe the brisk movement of these sentences. How +they catch and hold the attention, giving a new impulse to the +reader's interest!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Nature abhors a vacuum.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <b>Noxious.</b> Harmful.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <b>John Locke</b> (1632-1704), an English philosopher +whose work was of especial significance in the development of modern +philosophy. The work he is best known by is the exhaustive "Essay on +the Human Understanding," in which he combated the theory of +Descartes, that every man has certain "innate ideas." The innate-idea +theory was first proved by the philosopher Descartes in this way. +Descartes began his speculations from a standpoint of absolute doubt. +Then he said, "I think, therefore I am," and from this formula he +built up a number of ideas innate to the human mind, ideas which we +cannot but hold. Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding" did much +to discredit Descartes' innate ideas, which had been very generally +accepted in Europe before.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <b>Francis Bacon</b>, Baron Verulam, Viscount Saint +Alban's (1561-1626), a famous English statesman and philosopher. He +occupied high public offices, but in 1621 was convicted of taking +bribes in his office of Lord Chancellor. He pleaded guilty and was +sentenced to imprisonment and a fine <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_282" id="Page_282"></a>[282] </span> of forty thousand pounds. Both +these sentences were remitted, however. In the seventeenth century, +judicial corruption was so common that Bacon's offence was not +considered so gross as it would now be. As a philosopher Bacon's rank +has been much disputed. While some claim that to his improved method +of studying nature are chiefly to be attributed the prodigious strides +taken by modern science, others deny him all merit in this respect. +His best known works are: "The Novum Organum," a philosophical +treatise; "The Advancement of Learning," a remarkable argument in +favor of scholarship; and the short essays on subjects of common +interest, usually printed under the simple title "Bacon's Essays."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <b>Third Estate.</b> The thirteenth century was the age +when the national assemblies of most European countries were putting +on their definite shape. In most of them the system of <i>estates</i> +prevailed. These in most countries were three—nobles, clergy, and +commons, the commons being the third estate. During the French +Revolution the Third Estate, or Tiers Etat, asserted its rights and +became a powerful factor in French politics, choosing its own leaders +and effecting the downfall of its oppressors.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> <b>Restorers of readings.</b> Men who spend their lives +trying to improve and correct the texts of classical authors, by +comparing the old editions with each other and picking out the version +which seem most in accordance with the authors' original work.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <b>Emendators.</b> The same as restorers of readings.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <b>Bibliomaniacs.</b> Men with a mania for collecting +rare and beautiful books. Not a bad sort of mania, though Emerson +never had any sympathy for it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> To many readers Emerson's own works richly fulfill +this obligation. He himself lived continually in such a lofty mental +atmosphere that no one can come within the circle of his influence +without being stimulated and elevated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Genius, the possession of a thoroughly active +soul, ought not to be the special privilege of favorites of fortune, +but the right of every sound man.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> They stunt my mental growth. A man should not +accept another man's conclusions, but merely use them as steps on his +upward path.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> If you do not employ such talent as you have in +original labor, in bearing the mental fruit of which you are <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></a>[283] </span> capable, +then you do not vindicate your claim to a share in the divine nature.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <b>Disservice.</b> Injury.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> In original composition of any sort our efforts +naturally flow in the channels worn for us by the first dominating +streams of early genius. The conventional is the continual foe of all +true art.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Emerson is continually stimulating us to look at +things in new ways. Here, for instance, at once the thought comes: "Is +it not perhaps possible that the transcendent genius of Shakespeare +has been rather noxious than beneficent in its influence on the mind +of the world? Has not the all-pervading Shakespearian influence +flooded and drowned out a great deal of original genius?"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> That is,—when in his clear, seeing moments he can +distil some drops of truth from the world about him, let him not waste +his time in studying other men's records of what they have seen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> While Emerson's verse is frequently unmusical, in +his prose we often find passages like this instinct with the fairest +poetry.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <b>Geoffrey Chaucer</b> (1340-1400). The father of +English poetry. Chaucer's chief work is the "Canterbury Tales," a +series of stories told by pilgrims traveling in company to Canterbury. +Coleridge, the poet, wrote of Chaucer: "I take unceasing delight in +Chaucer; his manly cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my +old age. How exquisitely tender he is, yet how free from the least +touch of sickly melancholy or morbid drooping." Chaucer's poetry is +above all things fresh. It breathes of the morning of literature. Like +Homer he had at his command all the riches of a new language undefiled +by usage from which to choose. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <b>Andrew Marvell</b> (1620-1678). An eminent English +patriot and satirist. As a writer he is chiefly known by his +"Rehearsal Transposed," written in answer to a fanatical defender of +absolute power. When a young man he was assistant to the poet Milton, +who was then Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell. Marvell's wit and +distinguished abilities rendered him formidable to the corrupt +administration of <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_284" id="Page_284"></a>[284] </span> Charles II., who attempted without success to buy +his friendship. Emerson's literary perspective is a bit unusual when +he speaks of Marvell as "one of the great English poets." Marvell +hardly ranks with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <b>John Dryden</b> (1631-1700). A celebrated English +poet. Early in life he wrote almost entirely for the stage and +achieved great success. In the latter part of his life, however, +according to Macaulay, he "turned his powers in a new direction with +success the most splendid and decisive. The first rank in poetry was +beyond his reach, but he secured the most honorable place in the +second.... With him died the secret of the old poetical diction of +England,—the art of producing rich effects by familiar words."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <b>Plato</b> (429-347 B.C.). One of the most +illustrious philosophers of all time. Probably no other philosopher +has contributed so much as Plato to the moral and intellectual +training of the human race. This pre-eminence is due not solely to his +transcendent intellect, but also in no small measure to his poetic +power and to that unrivaled grace of style which led the ancients to +say that if Jove should speak Greek he would speak like Plato. He was +a remarkable example of that universal culture of body and mind which +characterized the last period of ancient Greece. He was proficient in +every branch of art and learning and was such a brilliant athlete that +he contended in the Isthmian and Pythian games.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <b>Gowns.</b> The black gown worn occasionally in +America and always in England at the universities; the distinctive +academic dress is a cap and gown.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <b>Pecuniary foundations.</b> Gifts of money for the +support of institutions of learning.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> <b>Wit</b> is here used in its early sense of +intellect, good understanding.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> <b>Valetudinarian.</b> A person of a weak, sickly +constitution.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <b>Mincing.</b> Affected.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> <b>Preamble.</b> A preface or introduction.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> <b>Dumb abyss.</b> That vast immensity of the universe +about us which we can never understand.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> <b>I</b> comprehend its laws; I lose my +fear of it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Silkworms feed on mulberry-leaves. Emerson +describes what science calls "unconscious cerebration."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> <b>Ripe fruit.</b> Emerson's ripe fruit found its way +into his diary, where it lay until he needed it in the preparation of +some lecture or essay.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_285" id="Page_285"></a>[285] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> I. Corinthians xv. 53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> <b>Empyrean.</b> The region of pure light and fire; the +ninth heaven of ancient astronomy. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The deep-domed empyrean<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rings to the roar of an angel onset."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> <b>Ferules.</b> According to the methods of education +fifty years ago, it was quite customary for the teacher to punish a +school-child with his ferule or ruler.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Oliver Wendell Holmes cites this last sentence as +the most extreme development of the distinctively Emersonian style. +Such things must be read not too literally but rapidly, with alert +attention to what the previous train of thought has been.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <b>Savoyards.</b> The people of Savoy, south of Lake +Geneva in Switzerland.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Emerson's style is characterized by the frequent +use of pithy epigrams like this.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> <b>Sir Isaac Newton</b> (1642-1727). A great English +philosopher and mathematician. He is famous as having discovered the +law of gravitation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> <b>Unhandselled.</b> Uncultivated, without natural +advantages. A handsel is a gift.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> <b>Druids.</b> The ancient priesthood of the Britons in +Cæsar's time. They had immense power among these primitive peoples. +They were the judges as well as the priests and decided all questions. +It is believed that they made human sacrifices to their gods in the +depths of the primeval forest, but not much is known of their rites.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> <b>Berserkers.</b> Berserker was a redoubtable hero in +Scandinavian mythology, the grandson of the eight-handed Starkodder +and the beautiful Alfhilde. He had twelve sons who inherited the +wild-battle frenzy, or berserker rage. The sagas, the great +Scandinavian epics, are full of stories of heroes who are seized with +this fierce longing for battle, murder, and sudden death. The name +means bear-shirt and has been connected with the old <i>were-wolf</i> +tradition, the myth that certain people were able to change into +man-devouring wolves with a wolfish mad desire to rend and kill.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> <b>Alfred</b>, surnamed the Great (848-901), king of +the West Saxons in England. When he ascended the throne his country +was in a deplorable condition from the repeated inroads of northern +invaders. He eventually drove them out <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_286" id="Page_286"></a>[286] </span> and established a secure +government. England owes much to the efforts of Alfred. He not only +fought his country's battles, but also founded schools, translated +Latin books into his native tongue, and did much for the intellectual +improvement of his people.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> <b>The hoe and the spade.</b> "In spite of Emerson's +habit of introducing the names of agricultural objects into his +writing ('Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool, and wood' is a +line from one of his poems), his familiarity therewith is evidently +not so great as he would lead one to imagine. 'Take care, papa,' cried +his little son, seeing him at work with a spade, 'you will dig your +leg.'"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> <b>John Flamsteed</b> (1646-1719). An eminent English +astronomer. He appears to have been the first to understand the theory +of the equation of time. He passed his life in patient observation and +determined the position of 2884 stars.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> <b>Sir William Herschel</b> (1738-1822). One of the +greatest astronomers that any age or nation has produced. Brought up +to the profession of music, it was not until he was thirty years old +that he turned his attention to astronomy. By rigid economy he +obtained a telescope, and in 1781 discovered the planet Uranus. This +great discovery gave him great fame and other substantial advantages. +He was made private astronomer to the king and received a pension. His +discoveries were so far in advance of his time, they had so little +relation with those of his predecessors, that he may almost be said to +have created a new science by revealing the immensity of the scale on +which the universe is constructed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> <b>Nebulous.</b> In astronomy a nebula is a luminous +patch in the heavens far beyond the solar system, composed of a mass +of stars or condensed gases.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> <b>Fetich.</b> The word seems to have been applied by +Portuguese sailors and traders on the west coast of Africa to objects +worshiped by the natives, which were regarded as charms or talismans. +Of course the word here means an object of blind admiration and +devotion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> <b>Cry up</b>, to praise, extol.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> <b>Ancient and honorable.</b> Isaiah ix. 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> <b>Complement.</b> What is needed to complete or fill +up some quantity or thing.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> <b>Signet.</b> Seal. Emerson is not always felicitous + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_287" id="Page_287"></a>[287] </span> in his choice of metaphors.</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> <b>Macdonald.</b> In Cervantes' "Don Quixote," Sancho +Panza, the squire to the "knight of the metaphysical countenance," +tells a story of a gentleman who had asked a countryman to dine with +him. The farmer was pressed to take his seat at the head of the table, +and when he refused out of politeness to his host, the latter became +impatient and cried: "Sit there, clod-pate, for let me sit wherever I +will, that will still be the upper end, and the place of worship to +thee." This saying is commonly attributed to Rob Roy, but Emerson with +his usual inaccuracy in such matters places it in the mouth of +Macdonald,—which Macdonald is uncertain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> <b>Carolus Linnæus</b> (1707-1778). A great Swedish +botanist. He did much to make botany the orderly science it now is.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> <b>Sir Humphry Davy</b> (1778-1829). The most famous of +English chemists. The most important to mankind of his many +discoveries was the safety-lamp to be used in mines where there is +danger of explosion from fire-damp.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> <b>Baron George Cuvier</b> (1769-1832). An illustrious +French philosopher, statesman, and writer who made many discoveries in +the realm of natural history, geology and philosophy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> <b>The moon.</b> The tides are caused by the attraction +of the moon and the sun. The attraction of the moon for the water +nearest the moon is somewhat greater than the attraction of the +earth's center. This causes a slight bulging of the water toward the +moon and a consequent high tide.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Emerson frequently omits the principal verb of his +sentences as here: "In a century <i>there may exist</i> one or two men."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> This obscurely constructed sentence means: "For +their acquiescence in a political and social inferiority the poor and +low find some compensation in the immense moral capacity thereby +gained."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> "<b>They</b>" refers to the hero or poet mentioned some +twenty lines back.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> <b>Comprehendeth.</b> Here used in the original sense +<i>to include</i>. The perfect man should be so thoroughly developed at +every point that he will possess a share in the nature of every man.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> By the Classic age is generally meant the age of +Greece and Rome; and by the Romantic is meant the middle ages.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></a>[288] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> <b>Introversion.</b> Introspection is the more usual +word to express the analytic self-searching so common in these days.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> <b>Second thoughts.</b> Emerson uses the word here in +the same sense as the French <i>arrière-pensée</i>, a mental reservation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And thus the native hue of resolution<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."<br /></span> +<span class="i12"><i>Hamlet</i>, Act III, Sc. 1.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> <b>Movement.</b> The French Revolution.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Let every common object be credited with the +diviner attributes which will class it among others of the same +importance.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> <b>Oliver Goldsmith</b> (1728-1774). An eminent English +poet and writer. He is best known by the comedy "She Stoops to +Conquer," the poem "The Deserted Village," and the "Vicar of +Wakefield." "Of all romances in miniature," says Schlegel, the great +German critic, "the 'Vicar of Wakefield' is the most exquisite." It is +probably the most popular English work of fiction in Germany.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> <b>Robert Burns</b> (1759-1796). A celebrated Scottish +poet. The most striking characteristics of Burns' poetry are +simplicity and intensity, in which he is scarcely, if at all, inferior +to any of the greatest poets that have ever lived.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> <b>William Cowper</b> (1731-1800). One of the most +popular of English poets. His poem "The Task" was probably more read +in his day than any poem of equal length in the language. Cowper also +made an excellent translation of Homer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> <b>Johann Wolfgang von Goethe</b> (1749-1832). The most +illustrious name in German literature; a great poet, dramatist, +novelist, philosopher, and critic. The Germans regard Goethe with the +same veneration we accord to Shakespeare. The colossal drama "Faust" +is the most splendid product of his genius, though he wrote a large +number of other plays and poems.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> <b>William Wordsworth</b> (1770-1850). By many +considered the greatest of modern English poets. His descriptions of +the ever-varying moods of nature are the most exquisite in the +language. Matthew Arnold in his essay on Emerson says: "As +Wordsworth's poetry is, in my judgment, the most important work done +in verse in our language <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_289" id="Page_289"></a>[289] </span> during the present century, so Emerson's +'Essays' are, I think, the most important work done in prose."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> <b>Thomas Carlyle</b> (1795-1881). A famous English +essayist, historian, and speculative philosopher. It is scarcely too +much to say that no other author of this century has exerted a greater +influence not merely upon the literature but upon the mind of the +English nation than Carlyle. Emerson was an intimate friend of +Carlyle, and during the greater part of his life maintained a +correspondence with the great Englishman. An interesting description +of their meeting will be found among the "Critical Opinions" at the +beginning of the work.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> <b>Alexander Pope</b> (1688-1744). The author of the +"Essay on Criticism," "Rape of the Lock," the "Essay on Man," and +other famous poems. Pope possessed little originality or creative +imagination, but he had a vivid sense of the beautiful and an +exquisite taste. He owed much of his popularity to the easy harmony of +his verse and the keenness of his satire.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> <b>Samuel Johnson</b> (1709-1784). One of the eminent +writers of the eighteenth century. He wrote "Lives of the Poets," +poems, and probably the most remarkable work of the kind ever produced +by a single person, an English dictionary.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> <b>Edward Gibbon</b> (1737-1794). One of the most +distinguished of English historians. His great work is the "Decline +and Fall of the Roman Empire." Carlyle called Gibbon, "the splendid +bridge from the old world to the new."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> <b>Emanuel Swedenborg</b> (1688-1772). A great Swedish +theologian, naturalist, and mathematician, and the founder of a +religious sect which has since his death become prominent among the +philosophical schools of Christianity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> <b>Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi</b> (1746-1827). A Swiss +teacher and educational reformer of great influence in his time.</p></div> + + +<h3>COMPENSATION</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> These lines are printed under the title of +<i>Compensation</i> in Emerson's collected poems. He has also another poem +of eight lines with the same title.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> <b>Documents</b>, data, facts.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_290" id="Page_290"></a>[290] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> This doctrine, which a little observation would +confute, is still taught by some.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> <b>Doubloons</b>, Spanish and South American gold coins +of the value of about $15.60 each.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> <b>Polarity</b>, that quality or condition of a body by +virtue of which it exhibits opposite or contrasted properties in +opposite or contrasted directions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> <b>Systole and diastole</b>, the contraction and +dilation of the heart and arteries.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> <b>They are increased</b> and consequently want more.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> <b>Intenerate</b>, soften.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> <b>White House</b>, the popular name of the +presidential mansion at Washington.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Explain the phrase <i>eat dust</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> <b>Overlook</b>, oversee, superintend.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> <b>Res nolunt</b>, etc. Translated in the previous +sentence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> <b>The world ... dew.</b> Explain the thought. What +gives the earth its shape?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> <b>The microscope ... little.</b> This statement is +not in accordance with the facts, if we are to understand <i>perfect</i> in +the sense which the next sentence would suggest.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> Emerson has been considered a pantheist.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a>Oἱ κύβοι, etc. The translation +follows in the text. This old proverb is quoted by Sophocles, (Fragm. +<span class="smcap">lxxiv.</span> 2) in the form: +</p> +<div class="blockquot">Ἀεὶ γὰρ εὖ πίπτουσιν οἱ Διὸς κύβοι,</div> +<p>Emerson uses it in <i>Nature</i> in the form "Nature's dice are always +loaded."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> <b>Amain</b>, with full force, vigorously.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> The proverb is quoted by Horace, Epistles, I, +<span class="smcap">x.</span> 24: +</p> +<div class="blockquot">"Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret."</div> +<p> +A similar thought is expressed by Juvenal, Seneca, Cicero, and +Aristophanes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> <b>Augustine</b>, Confessions, B. I.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> <b>Jupiter</b>, the supreme god of the Romans, the +Zeus of the Greeks.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> <b>Tying up the hands.</b> The expression is used +figuratively, of course.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> The supreme power in England is vested in +Parliament.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> <b>Prometheus</b> stole fire from heaven to benefit +the race of men. In punishment for this Jupiter chained him to a <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_291" id="Page_291"></a>[291] </span> rock +and set an eagle to prey upon his liver. Some unknown and terrible +danger threatened Jupiter, the secret of averting which only +Prometheus knew. For this secret Jupiter offered him his freedom.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> <b>Minerva</b>, goddess of wisdom, who sprang +full-armed from the brain of Jupiter. The secret which she held is +told in the following lines.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> <b>Aurora</b>, goddess of the dawn. Enamored of +Tithonus, she persuaded Jupiter to grant him immortality, but forgot +to ask for him immortal youth. Read Tennyson's poem on <i>Tithonus</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> <b>Achilles</b>, the hero of Homer's <i>Iliad</i>. His +mother Thetis, to render him invulnerable, plunged him into the waters +of the Styx. The heel by which she held him was not washed by the +waters and remained vulnerable. Here he received a mortal wound.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> <b>Siegfried</b>, hero of the Nibelungenlied, the old +German epic poem. Having slain a dragon, he bathed in its blood and +became covered with an invulnerable horny hide, only one small spot +between his shoulders which was covered by a leaf remaining +vulnerable. Into this spot the treacherous Hagen plunged his lance.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> <b>Nemesis</b>, a Greek female deity, goddess of +retribution, who visited the righteous anger of the gods upon +mortals.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> <b>The Furies</b> or Eumenides, stern and inexorable +ministers of the vengeance of the gods.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> <b>Ajax and Hector</b>, Greek and Trojan heroes in the +Trojan War. See Homer's <i>Iliad</i>. Achilles slew Hector and, lashing him +to his chariot with the belt which Ajax had given Hector, dragged him +round the walls of Troy. Ajax committed suicide with the sword which +Hector had presented to him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> <b>Thasians</b>, inhabitants of the island of Thasus. +The story here told of the rival of the athlete Theagenes is found in +Pausanias' <i>Description of Greece</i>, Book VI. chap. <span class="smcap">xi.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> Shakespeare, the greatest of English writers, +seems to have succeeded entirely or almost entirely in removing the +personal element from his writings.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> <b>Hellenic</b>, Greek.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> <b>Tit for tat</b>, etc. This paragraph is composed of +a series of proverbs.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> <b>Edmund Burke</b> (1729?-1797), illustrious Irish +statesman, orator, and author.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_292" id="Page_292"></a>[292] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> <b>Pawns</b>, the pieces of lowest rank in +chess.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> What is the meaning of <i>obscene</i> here? Compare +the Latin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> <b>Polycrates</b>, a tyrant of Samos, who was visited +with such remarkable prosperity that he was advised by a friend to +break the course of it by depriving himself of some valued possession. +In accordance with this advice he cast into the sea an emerald ring +which he considered his rarest treasure. A few days later a fisherman +presented the monarch with a large fish inside of which the ring was +found. Soon after this Polycrates fell into the power of an enemy and +was nailed to a cross.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> <b>Scot and lot,</b> "formerly, a parish assessment +laid on subjects according to their ability. Now, a phrase for +obligations of every kind regarded collectively." (Webster.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> Read Emerson's essay on <i>Gifts</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> <b>Worm worms,</b> breed worms.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> Compare the old proverb "Murder will out." See +Chaucer, <i>N.P.T.</i>, 232 and 237, and <i>Pr. T.</i>, 124.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum."<br /></span> +<span class="i10" ><span class="smcap">Horace</span>, <i>Epist.</i>, I. XVIII. 65.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> <b>Stag in the fable</b>. See <i>Æsop</i>, <span class="smcap">lxvi.</span> +184, <i>Cerva et Leo</i>; Phædrus I. 12. <i>Cervus ad fontem</i>; La Fontaine, +vi. 9, <i>Le Cerf se Voyant dans l'eau</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> See the quotation from St. Bernard farther on.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> <b>Withholden</b>, old participle of <i>withhold</i>, now +<i>withheld</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> What is the etymology of the word <i>mob</i>?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> <b>Optimism and Pessimism.</b> The meanings of these +two opposites are readily made out from the Latin words from which +they come.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> <b>St. Bernard de Clairvaux</b> (1091-1153), French +ecclesiastic.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> <b>Jesus.</b> Holmes writes of Emerson: "Jesus was for +him a divine manifestation, but only as other great human souls have +been in all ages and are to-day. He was willing to be called a +Christian just as he was willing to be called a Platonist.... If he +did not worship the 'man Christ Jesus' as the churches of Christendom +have done, he followed his footsteps so nearly that our good +Methodist, Father Taylor, spoke of him as more like Christ than any +man he had known."</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_293" id="Page_293"></a>[293] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> The first <i>his</i> refers to Jesus, the second to +Shakespeare.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> <b>Banyan</b>. What is the characteristic of this tree +that makes it appropriate for this figure?</p></div> + + +<h3>SELF-RELIANCE</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> <b>Ne te</b>, etc. "Do not seek for anything outside +of thyself." From Persius, <i>Sat.</i> I. 7. Compare Macrobius, <i>Com. in +Somn. Scip.</i>, I. ix. 3, and Boethius, <i>De Consol. Phil.</i>, IV. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> <i>Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's +Fortune</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> These lines appear in Emerson's <i>Quatrains</i> under +the title <i>Power</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> <b>Genius</b>. See the paragraph on genius in +Emerson's lecture on <i>The Method of Nature</i>, one sentence of which +runs: "Genius is its own end, and draws its means and the style of its +architecture from within, going abroad only for audience, and +spectator."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> "The man that stands by himself, the universe +stands by him also."—<span class="smcap">Emerson</span>, <i>Behavior</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> <b>Plato</b> (429-347 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>), (See note + <a href="#Footnote_36_36">36</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> <b>Milton</b> (1608-1674), the great English epic +poet, author of <i>Paradise Lost.</i> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God-gifted organ-voice of England,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Milton, a name to resound for ages."</span><span class=" i12 smcap">Tennyson</span>.<br /> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> "The great poet makes feel our own +wealth."—<span class="smcap">Emerson</span>, <i>The Over-Soul</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> <b>Then most when</b>, most at the time when.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> "The imitator dooms himself to hopeless +mediocrity."—<span class="smcap">Emerson</span>, <i>Address to the Senior Class in +Divinity College, Cambridge</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For words, like Nature, half reveal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And half conceal the soul within."<br /></span> +<span class="i7"><span class="smcap">Tennyson</span>, <i>In Memoriam</i>, V. I.</span><br /> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> <b>Trust thyself</b>. This is the theme of the present +essay, and is a lesson which Emerson is never tired of teaching. In +<i>The American Scholar</i> he says: <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></a>[294] </span> +</p><p> +"In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended." In the essay on +<i>Greatness</i>: +</p><p> +"Self-respect is the early form in which greatness appears.... Stick +to your own.... Follow the path your genius traces like the galaxy of +heaven for you to walk in." +</p><p> +Carlyle says: +</p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself."</p></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> <b>Chaos</b> (Χάος), the confused, +unorganized condition in which the world was supposed to have existed +before it was reduced to harmony and order; hence, utter confusion and +disorder.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> <b>These</b>, <i>i.e.</i>, children, babes, and brutes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> <b>Four or five</b>. Supply the noun.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> <b>Nonchalance</b>, a French word meaning +<i>indifference</i>, <i>coolness</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> <b>Pit in the playhouse</b>, formerly, the seats on +the floor below the level of the stage. These cheap seats were +occupied by a class who did not hesitate to express their opinions of +the performances.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> <b>Eclat</b>, a French word meaning <i>brilliancy of +success</i>, <i>striking effect</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> "Lethe, the river of oblivion."—<i>Paradise Lost</i>. +Oblivion, forgetfulness.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> <b>Who</b>. What is the construction?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> <b>Nonconformist</b>, one who does not conform to +established usages or opinions. Emerson considers conformity and +consistency as the two terrors that scare us from self-trust. (See +note <a href="#Footnote_182_182">182</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> <b>Explore if it be goodness</b>, investigate for +himself and see if it be really goodness. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."<br /></span> +<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Paul</span>, <i>I. Thes.</i> v. 21.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> <b>Suffrage</b>, approval. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."<br /></span> +<span class="i8"><span class="smcap">Shakespeare</span>, <i>II. Henry VI.</i>, III. 2.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> "There is nothing either good or bad, but +thinking makes it so." —<i>Hamlet</i>, <span class="smcap">ii</span>. 2.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_295" id="Page_295"></a>[295] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> <b>Barbadoes</b>, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, one +of the Lesser Antilles. The negroes, composing by far the larger part +of the population, were formerly slaves.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> He had rather have his actions ascribed to whim +and caprice than to spend the day in explaining them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> <b>Diet and bleeding</b>, special diet and medical +care, used figuratively, of course.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> Read Emerson's essay on <i>Greatness</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> <b>The precise man</b>, precisely what kind of man.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> "By their fruits ye shall know them."—<i>Matthew</i>, +vii. 16 and 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> <b>With</b>, notwithstanding, in spite of.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> <b>Of the bench</b>, of an impartial judge.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> <b>Bound their eyes with ... handkerchief</b>, in this +game of blindman's-buff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> "Pin thy faith to no man's sleeve; hast thou not +two eyes of thy own?"—<span class="smcap">Carlyle</span>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> Give examples of men who have been made to feel +the displeasure of the world for their nonconformity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> "Nihil tam incertum nec tam inæstimabile est quam +animi multitudinis."—<span class="smcap">Livy</span>, xxxi. 34. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Mobile mutatur semper cum principe vulgus."<br /></span> +<span class="i3"><span class="smcap">Claudianus</span>, <i>De IV. Consul. Honorii</i>, 302.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> <i>The other terror.</i> The first, conformity, has +just been treated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> <b>Consistency</b>. Compare, on the other hand, the +well-known saying, "Consistency, thou art a jewel."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> <b>Orbit</b>, course in life.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> <b>Somewhat</b>, something.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> See <i>Genesis</i>, xxxix. 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> <b>Pythagoras</b> (fl. about 520 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>), a +Greek philosopher. His society was scattered and persecuted by the +fury of the populace.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> <b>Socrates</b> (470?-399 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>), the great +Athenian philosopher, whose teachings are the subject of most of +Plato's writings, was accused of corrupting the youth, and condemned +to drink hemlock.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> <b>Martin Luther</b> (1483-1546) preached against +certain abuses of the Roman Catholic Church and was excommunicated by +the Pope. He became the leader of the Protestant Reformation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> <b>Copernicus</b> (1473-1543) discovered the error of +the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_296" id="Page_296"></a>[296] </span> old Ptolemaic system of astronomy and showed that the sun is the +centre of our planetary system. Fearing the persecution of the church, +he hesitated long to publish his discovery, and it was many years +after his death before the world accepted his theory.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> <b>Galileo</b> (1564-1642), the famous Italian +astronomer and physicist, discoverer of the satellites of Jupiter and +the rings of Saturn, was thrown into prison by the Inquisition.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> <b>Sir Isaac Newton.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_53_53">53</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> <b>Andes</b>, the great mountain system of South +America.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> <b>Himmaleh</b>, Himalaya, the great mountain system +of Asia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> <b>Alexandrian stanza.</b> The Alexandrian line +consists of twelve syllables (iambic hexameter). Neither the acrostic +nor the Alexandrine has the property assigned to it here. A palindrame +reads the same forward as backward, as: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">"Madam, I'm Adam";<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Signa te signa; temere me tangis et angis";<br /></span> +</div></div> + +or the inscription on the church of St. Sophia, Constantinople: + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"> Νίψον ἀνοήματα μὴ μόναν ὄψιν<br /> +</span> + +</div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> The reference is to sailing vessels, of course.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> <b>Scorn eyes</b>, scorn observers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> <b>Chatham</b>, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham +(1708-1778), this distinguished statesman and orator. He became very +popular as a statesman and was known as "The Great Commoner."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> <b>Adams.</b> The reference is presumably to Samuel +Adams (1722-1803), a popular leader and orator in the cause of +American freedom. He was a member of the Continental Congress and a +signer of the Declaration of Independence. Emerson may have in mind, +however, John Adams (1735-1826), second president of the United +States.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> <b>Spartan.</b> The ancient Spartans were noted for +their courage and fortitude.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> <b>Julius Cæsar</b> (100-44 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>), the great +Roman general, statesman, orator, and author.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> <b>St. Anthony</b> (251-356), Egyptian founder of +monachism, the system of monastic seclusion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> <b>George Fox</b> (1624-1691), English founder of the +Society of Friends or Quakers.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_297" id="Page_297"></a>[297] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> <b>John Wesley</b> (1703-1791), English founder of the +religious sect known as Methodists.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> <b>Thomas Clarkson</b> (1760-1846), English +philanthropist and abolitionist.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> <b>Scipio</b> (235-184 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>), the great Roman +general who defeated Hannibal and decided the fate of Carthage. The +quotation is from <i>Paradise Lost</i>, Book IX., line 610.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> In the story of <i>Abou Hassan</i> or <i>The Sleeper +Awakened</i> in the <i>Arabian Nights</i> Abou Hassan awakes and finds himself +treated in every respect as the Caliph Haroun Al-raschid. Shakespeare +has made use of a similar trick in <i>Taming of the Shrew</i>, where +Christopher Sly is put to bed drunk in the lord's room and on awaking +is treated as a lord.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> <b>Alfred the Great</b> (849-901), King of the West +Saxons. He was a wise king, a great scholar, and a patron of +learning.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> <b>Scanderbeg</b>, George Castriota (1404-1467), an +Albanian chief who embraced Christianity and carried on a successful +war against the Turks.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> <b>Gustavus Adolphus</b> (1594-1632), King of Sweden, +the hero of Protestantism in the Thirty Years' War.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> <b>Hieroglyphic</b>, a character in the +picture-writing of the ancient Egyptian priests; hence, hidden sign.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> <b>Parallax</b>, an angle used in astronomy in +calculating the distance of a heavenly body. The parallax decreases as +the distance of the body increases.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> The child has the advantage of the experience of +all his ancestors. Compare Tennyson's line in <i>Locksley Hall</i>: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> "Why should we grope among the dry bones of the +past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded +wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also."—<span class="smcap">Emerson</span>, <i>Introd. to +Nature, Addresses, etc.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> Explain the thought in this sentence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> <b>Judas Iscariot</b>, who betrayed Jesus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> <b>Agent</b>, active, acting.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> An allusion to the Mohammedan custom of removing +the shoes before entering a mosque.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> Of a truth, men are mystically united; a mystic +bond of brotherhood makes all men one.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> <b>Thor and Woden.</b> Woden or Odin was the chief +god of Scandinavian mythology. Thor, his elder son, was the god of +thunder. From these names come the names of the days Wednesday and +Thursday.</p></div> +<p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></a>[298] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> Explain the meaning of this sentence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> <b>You, or you</b>, addressing different persons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> "The truth shall make you free."—<i>John</i>, viii. +32.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> <b>Antinomianism</b>, the doctrine that the moral law +is not binding under the gospel dispensation, faith alone being +necessary to salvation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> "There is no sorrow I have thought more about +than that—to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to +fail."<br /> +<span style="margin-left:8em"><span class="smcap">George Eliot</span>, <i>Middlemarch</i>, lxxvi.</span><br /> + +</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> Explain the use of <i>it</i> in these expressions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> <b>Stoic</b>, a disciple of the Greek philosopher +Zeno, who taught that men should be free from passion, unmoved by joy +and grief, and should submit without complaint to the inevitable.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> <b>Word made flesh</b>, see <i>John</i>, i. 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> <b>Healing to the nations</b>, see <i>Revelation</i>, +xxii. 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> <b>In what prayers do men allow themselves</b> to +indulge?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Uttered or unexpressed,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The motion of a hidden fire<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That trembles in the breast."<br /></span> +<span class="i11"><span class="smcap">Montgomery</span>, <i>What is Prayer?</i><br /></span> +</div> +</div></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> <b>Caratach</b> (Caractacus) is a historical +character in Fletcher's (1576-1625) tragedy of <i>Bonduca</i> (Boadicea).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> <b>Zoroaster</b>, a Persian philosopher, founder of +the ancient Persian religion. He flourished long before the Christian +era.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> "Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let +not God speak with us, lest we die."—<i>Exodus</i>, xx. 19. Compare also +the parallel passage in <i>Deuteronomy</i>, v. 25-27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> <b>John Locke.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_18_18">18</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> <b>Lavoisier</b> (1743-1794), celebrated French +chemical philosopher, discoverer of the composition of water.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> <b>James Hutton</b> (1726-1797), great Scotch +geologist, author of the <i>Theory of the Earth</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> <b>Jeremy Bentham</b> (1748-1832), English +philosopher, jurist, and legislative reformer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> <b>Fourier</b> (1772-1837), French socialist, founder +of the system of Fourierism.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> <b>Calvinism</b>, the doctrines of John Calvin +(1509-1564). French theologian and Protestant reformer. A cardinal +doctrine of Calvinism is predestination.</p></div> + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_299" id="Page_299"></a>[299] </span> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> <b>Quakerism</b>, the doctrines of the Quakers or +Friends, a society founded by George Fox (1624-1691).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> <b>Emanuel Swedenborg</b> (1688-1772), Swedish +theosophist, founder of the New Jerusalem Church. He is taken by +Emerson in his <i>Representative Men</i> as the type of the mystic, and is +often mentioned in his other works.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> "Though we travel the world over to find the +beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it +not."—<span class="smcap">Emerson</span>, <i>Art</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> <b>Thebes</b>, a celebrated ruined city of Upper +Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> <b>Palmyra</b>, a ruined city of Asia situated in an +oasis of the Syrian desert, supposed to be the Tadmor built by Solomon +in the wilderness (<i>II. Chr.</i>, viii. 4).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Vain, very vain, my weary search to find<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That bliss which only centers in the mind....<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Our own felicity we make or find."<br /></span> +<span class="i8"><span class="smcap">Goldsmith</span> (and <span class="smcap">Johnson</span>),<br /></span> +<span class="i10"><i>The Traveler</i>, 423-32.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He that has light within his own clear breast<br /></span> +<span class="i1">May sit i' th' center, and enjoy bright day;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Himself in his own dungeon."<br /></span> +<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Milton,</span> <i>Comus</i>, 381-5.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +Compare also <i>Paradise Lost</i>, I, 255-7.</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> <b>Vatican</b>, the palace of the pope in Rome, with +its celebrated library, museum, and art gallery.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> <b>Doric</b>, the oldest, strongest, and simplest of +the three styles of Grecian architecture.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> <b>Gothic</b>, a pointed style of architecture, +prevalent in western Europe in the latter part of the middle ages.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> <b>Never imitate.</b> Emerson insists on this +doctrine.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> <b>Shakespeare</b> (1564-1616), the great English +poet and dramatist. He is mentioned in Emerson's writings more than +any other character in history, and is taken as the type of the poet +in his <i>Representative Men</i>. +</p><p> +"O mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and +merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, +like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,—like frost and +snow, rain and dew, hailstorm and thunder, which are to be studied +with entire submission <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></a>[300] </span> of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith +that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless +or inert,—but that, the further we press in our discoveries, the more +we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where +the careless eye had seen nothing but accident!"—<span class="smcap">De Quincy.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> <b>Benjamin Franklin</b> (1706-1790), American +philosopher, statesman, diplomatist, and author. He discovered the +identity of lightning with electricity, invented the lightning-rod, +went on several diplomatic missions to Europe, was one of the +committee that drew up the Declaration of Independence, signed the +treaty of Paris, and compiled <i>Poor Richard's Almanac</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> <b>Francis Bacon</b> (1561-1626), a famous English +philosopher and statesman. He became Lord Chancellor under Elizabeth. +He is best known by his <i>Essays</i>; he wrote also the <i>Novum Organum</i> +and the <i>Advancement of Learning</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> <b>Sir Isaac Newton.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_53_53">53</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> <b>Scipio.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_205_205">205</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> <b>Phidias</b> (500?-432? <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>), famous +Greek sculptor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> <b>Egyptians.</b> He has in mind the pyramids.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> The Pentateuch is attributed to Moses.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> <b>Dante</b> (1265-1321), the greatest of Italian +poets, author of the <i>Divina Commedia</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> <b>Foreworld</b>, a former ideal state of the +world.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> <b>New Zealander</b>, inhabitant of New Zealand, a +group of two islands lying southeast of Australia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> <b>Geneva</b>, a city of Switzerland, situated at the +southwestern extremity of Lake Geneva.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> <b>Greenwich nautical almanac.</b> The meridian of +the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, near London, is the prime meridian +for reckoning the longitude of the world. The nautical almanac is a +publication containing astronomical data for the use of navigators and +astronomers. What is the name of the corresponding publication of the +U.S. Observatory at Washington?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> Get the meaning of these astronomical terms.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> <b>Plutarch.</b> (50?-120? <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>), Greek +philosopher and biographer, author of <i>Parallel Lives</i>, a series of +Greek and Roman biographies. Next after Shakespeare and Plato he is +the author most frequently mentioned by Emerson. Read the essay of +Emerson on Plutarch.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> <b>Phocion</b> (402-317 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>), Athenian +statesman and general. (See note <a href="#Footnote_364_364">364</a>.)</p> +</div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_301" id="Page_301"></a>[301] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> <b>Anaxagoras</b> (500-426 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>), Greek +philosopher of distinction.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> Diogenes (400?-323?), Greek cynic philosopher +who affected great contempt for riches and honors and the comforts of +civilized life, and is said to have taken up his residence in a tub.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> <b>Henry Hudson</b> (—— - 1611), English navigator +and explorer, discoverer of the bay and river which bear his name.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> <b>Bering</b> or <b>Behring</b> (1680-1741), Danish +navigator, discoverer of Behring Strait.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> <b>Sir William Edward Parry</b> (1790-1855), English +navigator and Arctic explorer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> <b>Sir John Franklin</b> (1786-1846?), celebrated +English navigator and Arctic explorer, lost in the Arctic seas.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> <b>Christopher Columbus</b> (1445?-1506), Genoese +navigator and discoverer of America. His ship, the Santa Maria, +appears small and insignificant in comparison with the modern ocean +ship.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> <b>Napoleon Bonaparte</b> (1769-1821), Emperor of +France, one of the greatest military geniuses the world has ever seen. +He was defeated in the battle of Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington, +and died in exile on the isle of St. Helena. Emerson takes him as a +type of the man of the world in his <i>Representative Men</i>: "I call +Napoleon the agent or attorney of the middle class of modern +society.... He was the agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the +internal improver, the liberal, the radical, the inventor of means, +the opener of doors and markets, the subverter of monopoly and +abuse.... He had the virtues of the masses of his constituents: he had +also their vices. I am sorry that the brilliant picture has its +reverse."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> <b>Comte de las Cases</b> (not Casas) (1766-1842), +author of <i>Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> <b>Ali</b>, Arabian caliph, surnamed the "Lion of +God," cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed. He was assassinated about +661.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> The county of Essex in England has several +namesakes in America.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> <b>Fortune</b>. In Roman mythology Fortune, the +goddess of fortune or chance, is represented as standing on a ball or +wheel. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Nec metuis dubio Fortunæ stantis in orbe<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Numen, et exosæ verba superba deæ?"<br /></span> +<span class="i12"><span class="smcap">Ovid,</span> <i>Tristia</i>, v., 8, 8.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_302" id="Page_302"></a>[302] </span> </p> + + +<h3>FRIENDSHIP</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> Most of Emerson's <i>Essays</i> were first delivered +as lectures, in practically the form in which they afterwards appeared +in print. The form and style, it is true, were always carefully +revised before publication; this Emerson called 'giving his thoughts a +Greek dress.' His essay on <i>Friendship</i>, published in the First Series +of <i>Essays</i> in 1841 was not, so far as we know, delivered as a +lecture; parts of it, however, were taken from lectures which Emerson +delivered on <i>Society</i>, <i>The Heart</i>, and <i>Private Life</i>. +</p><p> +In connection with his essay on <i>Friendship</i>, the student should read +the two other notable addresses on the same subject, one the speech by +Cicero, the famous Roman orator, and the other the essay by Lord +Bacon, the great English author.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> <b>Relume.</b> Is this a common word? Define it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> <b>Pass my gate.</b> The walk opposite Emerson's +house on the 'Great Road' to Boston was a favorite winter walk for +Concord people. Along it passed the philosophic Alcott and the +imaginative Hawthorne, as well as famous townsmen, and school +children.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> <b>My friends have come to me</b>, etc.: Compare with +Emerson's views here expressed the noble passage in his essay on <i>The +Over-Soul</i>: "Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great +and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And +this because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a +wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood +rolls uninterruptedly in endless circulation through all men, as the +water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> <b>Bard.</b> Poet: originally one who composed and +sang to the music of a harp verses in honor of heroes and heroic +deeds.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> <b>Hymn, ode, and epic.</b> Define each of these three +kinds of poetry.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> <b>Apollo.</b> In classic mythology, the sun god who +presided over music, poetry, and art; he was the guardian and leader +of the Muses.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> <b>Muses.</b> In classic mythology, the nine sisters +who presided over music, poetry, art, and science. They were Clio the +muse of history, Euterpe of music, especially the flute, Thalia of +comedy, Melpomene of tragedy, Terpsichore of dancing, Erato of erotic +poetry, mistress of the lyre, Polyhymnia of sacred poetry, Urania of +astronomy, Calliope of eloquence and epic poetry.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_303" id="Page_303"></a>[303] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> <b>Genius.</b> According to an old belief, a spirit +that watched over a person to control, guide and aid him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> "<b>Crush the sweet poison</b>," etc. This is a +quotation from <i>Comus</i>, a poem by Milton.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> <b>Systole and diastole.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_98_98">98</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> <b>Friendship, like the immortality</b>, etc. See on +what a high plane Emerson places this relation of friendship. In 1840 +he wrote in a letter: "I am a worshiper of friendship, and cannot find +any other good equal to it. As soon as any man pronounces the words +which approve him fit for that great office, I make no haste; he is +holy; let me be holy also; our relations are eternal; why should we +count days and weeks?"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> <b>Elysian temple.</b> Temple of bliss. In Greek +mythology, Elysium was the abode of the blessed after death.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> <b>An Egyptian skull.</b> Plutarch says that at an +Egyptian feast a skull was displayed, either as a hint to make the +most of the pleasure which can be enjoyed but for a brief space, or as +a warning not to set one's heart upon transitory things.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> <b>Conscious of a universal success</b>, etc. Emerson +wrote in his journal: "My entire success, such as it is, is composed +wholly of particular failures."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> <b>Extends the old leaf.</b> Compare Emerson's lines: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"When half-gods go<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods arrive."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> <b>A texture of wine and dreams.</b> What does +Emerson mean by this phrase? Explain the whole sentence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> "<b>The valiant warrior</b>," etc. The quotation is +from Shakespeare's <i>Sonnet</i>, <span class="smcap">xxv</span>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> <b>Naturlangsamkeit.</b> A German word meaning +slowness. The slowness of natural development.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> <b>Olympian.</b> One who took part in the great Greek +games held every four years on the plain of Olympia. The racing, +wrestling and other contests of strength and skill were accompanied by +sacrifices to the gods, processions, and banquets. There was a sense +of dignity and almost of worship about the games. The Olympic games +have been recently revived, and athletes from all countries of the +world contest for the prizes—simple garlands of wild olive.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> <b>I knew a man who</b>, etc. The allusion is to +Jonas Very, a mystic and poet, who lived at Salem, Massachusetts.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_304" id="Page_304"></a>[304] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> <b>Paradox.</b> Define this word. Explain its +application to a friend.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> <b>My author says</b>, etc. The quotation is from <i>A +Consideration upon Cicero</i>, by the French author, Montaigne. Montaigne +was one of Emerson's favorite authors from his boyhood: of the essays +he says, "I felt as if I myself, had written this book in some former +life, so sincerely it spoke my thoughts."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> <b>Cherub.</b> What is the difference between a +cherub and a seraph?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> <b>Curricle.</b> A two-wheeled carriage, especially +popular in the eighteenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> <b>This law of one to one.</b> Emerson felt that this +same law applied to nature. He wrote in his journal: "Nature says to +man, 'one to one, my dear.'"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> <b>Crimen quos</b>, etc. The Latin saying is +translated in the preceding sentence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> <b>Nonage.</b> We use more commonly the word, +"minority."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> <b>Janus-faced.</b> The word here means simply +two-faced, without the idea of deceit usually attached to it. In Roman +mythology, Janus, the doorkeeper of heaven was the protector of doors +and gateways and the patron of the beginning and end of undertakings. +He was the god of the rising and setting of the sun, and was +represented with two faces, one looking to the east and the other to +the west. His temple at Rome was kept open in time of war and closed +in time of peace.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> <b>Harbinger.</b> A forerunner; originally an officer +who rode in advance of a royal person to secure proper lodgings and +accommodations.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> <b>Empyrean.</b> Highest and purest heaven; according +to the ancients, the region of pure light and fire.</p></div> + + +<h3>HEROISM</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> <b>Title.</b> Probably this essay is, essentially at +least, the lecture on <i>Heroism</i> delivered in Boston in the winter of +1837, in the course of lectures on <i>Human Culture</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> <b>Motto.</b> This saying of Mahomet's was the only +motto prefixed to the essay in the first edition. In later editions, +Emerson prefixed, according to his custom, some original lines; <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_305" id="Page_305"></a>[305] </span> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ruby wine is drunk by knaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sugar spends to fatten slaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thunder clouds are Jove's festoons,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drooping oft in wreaths of dread<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lightning-knotted round his head:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hero is not fed on sweets,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Daily his own heart he eats;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chambers of the great are jails,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And head-winds right for royal sails."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> <b>Elder English dramatists.</b> The dramatists who +preceded Shakespeare. In his essay on <i>Shakespeare; or, the Poet</i>, +Emerson enumerates the foremost of these,—"Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, +Jonson, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Peele, Ford, +Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> <b>Beaumont and Fletcher.</b> Francis Beaumont and +John Fletcher were two dramatists of the Elizabethan age. They wrote +together and their styles were so similar that critics are unable to +identify the share of each in their numerous plays.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> <b>Rodrigo, Pedro, or Valerio.</b> Favorite names for +heroes among the dramatists. Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, known usually by +the title of the Cid, was the national hero of Spain, famous for his +exploits against the Moors. Don Pedro was the Prince of Arragon in +Shakespeare's play, <i>Much Ado About Nothing</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> <b>Bonduca, Sophocles, the Mad Lover, and Double +Marriage.</b> The first, third and fourth are names of plays by Beaumont +and Fletcher. In the case of the second, Emerson, by a lapse of +memory, gives the name of one of the chief characters instead of the +name of the play—<i>The Triumph of Honor</i> in a piece called <i>Four Plays +in One</i>. It is from this play by Beaumont and Fletcher that the +passage in the essay is quoted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> <b>Adriadne's crown.</b> According to Greek +mythology, the crown of Adriadne was, for her beauty and her +sufferings, put among the stars. She was the daughter of Minos, King +of Crete; she gave Theseus the clue by means of which he escaped from +the labyrinth and she was afterwards abandoned by him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> <b>Romulus.</b> The reputed founder of the city of +Rome.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> <b>Laodamia, Dion.</b> Read these two poems by +Wordsworth, the great English poet, and tell why you think Emerson +mentioned them here.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_306" id="Page_306"></a>[306] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> <b>Scott</b>. Sir Walter Scott, a famous Scotch +author.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> <b>Lord Evandale, Balfour of Burley.</b> These are +characters in Scott's novel, <i>Old Mortality</i>. The passage referred to +by Emerson is in the forty-second chapter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> <b>Thomas Carlyle.</b> Carlyle was a great admirer of +heroes, asserting that history is the biography of great men. One of +his most popular books is <i>Heroes and Hero-Worship</i>, on a plan similar +to that of Emerson's <i>Representative Men</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> <b>Robert Burns.</b> A Scotch lyric poet. Emerson was +probably thinking of the patriotic song, <i>Scots wha hae wi' Wallace +bled</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> <b>Harleian Miscellanies.</b> A collection of +manuscripts published in the eighteenth century, and named for Robert +Harley, the English statesman who collected them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> <b>Lutzen.</b> A small town in Prussia. The battle +referred to was fought in 1632 and in it the Swedes under Gustavus +Adolphus gained a great victory over vastly superior numbers. Nearly +two hundred years later another battle was fought at Lutzen, in which +Napoleon gained a victory over the allied Russians and Prussians.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> <b>Simon Ockley.</b> An English scholar of the +seventeenth century whose chief work was a <i>History of the Saracens</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> <b>Oxford.</b> One of the two great English +universities.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> <b>Plutarch.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_264_264">264</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> <b>Brasidas.</b> This hero, described by Plutarch, +was a Spartan general who lived about four hundred years before +Christ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> <b>Dion.</b> A Greek philosopher who ruled the city +of Syracuse in the fourth century before Christ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329_329" id="Footnote_329_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> <b>Epaminondas.</b> A Greek general and statesman of +the fourth century before Christ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330_330" id="Footnote_330_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> <b>Scipio.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_205_205">205</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331_331" id="Footnote_331_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> <b>Stoicism.</b> The stern and severe philosophy +taught by the Greek philosopher Zeno; he taught that men should always +seek virtue and be indifferent to pleasure and happiness. This belief, +carried to the extreme of severity, exercised a great influence on +many noble Greeks and Romans.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332_332" id="Footnote_332_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> <b>Heroism is an obedience</b>, etc. In one of his +poems Emerson says: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"So nigh is grandeur to our dust,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So near is God to man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The youth replies, 'I can.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_307" id="Page_307"></a>[307] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333_333" id="Footnote_333_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> <b>Plotinus.</b> An Egyptian philosopher who taught +in Rome during the third century. It was said that he so exalted the +mind that he was ashamed of his body.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334_334" id="Footnote_334_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a> <b>Indeed these humble considerations</b>, etc. The +passage, like many which Emerson quotes, is rendered inexactly. The +Prince says to Poins: "Indeed these humble considerations make me out +of love with my greatness. What a disgrace it is to me to remember thy +name! or to know thy face to-morrow! or to take note how many pairs of +silk stockings thou hast, that is, these and those that were thy +peach-colored ones! or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as, one +for superfluity and another for use!" Shakespeare's <i>Henry IV.</i>, Part +II. 2, 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335_335" id="Footnote_335_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> <b>Ibn Hankal.</b> Ibn Hankul, an Arabian geographer +and traveler of the tenth century. He wrote an account of his twenty +years' travels in Mohammedan countries; in 1800 this was translated +into English by Sir William Jones under the title of <i>The Oriental +Geography of Ibn Hankal</i>. In that volume this anecdote is told in +slightly different words.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336_336" id="Footnote_336_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> <b>Bokhara.</b> Where is Bokhara? It corresponds to +the ancient Sogdiana.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337_337" id="Footnote_337_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a> <b>Bannocks.</b> Thick cakes, made usually of +oatmeal. What does Emerson mean by this sentence? Probably no person +ever met his visitors, many of whom were "exacting and wearisome," and +must have been unwelcome, with more perfect courtesy and graciousness +than Emerson.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338_338" id="Footnote_338_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_338"><span class="label">[338]</span></a> <b>John Eliot.</b> Give as full an account as you can +of the life and works of this noble Apostle to the Indians of the +seventeenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339_339" id="Footnote_339_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_339"><span class="label">[339]</span></a> <b>King David</b>, etc. See First Chronicles, 11, +15-19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340_340" id="Footnote_340_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_340"><span class="label">[340]</span></a> <b>Brutus.</b> Marcus Junius Brutus, a Roman patriot +of the first century before Christ, who took part in the assassination +of Julius Cæsar.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341_341" id="Footnote_341_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_341"><span class="label">[341]</span></a> <b>Philippi.</b> A city of Macedonia near which in +the year 42 B.C. were fought two battles in which the republican army +under Brutus and Cassius was defeated by Octavius and Antony, friends +of Cæsar.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342_342" id="Footnote_342_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_342"><span class="label">[342]</span></a> <b>Euripides.</b> A Greek tragic poet of the fifth +century before Christ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_343_343" id="Footnote_343_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_343"><span class="label">[343]</span></a> <b>Scipio.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_205_205">205</a>.) Plutarch in his +<i>Morals</i> gives another version of the story: "When Paetilius and +Quintus accused him of many crimes before the people; 'on this very +day,' he said, 'I conquered Hannibal and Carthage. I for my part am +going with my crown on to the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_308" id="Page_308"></a>[308] </span> Capitol to sacrifice; and let him that +pleaseth stay and pass his vote upon me.' Having thus said, he went +his way; and the people followed him, leaving his accusers declaiming +to themselves."</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_344_344" id="Footnote_344_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_344"><span class="label">[344]</span></a> <b>Socrates.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_187_187">187</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_345_345" id="Footnote_345_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345_345"><span class="label">[345]</span></a> <b>Prytaneum.</b> A public hall at Athens.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_346_346" id="Footnote_346_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346_346"><span class="label">[346]</span></a> <b>Sir Thomas More.</b> An English statesman and +author who was beheaded in 1535 on a charge of high treason. The +incident to which Emerson refers is one which showed his "pleasant +wit" undisturbed by the prospect of death. As the executioner was +about to strike, More moved his head carefully out of reach of the ax. +"Pity that should be cut," he said, "that has never committed +treason."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_347_347" id="Footnote_347_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347_347"><span class="label">[347]</span></a> <b>Blue Laws.</b> Any rigid Sunday laws or religious +regulations. The term is usually applied to the early laws of New +Haven and Connecticut which regulated personal and religious conduct.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_348_348" id="Footnote_348_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348_348"><span class="label">[348]</span></a> <b>Epaminondas.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_329_329">329</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_349_349" id="Footnote_349_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349_349"><span class="label">[349]</span></a> <b>Olympus.</b> A mountain of Greece, the summit of +which, according to Greek mythology, was the home of the gods.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_350_350" id="Footnote_350_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350_350"><span class="label">[350]</span></a> <b>Jerseys.</b> Consult a history of the United +States for a full account of Washington's campaign in New Jersey.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_351_351" id="Footnote_351_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351_351"><span class="label">[351]</span></a> <b>Milton.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_151_151">151</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_352_352" id="Footnote_352_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352_352"><span class="label">[352]</span></a> <b>Pericles.</b> A famous Greek statesman of the +fifth century before Christ, in whose age Athens was preëminent in +naval and military affairs and in letters and art.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_353_353" id="Footnote_353_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353_353"><span class="label">[353]</span></a> <b>Xenophon.</b> A Greek historian of the fourth +century before Christ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_354_354" id="Footnote_354_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354_354"><span class="label">[354]</span></a> <b>Columbus.</b> Give an account of his life.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_355_355" id="Footnote_355_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355_355"><span class="label">[355]</span></a> <b>Bayard.</b> Chevalier de Bayard was a French +gentleman of the fifteenth century. He is the French national hero, +and is called "The Knight without fear and without reproach."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_356_356" id="Footnote_356_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_356_356"><span class="label">[356]</span></a> <b>Sidney.</b> Probably Sir Philip Sidney, an English +gentleman and scholar of the sixteenth century who is the English +national hero as Bayard is the French; another brave Englishman was +Algernon Sidney, a politician and patriot of the seventeenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_357_357" id="Footnote_357_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_357_357"><span class="label">[357]</span></a> <b>Hampden.</b> John Hampden was an English +statesman and patriot who was killed in the civil war of the +seventeenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_358_358" id="Footnote_358_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_358_358"><span class="label">[358]</span></a> <b>Colossus.</b> The Colossus of Rhodes was a +gigantic statue—over a hundred feet in height—of the Rhodian sun <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_309" id="Page_309"></a>[309] </span> +god. It was one of the seven wonders of the world; it was destroyed by +an earthquake about two hundred years before Christ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_359_359" id="Footnote_359_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359_359"><span class="label">[359]</span></a> <b>Sappho.</b> A Greek poet of the seventh century +before Christ. Her fame remains, though most of her poems have been +lost.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_360_360" id="Footnote_360_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360_360"><span class="label">[360]</span></a> <b>Sevigné.</b> Marquise de Sevigné was a French +author of the seventeenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_361_361" id="Footnote_361_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_361_361"><span class="label">[361]</span></a> <b>De Staël.</b> Madame de Staël was a French writer +whose books and political opinions were condemned by Napoleon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_362_362" id="Footnote_362_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_362_362"><span class="label">[362]</span></a> <b>Themis.</b> A Greek goddess. The personification +of law, order, and justice.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_363_363" id="Footnote_363_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363_363"><span class="label">[363]</span></a> <b>A high counsel</b>, etc. Such was the advice given +to the Emerson boys by their aunt, Miss Mary Moody Emerson: "Scorn +trifles, lift your aims; do what you are afraid to do; sublimity of +character must come from sublimity of motive." Upon her monument are +inscribed Emerson's words about her: "She gave high counsels. It was +the privilege of certain boys to have this immeasurably high standard +indicated to their childhood, a blessing which nothing else in +education could supply."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_364_364" id="Footnote_364_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364_364"><span class="label">[364]</span></a> <b>Phocion.</b> A Greek general and statesman of the +fourth century before Christ who advised the Athenians to make peace +with Philip of Macedon. He was put to death on a charge of treason.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_365_365" id="Footnote_365_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_365_365"><span class="label">[365]</span></a> <b>Lovejoy.</b> Rev. Elijah Lovejoy, a Presbyterian +clergyman of Maine who published a periodical against slavery. In 1837 +an Illinois mob demanded his printing press, which he refused to give +up. The building containing it was set on fire and when Lovejoy came +out he was shot.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_366_366" id="Footnote_366_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366_366"><span class="label">[366]</span></a> <b>Let them rave</b>, etc. These lines are misquoted, +being evidently given from memory, from Tennyson's <i>Dirge</i>. In the +poem occur these lines: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"Let them rave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou wilt never raise thine head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the green that folds thy grave—<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Let them rave."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + + +<h3>MANNERS</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_367_367" id="Footnote_367_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_367_367"><span class="label">[367]</span></a> The essay on <i>Manners</i> is from the Second Series +of <i>Essays</i>, published in 1844, three years after the First Series. +The essays in this volume, like those in the first, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_310" id="Page_310"></a>[310] </span> were, for the +most part, made up of Emerson's lectures, rearranged and corrected. +The lecture on <i>Manners</i> had been delivered in the winter of 1841. He +had given another lecture on the same subject about four years before, +and several years later he treated of the same subject in his essay on +<i>Behavior</i> in <i>The Conduct of Life</i>. You will find it interesting to +read <i>Behavior</i> in connection with this essay.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_368_368" id="Footnote_368_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_368_368"><span class="label">[368]</span></a> <b>Feejee islanders.</b> Since this essay was +written, the people of the Feejee, or Fiji, Islands have become +Christianized, and, to a large extent, civilized.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_369_369" id="Footnote_369_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369_369"><span class="label">[369]</span></a> <b>Gournou.</b> This description is found in <i>A +Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the +Pyramids</i>, by Belzoni, an Italian traveler and explorer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_370_370" id="Footnote_370_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370_370"><span class="label">[370]</span></a> <b>Borgoo.</b> A province of Africa.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_371_371" id="Footnote_371_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371_371"><span class="label">[371]</span></a> <b>Tibboos, Bornoos.</b> Tribes of Central Africa, +mentioned in Heeren's <i>Historical Researches</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_372_372" id="Footnote_372_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372_372"><span class="label">[372]</span></a> <b>Honors himself with architecture.</b> Architecture +was a subject in which Emerson was deeply interested. Read his poem, +<i>The Problem</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_373_373" id="Footnote_373_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373_373"><span class="label">[373]</span></a> <b>Chivalry.</b> Chivalry may be considered "as +embodying the Middle Age conception of the ideal life of ... the +Knights"; the word is often used to express "the ideal qualifications +of a knight, as courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms." +Fully to understand the order of Knighthood and the ideals of +chivalry, you must read the history of Europe in the Middle Ages.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_374_374" id="Footnote_374_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_374_374"><span class="label">[374]</span></a> <b>Sir Philip Sidney.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_356_356">356</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_375_375" id="Footnote_375_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_375_375"><span class="label">[375]</span></a> <b>Sir Walter Scott.</b> (1771-1832). His historical +novels dealing with the Middle Ages have some fine pictures of the +chivalrous characters in which he delighted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_376_376" id="Footnote_376_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376_376"><span class="label">[376]</span></a> <b>Masonic sign.</b> A sign of secret brotherhood, +like the sign given by one Mason to another.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_377_377" id="Footnote_377_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377_377"><span class="label">[377]</span></a> <b>Correlative abstract.</b> Corresponding abstract +name. Sir Philip Sidney, himself the ideal gentleman, used the word +"gentlemanliness." He said: "Gentlemanliness is high-erected thoughts +seated in a heart of courtesy."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_378_378" id="Footnote_378_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378_378"><span class="label">[378]</span></a> <b>Gentilesse.</b> Gentle birth and breeding. Emerson +was very fond of the passage on "gentilesse" in Chaucer's <i>Wife of +Bath's Tale</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_379_379" id="Footnote_379_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_379_379"><span class="label">[379]</span></a> <b>Feudal Ages.</b> The Middle Ages in Europe during +which the feudal system prevailed. According to this, land was held by +its owners on condition of certain duties, especially military +service, performed for a superior lord.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_311" id="Page_311"></a>[311] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_380_380" id="Footnote_380_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_380_380"><span class="label">[380]</span></a> <b>God knows</b>, etc. Why is this particularly true +of a republic such as the United States?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_381_381" id="Footnote_381_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_381_381"><span class="label">[381]</span></a> <b>The incomparable advantage of animal spirits.</b> +Why does Emerson regard this as of such importance? In his journals he +frequently comments on his own lack of animal spirits, and says that +it unfits him for general society and for action.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_382_382" id="Footnote_382_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_382_382"><span class="label">[382]</span></a> <b>The sense of power.</b> "I like people who can do +things," wrote Emerson in his journal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_383_383" id="Footnote_383_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_383_383"><span class="label">[383]</span></a> <b>Lundy's Lane.</b> Give a full account of this +battle in the War of 1812.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_384_384" id="Footnote_384_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384_384"><span class="label">[384]</span></a> <b>Men of the right Cæsarian pattern.</b> Men +versatile as was Julius Cæsar, the Roman, famous as a general, +statesman, orator, and writer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_385_385" id="Footnote_385_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385_385"><span class="label">[385]</span></a> <b>Timid maxim.</b> Why does Emerson term this saying +"timid"?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_386_386" id="Footnote_386_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_386_386"><span class="label">[386]</span></a> <b>Lord Falkland.</b> Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland, +was an English politician who espoused the royalist side; he was +killed in battle in the Civil War.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_387_387" id="Footnote_387_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387_387"><span class="label">[387]</span></a> <b>Saladin.</b> A famous sultan of Egypt and Syria +who lived in the twelfth century. Scott describes him as possessing an +ideal knightly character and introduces him, disguised as a physician +and also as a wandering soldier in his historical romance, <i>The +Talisman</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_388_388" id="Footnote_388_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388_388"><span class="label">[388]</span></a> <b>Sapor.</b> A Persian monarch of the fourth century +who defeated the Romans in battle.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_389_389" id="Footnote_389_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389_389"><span class="label">[389]</span></a> <b>The Cid.</b> See "Rodrigo," in <i>Heroism</i>, <a href="#Footnote_313_313">313</a>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_390_390" id="Footnote_390_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390_390"><span class="label">[390]</span></a> <b>Julius Cæsar.</b> See note on "Cæsarian," <a href="#Footnote_384_384">384</a>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_391_391" id="Footnote_391_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391_391"><span class="label">[391]</span></a> <b>Scipio.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_205_205">205</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_392_392" id="Footnote_392_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_392_392"><span class="label">[392]</span></a> <b>Alexander.</b> Alexander, King of Macedon, +surnamed the Great. In the fourth century before Christ he made +himself master of the known world.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_393_393" id="Footnote_393_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393_393"><span class="label">[393]</span></a> <b>Pericles.</b> See note on <i>Heroism</i>, <a href="#Footnote_352_352">352</a>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_394_394" id="Footnote_394_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_394_394"><span class="label">[394]</span></a> <b>Diogenes.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_267_267">267</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_395_395" id="Footnote_395_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_395_395"><span class="label">[395]</span></a> <b>Socrates.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_187_187">187</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_396_396" id="Footnote_396_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396_396"><span class="label">[396]</span></a> <b>Epaminondas.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_329_329">329</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_397_397" id="Footnote_397_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397_397"><span class="label">[397]</span></a> <b>My contemporaries.</b> Emerson probably had in +mind, among others, his friend, the gentle philosopher, Thoreau.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_398_398" id="Footnote_398_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_398_398"><span class="label">[398]</span></a> <b>Fine manners.</b> "I think there is as much merit +in beautiful manners as in hard work," said Emerson in his journal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_399_399" id="Footnote_399_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399_399"><span class="label">[399]</span></a> <b>Napoleon.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_273_273">273</a>.)</p> +</div> + <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_312" id="Page_312"></a>[312] </span> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_400_400" id="Footnote_400_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_400_400"><span class="label">[400]</span></a> <b>Noblesse.</b> Nobility. Why does Emerson use here +the French word?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_401_401" id="Footnote_401_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_401_401"><span class="label">[401]</span></a> <b>Faubourg St. Germain.</b> A once fashionable +quarter of Paris, on the south bank of the Seine; it was long the +headquarters of the French royalists.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_402_402" id="Footnote_402_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_402_402"><span class="label">[402]</span></a> <b>Cortez.</b> Consult a history of the United States +for an account of this Spanish soldier, the conqueror of Mexico.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_403_403" id="Footnote_403_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_403_403"><span class="label">[403]</span></a> <b>Nelson.</b> Horatio Nelson, an English admiral, +who won many great naval victories and was killed in the battle of +Trafalgar in 1805.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_404_404" id="Footnote_404_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404_404"><span class="label">[404]</span></a> <b>Mexico.</b> The scene of Cortez's victories.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_405_405" id="Footnote_405_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_405_405"><span class="label">[405]</span></a> <b>Marengo.</b> The scene of a battle in Italy in +1800, in which Napoleon defeated the Austrians with a larger army and +made himself master of northern Italy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_406_406" id="Footnote_406_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406_406"><span class="label">[406]</span></a> <b>Trafalgar.</b> A cape on the southern coast of +Spain, the scene of Nelson's last great victory, in which the allied +French and Spanish fleets were defeated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_407_407" id="Footnote_407_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407_407"><span class="label">[407]</span></a> <b>Mexico, Marengo, and Trafalgar.</b> Is this the +order in which you would expect these words to occur? Why not?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_408_408" id="Footnote_408_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408_408"><span class="label">[408]</span></a> <b>Estates of the realm.</b> Orders or classes of +people with regard to political rights and powers. In modern times, +the nobility, the clergy, and the people are called "the three +estates."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_409_409" id="Footnote_409_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409_409"><span class="label">[409]</span></a> <b>Tournure.</b> Figure; turn of dress,—and so of +mind.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410_410" id="Footnote_410_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410_410"><span class="label">[410]</span></a> <b>Coventry.</b> It is said that the people of +Coventry, a city in England, at one time so disliked soldiers that to +send a military man there meant to exclude him from social +intercourse; hence the expression "to send to Coventry" means to +exclude from society.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_411_411" id="Footnote_411_411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411_411"><span class="label">[411]</span></a> <b>"If you could see Vich Ian Vohr with his tail +on."</b> Vich Ian Vohr is a Scotch chieftain in Scott's novel, +<i>Waverley</i>. One of his dependents says to Waverley, the young English +officer: "If you Saxon duinhé-wassal [English gentleman] saw but the +Chief with his tail on." "With his tail on?" echoed Edward in some +surprise. "Yes—that is, with all his usual followers when he visits +those of the same rank." See <i>Waverley</i>, chapter 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_412_412" id="Footnote_412_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_412_412"><span class="label">[412]</span></a> <b>Mercuries.</b> The word here means simply +messengers. According to Greek mythology, Mercury was the messenger of +the gods.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_413_413" id="Footnote_413_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_413_413"><span class="label">[413]</span></a> <b>Herald's office.</b> In England the Herald's +College, or College of Arms, is a royal corporation the chief +business <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_313" id="Page_313"></a>[313] </span> of which is to grant armorial bearings, or coats of arms, +and to trace and preserve genealogies. What does Emerson mean by +comparing certain circles of society to this corporation?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_414_414" id="Footnote_414_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414_414"><span class="label">[414]</span></a> <b>Amphitryon.</b> Host; it came to have this meaning +from an incident in the story of Amphitryon, a character in Greek +legend. At one time Jupiter assumed the form of Amphitryon and gave a +banquet. The real Amphitryon came in and asserted that he was master +of the house. In the French play, founded on this story, the question +is settled by the assertion of the servants and guests that "he who +gives the feast is the host."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_415_415" id="Footnote_415_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415_415"><span class="label">[415]</span></a> <b>Tuileries.</b> An old royal residence in Paris +which was burned in 1871.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_416_416" id="Footnote_416_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416_416"><span class="label">[416]</span></a> <b>Escurial</b>, or escorial. A celebrated royal +edifice near Madrid in Spain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_417_417" id="Footnote_417_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417_417"><span class="label">[417]</span></a> <b>Hide ourselves as Adam</b>, etc. See Genesis iii. +8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_418_418" id="Footnote_418_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418_418"><span class="label">[418]</span></a> <b>Cardinal Caprara.</b> An Italian cardinal, Bishop +of Milan, who negotiated the famous concordat of 1801, an agreement +between the Church and State regulating the relations between civil +and ecclesiastical powers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_419_419" id="Footnote_419_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_419_419"><span class="label">[419]</span></a> <b>The pope.</b> Pope Pius VII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_420_420" id="Footnote_420_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_420_420"><span class="label">[420]</span></a> <b>Madame de Staël.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_361_361">361</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_421_421" id="Footnote_421_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_421_421"><span class="label">[421]</span></a> <b>Mr. Hazlitt.</b> William Hazlitt, an English +writer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_422_422" id="Footnote_422_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422_422"><span class="label">[422]</span></a> <b>Montaigne.</b> A French essayist of the sixteenth +century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_423_423" id="Footnote_423_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423_423"><span class="label">[423]</span></a> <b>The hint of tranquillity and self-poise.</b> It is +suggested that Emerson had here in mind a favorite passage of the +German author, Richter, in which Richter says of the Greek statues: +"The repose not of weariness but of perfection looks from their eyes +and rests upon their lips."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_424_424" id="Footnote_424_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_424_424"><span class="label">[424]</span></a> <b>A Chinese etiquette.</b> What does Emerson mean by +this expression?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_425_425" id="Footnote_425_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_425_425"><span class="label">[425]</span></a> <b>Recall.</b> In the first edition, Emerson had here +the word "signify." Which is the better word and why?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_426_426" id="Footnote_426_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_426_426"><span class="label">[426]</span></a> <b>Measure.</b> What meaning has this word here? Is +this the sense in which we generally use it?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_427_427" id="Footnote_427_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_427_427"><span class="label">[427]</span></a> <b>Creole natures.</b> What is a creole? What does +Emerson mean by "Creole natures"?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_428_428" id="Footnote_428_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428_428"><span class="label">[428]</span></a> <b>Mr. Fox.</b> Charles James Fox, an English +statesman and orator of the eighteenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_429_429" id="Footnote_429_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_429_429"><span class="label">[429]</span></a> <b>Burke.</b> Both Fox and Burke opposed the taxation +of the American colonies and sympathized with their resistance; it was +on the subject of the French Revolution that the two friends +clashed.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_314" id="Page_314"></a>[314] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_430_430" id="Footnote_430_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_430_430"><span class="label">[430]</span></a> <b>Sheridan.</b> Richard Brinsley Sheridan, an Irish +dramatist, member of the famous Literary Club to which both Fox and +Burke belonged.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_431_431" id="Footnote_431_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_431_431"><span class="label">[431]</span></a> <b>Circe.</b> According to Greek legend, Circe was a +beautiful enchantress. Men who partook of the draught she offered, +were turned to swine.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_432_432" id="Footnote_432_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_432_432"><span class="label">[432]</span></a> <b>Captain Symmes.</b> The only real personage of +this group. He asserted that there was an opening to the interior of +the earth which was stocked with plants and animals.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_433_433" id="Footnote_433_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_433_433"><span class="label">[433]</span></a> <b>Clerisy.</b> What word would we be more apt to use +here?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_434_434" id="Footnote_434_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_434_434"><span class="label">[434]</span></a> <b>St. Michael's (Square).</b> St. Michael's was an +order instituted by Louis XI. of France.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_435_435" id="Footnote_435_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_435_435"><span class="label">[435]</span></a> <b>Cologne water.</b> A perfumed water first made at +the city of Cologne in Germany, from which it took its name.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_436_436" id="Footnote_436_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436_436"><span class="label">[436]</span></a> <b>Poland.</b> This kingdom of Europe was, in the +eighteenth century, taken possession of and divided among its powerful +neighbors, Russia, Prussia, and Austria.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_437_437" id="Footnote_437_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_437_437"><span class="label">[437]</span></a> <b>Philhellene.</b> Friend of Greece.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_438_438" id="Footnote_438_438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_438_438"><span class="label">[438]</span></a> <b>As Heaven and Earth are fairer far</b>, etc. This +passage is quoted from Book II. of Keats' <i>Hyperion</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_439_439" id="Footnote_439_439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_439_439"><span class="label">[439]</span></a> <b>Waverley.</b> The Waverley novels, a name applied +to all of Scott's novels from <i>Waverley</i>, the title of the first one.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_440_440" id="Footnote_440_440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_440_440"><span class="label">[440]</span></a> <b>Robin Hood.</b> An English outlaw and popular +hero, the subject of many ballads.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_441_441" id="Footnote_441_441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_441_441"><span class="label">[441]</span></a> <b>Minerva.</b> In Roman mythology, the goddess of +wisdom corresponding to the Greek Pallas-Athene.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_442_442" id="Footnote_442_442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_442_442"><span class="label">[442]</span></a> <b>Juno.</b> In Roman mythology, the wife of the +supreme god Jupiter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_443_443" id="Footnote_443_443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_443_443"><span class="label">[443]</span></a> <b>Polymnia.</b> In Greek mythology, one of the nine +muses who presided over sacred poetry; the name is more usually +written Polyhymia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_444_444" id="Footnote_444_444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_444_444"><span class="label">[444]</span></a> <b>Delphic Sibyl.</b> In ancient mythology, the +Sibyls were certain women who possessed the power of prophecy. One of +these who made her abode at Delphi in Greece was called the Delphian, +or Delphic, sibyl.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_445_445" id="Footnote_445_445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_445_445"><span class="label">[445]</span></a> <b>Hafiz.</b> A Persian poet of the fourteenth +century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_446_446" id="Footnote_446_446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_446_446"><span class="label">[446]</span></a> <b>Firdousi.</b> A Persian poet of the tenth +century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_447_447" id="Footnote_447_447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_447_447"><span class="label">[447]</span></a> <b>She was an elemental force</b>, etc. Of this +passage Oliver Wendell Holmes said that Emerson "speaks of woman in +language that seems to pant for rhythm and rhyme."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_448_448" id="Footnote_448_448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_448_448"><span class="label">[448]</span></a> <b>Byzantine.</b> An ornate style of architecture +developed in the fourth and fifth centuries, marked especially by its +use of gold and color.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_315" id="Page_315"></a>[315] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_449_449" id="Footnote_449_449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_449_449"><span class="label">[449]</span></a> <b>Golden Book.</b> In a book, called "the Golden +Book," were recorded the names of all the children of Venetian +noblemen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_450_450" id="Footnote_450_450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_450_450"><span class="label">[450]</span></a> <b>Schiraz.</b> A province of Persia famous +especially for its roses, wine, and nightingales, and described by the +poets as a place of ideal beauty.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_451_451" id="Footnote_451_451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_451_451"><span class="label">[451]</span></a> <b>Osman.</b> The name given by Emerson in his +journal and essays to his ideal man, one subject to the same +conditions as himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_452_452" id="Footnote_452_452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_452_452"><span class="label">[452]</span></a> <b>Koran.</b> The sacred book of the Mohammedans.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_453_453" id="Footnote_453_453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_453_453"><span class="label">[453]</span></a> <b>Jove.</b> Jupiter, the supreme god of Roman +mythology.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_454_454" id="Footnote_454_454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_454_454"><span class="label">[454]</span></a> <b>Silenus.</b> In Greek mythology, the leader of the +satyrs. This fable, which Emerson credits to tradition, was original.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_455_455" id="Footnote_455_455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_455_455"><span class="label">[455]</span></a> <b>Her owl.</b> The owl was the bird sacred to +Minerva, the goddess of wisdom.</p></div> + + +<h3>GIFTS</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_456_456" id="Footnote_456_456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_456_456"><span class="label">[456]</span></a> This essay was first printed in the periodical +called <i>The Dial</i>. +</p><p> +It was a part of Emerson's philosophic faith that there is no such +thing as giving,—everything that belongs to a man or that he ought to +have, will come to him. But in the ordinarily accepted sense of the +word, Emerson was a gracious giver and receiver. In his family the old +New England custom of New Year's presents was kept up to his last +days. His presents were accompanied with verses to be read before the +gift was opened.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_457_457" id="Footnote_457_457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_457_457"><span class="label">[457]</span></a> <b>Into chancery.</b> The phrase "in chancery," means +in litigation, as an estate, in a court of equity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_458_458" id="Footnote_458_458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_458_458"><span class="label">[458]</span></a> <b>Cocker.</b> Spoil, indulge,—a word now little +used.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_459_459" id="Footnote_459_459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_459_459"><span class="label">[459]</span></a> <b>Fruits are acceptable gifts.</b> Emerson took +especial pleasure in the beauty of fruits and the thought of how they +had been evolved from useless, insipid seed cases.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_460_460" id="Footnote_460_460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_460_460"><span class="label">[460]</span></a> <b>To let the petitioner</b>, etc. We can hardly +imagine Emerson's asking a gift or favor. He often quoted the words of +Landor, an English writer: "The highest price you can pay for a thing +is to ask for it."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_461_461" id="Footnote_461_461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_461_461"><span class="label">[461]</span></a> <b>Furies.</b> In Roman mythology, three goddesses +who sought out and punished evil-doers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_462_462" id="Footnote_462_462"></a><a href="#FNanchor_462_462"><span class="label">[462]</span></a> <b>A man's biography</b>, etc. Emerson wrote in his +journal: "Long ago I wrote of <i>gifts</i> and neglected a capital <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_316" id="Page_316"></a>[316] </span> +example. John Thoreau, Jr. [who, like his brother Henry, was a lover +of nature] one day put a bluebird's box on my barn,—fifteen years ago +it must be,—and there it still is, with every summer a melodious +family in it adorning the place and singing its praises. There's a +gift for you which cost the giver no money, but nothing which he +bought could have been as good."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_463_463" id="Footnote_463_463"></a><a href="#FNanchor_463_463"><span class="label">[463]</span></a> <b>Sin offering.</b> Under the Hebrew law, a +sacrifice or offering for sin. See Leviticus xxiii. 19. Explain what +Emerson means here by the word.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_464_464" id="Footnote_464_464"></a><a href="#FNanchor_464_464"><span class="label">[464]</span></a> <b>Blackmail.</b> What is "blackmail"? How may +Christmas gifts, for instance, become a species of blackmail?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_465_465" id="Footnote_465_465"></a><a href="#FNanchor_465_465"><span class="label">[465]</span></a> <b>Brother, if Jove</b>, etc. In the Greek legend, +Epimetheus gives this advice to his brother Prometheus. The lines are +taken from a translation of <i>Works and Days</i>, by the Greek poet, +Hesiod.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_466_466" id="Footnote_466_466"></a><a href="#FNanchor_466_466"><span class="label">[466]</span></a> <b>Timons.</b> Here used in the sense of wealthy +givers. Timon, the hero of Shakespeare's play, <i>Timon of Athens</i>, +wasted his fortune in lavish gifts and entertainments, and in his +poverty was exposed to the ingratitude of those whom he had served. He +became morose and died in miserable retirement.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_467_467" id="Footnote_467_467"></a><a href="#FNanchor_467_467"><span class="label">[467]</span></a> <b>It is a very onerous business</b>, etc. One of +Emerson's favorite passages in the essays of Montaigne, a French +writer, was this: "Oh, how am I obliged to Almighty God, who has been +pleased that I should immediately receive all I have from his bounty, +and particularly reserved all my obligation to himself! How instantly +do I beg of his holy compassion that I may never owe a real thanks to +anyone. O happy liberty in which I have thus far lived! May it +continue with me to the last. I endeavor to have no need of any one." +</p><p> +When Emerson, in his old age, had his house injured by fire, his +friends contributed funds to repair it and to send him to England. The +gift was proffered graciously and accepted gratefully.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_468_468" id="Footnote_468_468"></a><a href="#FNanchor_468_468"><span class="label">[468]</span></a> <b>Buddhist.</b> A follower of Buddha, a Hindoo +religious teacher of the fifth century before Christ.</p></div> + + +<h3>NATURE</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_469_469" id="Footnote_469_469"></a><a href="#FNanchor_469_469"><span class="label">[469]</span></a> <b>Nature.</b> Emerson's first published volume was a +little book of essays, entitled <i>Nature</i>, which appeared in 1836. In +the years which followed, he thought more deeply on the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_317" id="Page_317"></a>[317] </span> subject and, +according to his custom, made notes about it and entries in his +journals. In the winter of 1843 he delivered a lecture on <i>Relation to +Nature</i>, and it is probable that this essay is built up from that. The +plan of it, however, had been long in his mind: In 1840 he wrote in +his journal: "I think I must do these eyes of mine the justice to +write a new chapter on Nature. This delight we all take in every show +of night or day or field or forest or sea or city, down to the lowest +particulars, is not without sequel, though we be as yet only wishers +and gazers, not at all knowing what we want. We are predominated here +as elsewhere by an upper wisdom, and resemble those great discoverers +who are haunted for years, sometimes from infancy, with a passion for +the fact, or class of facts in which the secret lies which they are +destined to unlock, and they let it not go until the blessing is won. +So these sunsets and starlights, these swamps and rocks, these bird +notes and animal forms off which we cannot get our eyes and ears, but +hover still, as moths round a lamp, are no doubt a Sanscrit cipher +covering the whole religious history of the universe, and presently we +shall read it off into action and character. The pastures are full of +ghosts for me, the morning woods full of angels."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_470_470" id="Footnote_470_470"></a><a href="#FNanchor_470_470"><span class="label">[470]</span></a> <b>There are days</b>, etc. The passage in Emerson's +journal is hardly less beautiful. Under date of October 30, 1841, he +wrote: "On this wonderful day when heaven and earth seem to glow with +magnificence, and all the wealth of all the elements is put under +contribution to make the world fine, as if Nature would indulge her +offspring, it seemed ungrateful to hide in the house. Are there not +dull days enough in the year for you to write and read in, that you +should waste this glittering season when Florida and Cuba seem to have +left their glittering seats and come to visit us with all their +shining hours, and almost we expect to see the jasmine and cactus +burst from the ground instead of these last gentians and asters which +have loitered to attend this latter glory of the year? All insects are +out, all birds come forth, the very cattle that lie on the ground seem +to have great thoughts, and Egypt and India look from their eyes."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_471_471" id="Footnote_471_471"></a><a href="#FNanchor_471_471"><span class="label">[471]</span></a> <b>Halcyons.</b> Halcyon days, ones of peace and +tranquillity; anciently, days of calm weather in mid-winter, when the +halcyon, or kingfisher, was supposed to brood. It was fabled that this +bird laid its eggs in a nest that floated on <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_318" id="Page_318"></a>[318] </span> the sea, and that it +charmed the winds and waves to make them calm while it brooded.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_472_472" id="Footnote_472_472"></a><a href="#FNanchor_472_472"><span class="label">[472]</span></a> <b>Indian Summer.</b> Calm, dry, hazy weather which +comes in the autumn in America. The Century Dictionary says it was +called Indian Summer because the season was most marked in the +sections of the upper eastern Mississippi valley inhabited by Indians +about the time the term became current.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_473_473" id="Footnote_473_473"></a><a href="#FNanchor_473_473"><span class="label">[473]</span></a> <b>Gabriel.</b> One of the seven archangels. The +Hebrew name means "God is my strong one."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_474_474" id="Footnote_474_474"></a><a href="#FNanchor_474_474"><span class="label">[474]</span></a> <b>Uriel.</b> Another of the seven archangels; the +name means "Light of God."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_475_475" id="Footnote_475_475"></a><a href="#FNanchor_475_475"><span class="label">[475]</span></a> <b>Converts all trees to wind-harps.</b> Compare with +this passage the lines in Emerson's poem, <i>Woodnotes</i>: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And the countless leaves of the pines are strings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_476_476" id="Footnote_476_476"></a><a href="#FNanchor_476_476"><span class="label">[476]</span></a> <b>The village.</b> Concord, Massachusetts. Emerson's +home the greater part of the time from 1832 till his death.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_477_477" id="Footnote_477_477"></a><a href="#FNanchor_477_477"><span class="label">[477]</span></a> <b>I go with my friend</b>, etc. With Henry Thoreau, +the lover of Nature.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_478_478" id="Footnote_478_478"></a><a href="#FNanchor_478_478"><span class="label">[478]</span></a> <b>Our little river.</b> The Concord river.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_479_479" id="Footnote_479_479"></a><a href="#FNanchor_479_479"><span class="label">[479]</span></a> <b>Novitiate and probation.</b> Explain the meaning +of these words, in the Roman Catholic Church. What does Emerson mean +by them here?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_480_480" id="Footnote_480_480"></a><a href="#FNanchor_480_480"><span class="label">[480]</span></a> <b>Villegiatura.</b> The Italian name for a season +spent in country pleasures.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_481_481" id="Footnote_481_481"></a><a href="#FNanchor_481_481"><span class="label">[481]</span></a> <b>Hanging gardens.</b> The hanging gardens of +Babylon were one of the seven wonders of the world.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_482_482" id="Footnote_482_482"></a><a href="#FNanchor_482_482"><span class="label">[482]</span></a> <b>Versailles.</b> A royal residence near Paris, with +beautiful formal gardens.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_483_483" id="Footnote_483_483"></a><a href="#FNanchor_483_483"><span class="label">[483]</span></a> <b>Paphos.</b> A beautiful city on the island of +Cyprus, where was situated a temple of Astarte, or Venus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_484_484" id="Footnote_484_484"></a><a href="#FNanchor_484_484"><span class="label">[484]</span></a> <b>Ctesiphon.</b> One of the chief cities of ancient +Persia, the site of a magnificent royal palace.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_485_485" id="Footnote_485_485"></a><a href="#FNanchor_485_485"><span class="label">[485]</span></a> <b>Notch Mountains.</b> Probably the White Mountains +near Crawford Notch, a deep, narrow valley which is often called "The +Notch."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_486_486" id="Footnote_486_486"></a><a href="#FNanchor_486_486"><span class="label">[486]</span></a> <b>Æolian harp.</b> A stringed instrument from which +sound is drawn by the passing of the wind over its strings. It was +named for Æolus, the god of the winds, in Greek mythology.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_487_487" id="Footnote_487_487"></a><a href="#FNanchor_487_487"><span class="label">[487]</span></a> <b>Dorian.</b> Dorus was one of the four divisions +of <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_319" id="Page_319"></a>[319] </span> Greece: the word is here used in a general sense for Grecian.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_488_488" id="Footnote_488_488"></a><a href="#FNanchor_488_488"><span class="label">[488]</span></a> <b>Apollo.</b> In Greek and Roman mythology, the sun +god, who presided over music, poetry, and healing.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_489_489" id="Footnote_489_489"></a><a href="#FNanchor_489_489"><span class="label">[489]</span></a> <b>Diana.</b> In Roman mythology, the goddess of the +moon devoted to the chase.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_490_490" id="Footnote_490_490"></a><a href="#FNanchor_490_490"><span class="label">[490]</span></a> <b>Edens.</b> Beautiful, sinless places,—like the +garden of Eden.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_491_491" id="Footnote_491_491"></a><a href="#FNanchor_491_491"><span class="label">[491]</span></a> <b>Tempes.</b> Places like the lovely valley of Tempe +in Thessaly, Greece.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_492_492" id="Footnote_492_492"></a><a href="#FNanchor_492_492"><span class="label">[492]</span></a> <b>Como Lake.</b> A lake of northern Italy, +celebrated for its beauty.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_493_493" id="Footnote_493_493"></a><a href="#FNanchor_493_493"><span class="label">[493]</span></a> <b>Madeira Islands.</b> Where are these islands, +famous for picturesque beauty and balmy atmosphere?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_494_494" id="Footnote_494_494"></a><a href="#FNanchor_494_494"><span class="label">[494]</span></a> <b>Common.</b> What is a common?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_495_495" id="Footnote_495_495"></a><a href="#FNanchor_495_495"><span class="label">[495]</span></a> <b>Campagna.</b> The plain near Rome.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_496_496" id="Footnote_496_496"></a><a href="#FNanchor_496_496"><span class="label">[496]</span></a> <b>Dilettantism.</b> Define this word and explain its +use here.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_497_497" id="Footnote_497_497"></a><a href="#FNanchor_497_497"><span class="label">[497]</span></a> <b>"Wreaths" and "Flora's Chaplets."</b> About the +time that Emerson was writing his essays, volumes of formal, +artificial verses were very fashionable, more as parlor ornaments than +as literature. Two such volumes were <i>A Wreath of Wild Flowers from +New England</i> and <i>The Floral Offering</i> by Mrs. Frances Osgood, a New +England writer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_498_498" id="Footnote_498_498"></a><a href="#FNanchor_498_498"><span class="label">[498]</span></a> <b>Pan.</b> In Greek mythology, the god of woods, +fields, flocks, and shepherds.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_499_499" id="Footnote_499_499"></a><a href="#FNanchor_499_499"><span class="label">[499]</span></a> <b>The multitude of false cherubs</b>, etc. Explain +the meaning of this sentence. If true money were valueless, would +people make false money?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_500_500" id="Footnote_500_500"></a><a href="#FNanchor_500_500"><span class="label">[500]</span></a> <b>Proteus.</b> In Greek mythology, a sea god who had +the power of assuming different shapes. If caught and held fast, +however, he was forced to assume his own shape and answer the +questions put to him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_501_501" id="Footnote_501_501"></a><a href="#FNanchor_501_501"><span class="label">[501]</span></a> <b>Mosaic ... Schemes.</b> The conception of the +world as given in Genesis on which the law of Moses, the great Hebrew +lawgiver, was founded.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_502_502" id="Footnote_502_502"></a><a href="#FNanchor_502_502"><span class="label">[502]</span></a> <b>Ptolemaic schemes.</b> The system of geography and +astronomy taught in the second century by Ptolemy of Alexandria; it +was accepted till the sixteenth century, when the Copernican system +was established. Ptolemy believed that the sun, planets, and stars +revolve around the earth; Copernicus taught that the planets revolve +around the sun.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_503_503" id="Footnote_503_503"></a><a href="#FNanchor_503_503"><span class="label">[503]</span></a> <b>Flora.</b> In Roman mythology, the goddess of the +spring and of flowers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_504_504" id="Footnote_504_504"></a><a href="#FNanchor_504_504"><span class="label">[504]</span></a> <b>Fauna.</b> In Roman mythology, the goddess of +fields <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_320" id="Page_320"></a>[320] </span> and shepherds; she represents the fruitfulness of the earth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_505_505" id="Footnote_505_505"></a><a href="#FNanchor_505_505"><span class="label">[505]</span></a> <b>Ceres.</b> The Roman goddess of grain and harvest, +corresponding to the Greek goddess, Demeter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_506_506" id="Footnote_506_506"></a><a href="#FNanchor_506_506"><span class="label">[506]</span></a> <b>Pomona.</b> The Roman goddess of fruit trees and +gardens.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_507_507" id="Footnote_507_507"></a><a href="#FNanchor_507_507"><span class="label">[507]</span></a> <b>All duly arrive.</b> Emerson deducts from nature +the doctrine of evolution. What is its teaching?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_508_508" id="Footnote_508_508"></a><a href="#FNanchor_508_508"><span class="label">[508]</span></a> <b>Plato.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_36_36">36</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_509_509" id="Footnote_509_509"></a><a href="#FNanchor_509_509"><span class="label">[509]</span></a> <b>Himalaya Mountain chains.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_193_193">193</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_510_510" id="Footnote_510_510"></a><a href="#FNanchor_510_510"><span class="label">[510]</span></a> <b>Franklin.</b> Give an account of Benjamin +Franklin, the famous American scientist and patriot. What did he prove +about lightening?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_511_511" id="Footnote_511_511"></a><a href="#FNanchor_511_511"><span class="label">[511]</span></a> <b>Dalton.</b> John Dalton was an English chemist +who, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, perfected the +atomic theory, that is, the theory that all chemical combinations take +place in certain ways between the atoms, or ultimate particles, of +bodies.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_512_512" id="Footnote_512_512"></a><a href="#FNanchor_512_512"><span class="label">[512]</span></a> <b>Davy.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_69_69">69</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_513_513" id="Footnote_513_513"></a><a href="#FNanchor_513_513"><span class="label">[513]</span></a> <b>Black.</b> Joseph Black, a Scotch chemist who made +valuable discoveries about latent heat and carbon dioxide, or carbonic +acid gas.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_514_514" id="Footnote_514_514"></a><a href="#FNanchor_514_514"><span class="label">[514]</span></a> <b>The astronomers said</b>, etc. Beginning with this +passage, several pages of this essay was published in 1844, under the +title of <i>Tantalus</i>, in the next to the last number of <i>The Dial</i>, +which Emerson edited.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_515_515" id="Footnote_515_515"></a><a href="#FNanchor_515_515"><span class="label">[515]</span></a> <b>Centrifugal, centripetal.</b> Define these words.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_516_516" id="Footnote_516_516"></a><a href="#FNanchor_516_516"><span class="label">[516]</span></a> <b>Stoics.</b> See "Stoicism," <a href="#Footnote_331_331">331</a>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_517_517" id="Footnote_517_517"></a><a href="#FNanchor_517_517"><span class="label">[517]</span></a> <b>Luther.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_188_188">188</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_518_518" id="Footnote_518_518"></a><a href="#FNanchor_518_518"><span class="label">[518]</span></a> <b>Jacob Behmen.</b> A German mystic of the sixteenth +century; his name is usually written Boehme.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_519_519" id="Footnote_519_519"></a><a href="#FNanchor_519_519"><span class="label">[519]</span></a> <b>George Fox.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_202_202">202</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_520_520" id="Footnote_520_520"></a><a href="#FNanchor_520_520"><span class="label">[520]</span></a> <b>James Naylor.</b> An English religious enthusiast +of the seventeenth century; he was first a Puritan and later a +Quaker.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_521_521" id="Footnote_521_521"></a><a href="#FNanchor_521_521"><span class="label">[521]</span></a> <b>Operose.</b> Laborious.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_522_522" id="Footnote_522_522"></a><a href="#FNanchor_522_522"><span class="label">[522]</span></a> <b>Outskirt and far-off reflection</b>, etc. Compare +with this passage Emerson's poem, <i>The Forerunners</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_523_523" id="Footnote_523_523"></a><a href="#FNanchor_523_523"><span class="label">[523]</span></a> <b>[OE]dipus.</b> In Greek mythology, the King of +Thebes who solved the riddle of the Sphinx, a fabled monster.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_524_524" id="Footnote_524_524"></a><a href="#FNanchor_524_524"><span class="label">[524]</span></a> <b>Prunella.</b> A widely scattered plant, called +self-heal, because a decoction of its leaves and stems was, and to +some extent is, valued as an application to wounds. An editor comments +on the fact that during the last years of <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_321" id="Page_321"></a>[321] </span> Emerson's life "the little +blue self-heal crept into the grass before his study window."</p></div> + + +<h3>SHAKESPEARE; OR, THE POET</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_525_525" id="Footnote_525_525"></a><a href="#FNanchor_525_525"><span class="label">[525]</span></a> <b>Shakespeare; or the Poet</b> is one of seven +essays on great men in various walks of life, published in 1850 under +the title of <i>Representative Men</i>. These essays were first delivered +as lectures in Boston in the winter of 1845, and were repeated two +years later before English audiences. They must have been especially +interesting to those Englishmen who had, seven years before, heard +Emerson's friend, Carlyle, deliver his six lectures on great men whom +he selected as representative ones. These lectures were published +under the title of <i>Heroes and Hero-Worship</i>. You should read the +latter part of Carlyle's lecture on <i>The Hero as Poet</i> and compare +what he says about Shakespeare with Emerson's words. Both Emerson and +Carlyle reverenced the great English poet as "the master of mankind." +Even in serious New England, the plays of Shakespeare were found upon +the bookshelf beside religious tracts and doctrinal treatises. There +the boy Emerson found them and learned to love them, and the man +Emerson loved them but the more. It was as a record of personal +experiences that he wrote in his journal: "Shakespeare fills us with +wonder the first time we approach him. We go away, and work and think, +for years, and come again,—he astonishes us anew. Then, having drank +deeply and saturated us with his genius, we lose sight of him for +another period of years. By and by we return, and there he stands +immeasurable as at first. We have grown wiser, but only that we should +see him wiser than ever. He resembles a high mountain which the +traveler sees in the morning and thinks he shall quickly near it and +pass it and leave it behind. But he journeys all day till noon, till +night. There still is the dim mountain close by him, having scarce +altered its bearings since the morning light."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_526_526" id="Footnote_526_526"></a><a href="#FNanchor_526_526"><span class="label">[526]</span></a> <b>Genius.</b> Here instead of speaking as in +<i>Friendship</i>, see note <a href="#Footnote_286_286">286</a>, of the genius or spirit supposed to +preside over each man's life, Emerson mentions the guardian spirit of +human kind.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_527_527" id="Footnote_527_527"></a><a href="#FNanchor_527_527"><span class="label">[527]</span></a> <b>Shakespeare's youth</b>, etc. It is impossible to +appreciate or enjoy this essay without having some clear general +information about the condition of the English people and English +literature in the glorious Elizabethan age in <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_322" id="Page_322"></a>[322] </span> which Shakespeare +lived. Consult, for this information, some brief history of England +and a comprehensive English literature.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_528_528" id="Footnote_528_528"></a><a href="#FNanchor_528_528"><span class="label">[528]</span></a> <b>Puritans.</b> Strict Protestants who became so +powerful in England that in the time of the Commonwealth they +controlled the political and religious affairs of the country.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_529_529" id="Footnote_529_529"></a><a href="#FNanchor_529_529"><span class="label">[529]</span></a> <b>Anglican Church.</b> The Established Church of +England; the Episcopal church.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_530_530" id="Footnote_530_530"></a><a href="#FNanchor_530_530"><span class="label">[530]</span></a> <b>Punch.</b> The chief character in a puppet show, +hence the puppet show itself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_531_531" id="Footnote_531_531"></a><a href="#FNanchor_531_531"><span class="label">[531]</span></a> <b>Kyd, Marlowe, Greene</b>, etc. For an account of +these dramatists consult a text book on English literature. The +English drama seems to have begun in the Middle Ages with what were +called Miracle plays, which were scenes from Bible history; about the +same time were performed the Mystery plays, which dramatized the lives +of saints. These were followed by the Moralities, plays in which were +personified abstract virtues and vices. The first step in the creation +of the regular drama was taken by Heywood, who composed some farcical +plays called Interludes. The people of the sixteenth century were fond +of pageants, shows in which classical personages were introduced, and +Masques, which gradually developed from pageants into dramas +accompanied with music. About the middle of the sixteenth century, +rose the English drama,—comedy, tragedy, and historical plays. The +chief among the group of dramatists who attained fame before +Shakespeare began to write were Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, and Peele. Ben +Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher rank next to Shakespeare among his +contemporaries, and among the other dramatists of the period were +Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Ford, and Massinger.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_532_532" id="Footnote_532_532"></a><a href="#FNanchor_532_532"><span class="label">[532]</span></a> <b>At the time when</b>, etc. Probably about 1585.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_533_533" id="Footnote_533_533"></a><a href="#FNanchor_533_533"><span class="label">[533]</span></a> <b>Tale of Troy.</b> Drama founded on the Trojan war. +The subject of famous poems by Latin and Greek poets.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_534_534" id="Footnote_534_534"></a><a href="#FNanchor_534_534"><span class="label">[534]</span></a> <b>Death of Julius Cæsar.</b> An account of the plots +which ended in the assassination of the great Roman general.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"> + <p><a name="Footnote_535_535" id="Footnote_535_535"></a><a href="#FNanchor_535_535"><span class="label">[535]</span></a> <b>Plutarch.</b> See note on <i>Heroism</i>(<a href="#Footnote_264_264">264</a>). +Shakespeare, like the earlier +dramatists, drew freely on Plutarch's <i>Lives</i> for material.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_536_536" id="Footnote_536_536"></a><a href="#FNanchor_536_536"><span class="label">[536]</span></a> <b>Brut</b>. A poetical version of the legendary +history of Britain, by Layamon. Its hero is Brutus, a mythical King of +Britain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_537_537" id="Footnote_537_537"></a><a href="#FNanchor_537_537"><span class="label">[537]</span></a> <b>Arthur.</b> A British King of the sixth century, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_323" id="Page_323"></a>[323] </span> +around whose life and deeds so many legends have grown up that some +historians say he, too, was a myth. He is the center of the great +cycle of romances told in prose in Mallory's <i>Morte d'Arthur</i> and in +poetry in Tennyson's <i>Idylls of the King</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_538_538" id="Footnote_538_538"></a><a href="#FNanchor_538_538"><span class="label">[538]</span></a> <b>The royal Henries.</b> Among the dramas popular in +Shakespeare's day which he retouched or rewrote are the historical +plays. Henry IV., First and Second Parts; Henry V; Henry VI., First, +Second, and Third Parts; and Henry VIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_539_539" id="Footnote_539_539"></a><a href="#FNanchor_539_539"><span class="label">[539]</span></a> <b>Italian tales.</b> Italian literature was very +popular in Shakespeare's day, and authors drew freely from it for +material, especially from the <i>Decameron</i>, a famous collection of a +hundred tales, by Boccaccio, a poet of the fourteenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_540_540" id="Footnote_540_540"></a><a href="#FNanchor_540_540"><span class="label">[540]</span></a> <b>Spanish voyages.</b> In the sixteenth century, +Spain was still a power upon the high seas, and the tales of her +conquests and treasures in the New World were like tales of romance.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_541_541" id="Footnote_541_541"></a><a href="#FNanchor_541_541"><span class="label">[541]</span></a> <b>Prestige.</b> Can you give an English equivalent +for this French word?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_542_542" id="Footnote_542_542"></a><a href="#FNanchor_542_542"><span class="label">[542]</span></a> <b>Which no single genius</b>, etc. In the same way, +some critics assure us, the poems credited to the Greek poet, Homer, +were built up by a number of poets.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_543_543" id="Footnote_543_543"></a><a href="#FNanchor_543_543"><span class="label">[543]</span></a> <b>Malone.</b> An Irish critic and scholar of the +eighteenth century, best known by his edition of Shakespeare's plays.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_544_544" id="Footnote_544_544"></a><a href="#FNanchor_544_544"><span class="label">[544]</span></a> <b>Wolsey's Soliloquy.</b> See Shakespeare's <i>Henry +VIII.</i> <span class="smcap">iii</span>, 2. Cardinal Wolsey was prime minister of England +in the reign of Henry VIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_545_545" id="Footnote_545_545"></a><a href="#FNanchor_545_545"><span class="label">[545]</span></a> <b>Scene with Cromwell.</b> See <i>Henry VIII.</i> +<span class="smcap">iii</span>, 2. Thomas Cromwell was the son of an English blacksmith; +he rose to be lord high chamberlain of England in the reign of Henry +VIII., but, incurring the King's displeasure, was executed on a charge +of treason.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_546_546" id="Footnote_546_546"></a><a href="#FNanchor_546_546"><span class="label">[546]</span></a> <b>Account of the coronation.</b> See <i>Henry VIII.</i> +<span class="smcap">iv</span>, 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_547_547" id="Footnote_547_547"></a><a href="#FNanchor_547_547"><span class="label">[547]</span></a> <b>Compliment to Queen Elizabeth.</b> See <i>Henry +VIII.</i> <span class="smcap">v</span>, 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_548_548" id="Footnote_548_548"></a><a href="#FNanchor_548_548"><span class="label">[548]</span></a> <b>Bad rhythm.</b> Too much importance must not be +attached to these matters in deciding authorship, as critics disagree +about them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_549_549" id="Footnote_549_549"></a><a href="#FNanchor_549_549"><span class="label">[549]</span></a> <b>Value his memory</b>, etc. The Greeks, in +appreciation of the value of memory to the poet, represented the <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_324" id="Page_324"></a>[324] </span> +Muses as the daughters of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_550_550" id="Footnote_550_550"></a><a href="#FNanchor_550_550"><span class="label">[550]</span></a> <b>Homer.</b> A Greek poet to whom is assigned the +authorship of the two greatest Greek poems, the <i>Iliad</i> and the +<i>Odyssey</i>; he is said to have lived about a thousand years before +Christ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_551_551" id="Footnote_551_551"></a><a href="#FNanchor_551_551"><span class="label">[551]</span></a> <b>Chaucer.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_33_33">33</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_552_552" id="Footnote_552_552"></a><a href="#FNanchor_552_552"><span class="label">[552]</span></a> <b>Saadi.</b> A Persian poet, supposed to have lived +in the thirteenth century. His best known poems are his odes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_553_553" id="Footnote_553_553"></a><a href="#FNanchor_553_553"><span class="label">[553]</span></a> <b>Presenting Thebes</b>, etc. This quotation is from +Milton's poem, <i>Il Penseroso</i>. Milton here names the three most +popular subjects of Greek tragedy,—the story of [OE]dipus, the +ill-fated King of Thebes who slew his father; the tale of the +descendants of Pelops, King of Pisa, who seemed born to woe—Agamemnon +was one of his grandsons; the third subject was the tale of Troy and +the heroes of the Trojan war,—called "divine" because the Greeks +represented even the gods as taking part in the contest.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_554_554" id="Footnote_554_554"></a><a href="#FNanchor_554_554"><span class="label">[554]</span></a> <b>Pope.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_88_88">88</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_555_555" id="Footnote_555_555"></a><a href="#FNanchor_555_555"><span class="label">[555]</span></a> <b>Dryden.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_35_35">35</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_556_556" id="Footnote_556_556"></a><a href="#FNanchor_556_556"><span class="label">[556]</span></a> <b>Chaucer is a huge borrower.</b> Taine, the French +critic, says on this subject: "Chaucer was capable of seeking out in +the old common forest of the Middle Ages, stories and legends, to +replant them in his own soil and make them send out new shoots.... He +has the right and power of copying and translating because by dint of +retouching he impresses ... his original work. He recreates what he +imitates."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_557_557" id="Footnote_557_557"></a><a href="#FNanchor_557_557"><span class="label">[557]</span></a> <b>Lydgate.</b> John Lydgate was an English poet who +lived a generation later than Chaucer; in his <i>Troy Book</i> and other +poems he probably borrowed from the sources used by Chaucer; he called +himself "Chaucer's disciple."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_558_558" id="Footnote_558_558"></a><a href="#FNanchor_558_558"><span class="label">[558]</span></a> <b>Caxton.</b> William Caxton, the English author, +more famous as the first English printer, was not born until after +Chaucer's death. The work from which Emerson supposes the poet to have +borrowed Caxton's translation of <i>Recueil des Histoires de Troye</i>, the +first printed English book, appeared about 1474.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_559_559" id="Footnote_559_559"></a><a href="#FNanchor_559_559"><span class="label">[559]</span></a> <b>Guido di Colonna.</b> A Sicilian poet and +historian of the thirteenth century. Chaucer in his <i>House of Fame</i> +placed in his vision "on a pillar higher than the rest, Homer and +Livy, Dares the Phrygian, Guido Colonna, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the +other historians of the war of Troy."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_560_560" id="Footnote_560_560"></a><a href="#FNanchor_560_560"><span class="label">[560]</span></a> <b>Dares Phrygius.</b> A Latin account of the fall +of <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_325" id="Page_325"></a>[325] </span> Troy, written about the fifth century, which pretends to be a +translation of a lost work on the fall of Troy by Dares, a Trojan +priest mentioned in Homer's <i>Iliad</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_561_561" id="Footnote_561_561"></a><a href="#FNanchor_561_561"><span class="label">[561]</span></a> <b>Ovid.</b> A Roman poet who lived about the time of +Christ, whose best-known work is the <i>Metamorphoses</i>, founded on +classical legends.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_562_562" id="Footnote_562_562"></a><a href="#FNanchor_562_562"><span class="label">[562]</span></a> <b>Statius.</b> A Roman poet of the first century +after Christ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_563_563" id="Footnote_563_563"></a><a href="#FNanchor_563_563"><span class="label">[563]</span></a> <b>Petrarch.</b> An Italian poet of the fourteenth +century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_564_564" id="Footnote_564_564"></a><a href="#FNanchor_564_564"><span class="label">[564]</span></a> <b>Boccaccio.</b> An Italian novelist and poet of +the fourteenth century. See note on "Italian tales," <a href="#Footnote_539_539">539</a>. It is +supposed that the plan of the <i>Decameron</i> suggested the similar but +far superior plan of Chaucer's <i>Canterbury Tales</i>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_565_565" id="Footnote_565_565"></a><a href="#FNanchor_565_565"><span class="label">[565]</span></a> <b>Provençal poets.</b> The poets of Provençe, a +province of the southeastern part of France. In the Middle Ages it was +celebrated for its lyric poets, called troubadours.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_566_566" id="Footnote_566_566"></a><a href="#FNanchor_566_566"><span class="label">[566]</span></a> <b>Romaunt of the Rose</b>, etc. Chaucer's <i>Romaunt +of the Rose</i>, written during the period of French influence, is an +incomplete and abbreviated translation of a French poem of the +thirteenth century, <i>Roman de la Rose</i>, the first part of which was +written by William of Loris and the latter by John of Meung, or Jean +de Meung.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_567_567" id="Footnote_567_567"></a><a href="#FNanchor_567_567"><span class="label">[567]</span></a> <b>Troilus and Creseide</b>, etc. Chaucer ascribes +the Italian poem which he followed in his <i>Troilus and Creseide</i> to an +unknown "Lollius of Urbino"; the source of the poem, however, is <i>Il +Filostrato</i>, by Boccaccio, the Italian poet already mentioned. +Chaucer's poem is far more than a translation; more than half is +entirely original, and it is a powerful poem, showing profound +knowledge of the Italian poets, whose influence with him superseded +the French poets.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_568_568" id="Footnote_568_568"></a><a href="#FNanchor_568_568"><span class="label">[568]</span></a> <b>The Cock and the Fox.</b> <i>The Nun's Priest's +Tale</i> in the <i>Canterbury Tales</i> was an original treatment of the +<i>Roman de Renart</i>, of Marie of France, a French poet of the twelfth +century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_569_569" id="Footnote_569_569"></a><a href="#FNanchor_569_569"><span class="label">[569]</span></a> <b>House of Fame</b>, etc. The plan of the <i>House of +Fame</i>, written during the period of Chaucer's Italian influence, shows +the influence of Dante; the general idea of the poem is from Ovid, the +Roman poet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_570_570" id="Footnote_570_570"></a><a href="#FNanchor_570_570"><span class="label">[570]</span></a> <b>Gower.</b> John Gower was an English poet, +Chaucer's contemporary and friend; the two poets went to the same +sources for poetic materials, but Chaucer made no such use of Gower's +works as we would infer from this passage. Emerson relied on his +memory for facts, and hence made <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_326" id="Page_326"></a>[326] </span> mistakes, as here in the instances +of Lydgate, Caxton, and Gower.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_571_571" id="Footnote_571_571"></a><a href="#FNanchor_571_571"><span class="label">[571]</span></a> <b>Westminster, Washington.</b> What legislative body +assembles at Westminster Palace, London? What at Washington?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_572_572" id="Footnote_572_572"></a><a href="#FNanchor_572_572"><span class="label">[572]</span></a> <b>Sir Robert Peel.</b> An English statesman who died +in 1850, not long after <i>Representative Men</i> was published.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_573_573" id="Footnote_573_573"></a><a href="#FNanchor_573_573"><span class="label">[573]</span></a> <b>Webster.</b> Daniel Webster, an American statesman +and orator who was living when this essay was written.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_574_574" id="Footnote_574_574"></a><a href="#FNanchor_574_574"><span class="label">[574]</span></a> <b>Locke.</b> John Locke. (See note <a href="#Footnote_18_18">18</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_575_575" id="Footnote_575_575"></a><a href="#FNanchor_575_575"><span class="label">[575]</span></a> <b>Rousseau.</b> Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French +philosopher of the eighteenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_576_576" id="Footnote_576_576"></a><a href="#FNanchor_576_576"><span class="label">[576]</span></a> <b>Homer.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_550_550">550</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_577_577" id="Footnote_577_577"></a><a href="#FNanchor_577_577"><span class="label">[577]</span></a> <b>Menn.</b> Menn, or Mann, was in Sanscrit one of +fourteen legendary beings; the one referred to by Emerson, Mann +Vaivasvata was supposed to be the author of the laws of Mann, a +collection made about the second century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_578_578" id="Footnote_578_578"></a><a href="#FNanchor_578_578"><span class="label">[578]</span></a> <b>Saadi</b> or Sadi. (See note <a href="#Footnote_552_552">552</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_579_579" id="Footnote_579_579"></a><a href="#FNanchor_579_579"><span class="label">[579]</span></a> <b>Milton.</b> Of this great English poet and prose +writer of the seventeenth century, Emerson says: "No man can be named +whose mind still acts on the cultivated intellect of England and +America with an energy comparable to that of Milton. As a poet +Shakespeare undoubtedly transcends and far surpasses him in his +popularity with foreign nations: but Shakespeare is a voice merely: +who and what he was that sang, that sings, we know not."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_580_580" id="Footnote_580_580"></a><a href="#FNanchor_580_580"><span class="label">[580]</span></a> <b>Delphi.</b> Here, source of prophecy. Delphi was +a city in Greece, where was the oracle of Apollo, the most famous of +the oracles of antiquity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_581_581" id="Footnote_581_581"></a><a href="#FNanchor_581_581"><span class="label">[581]</span></a> <b>Our English Bible.</b> The version made in the +reign of King James I. by forty-seven learned divines is a monument of +noble English.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_582_582" id="Footnote_582_582"></a><a href="#FNanchor_582_582"><span class="label">[582]</span></a> <b>Liturgy.</b> An appointed form of worship used in +a Christian church,—here, specifically, the service of the Episcopal +church. Emerson's mother had been brought up in that church, and +though she attended her husband's church, she always loved and read +her Episcopal prayer book.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_583_583" id="Footnote_583_583"></a><a href="#FNanchor_583_583"><span class="label">[583]</span></a> <b>Grotius.</b> Hugo Grotius was a Dutch jurist, +statesman, theologian, and poet of the seventeenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_584_584" id="Footnote_584_584"></a><a href="#FNanchor_584_584"><span class="label">[584]</span></a> <b>Rabbinical forms.</b> The forms used by the +rabbis, Jewish doctors or expounders of the law.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_585_585" id="Footnote_585_585"></a><a href="#FNanchor_585_585"><span class="label">[585]</span></a> <b>Common law.</b> In a general sense, the system of +law derived from England, in general use among English-speaking +people.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_327" id="Page_327"></a>[327] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_586_586" id="Footnote_586_586"></a><a href="#FNanchor_586_586"><span class="label">[586]</span></a> <b>Vedas.</b> The sacred books of the Brahmins.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_587_587" id="Footnote_587_587"></a><a href="#FNanchor_587_587"><span class="label">[587]</span></a> <b>Æsop's Fables.</b> Fables ascribed to Æsop, a +Greek slave who lived in the sixth century before Christ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_588_588" id="Footnote_588_588"></a><a href="#FNanchor_588_588"><span class="label">[588]</span></a> <b>Pilpay</b>, or Bidpai. Indian sage to whom were +ascribed some fables. From an Arabic translation, these passed into +European languages and were used by La Fontaine, the French fabulist.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_589_589" id="Footnote_589_589"></a><a href="#FNanchor_589_589"><span class="label">[589]</span></a> <b>Arabian Nights.</b> <i>The Arabian Nights' +Entertainment or A Thousand and One Nights</i> is a collection of +Oriental tales, the plan and name of which are very ancient.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_590_590" id="Footnote_590_590"></a><a href="#FNanchor_590_590"><span class="label">[590]</span></a> <b>Cid.</b> <i>The Romances of the Cid</i>, the story of +the Spanish national hero, mentioned in note on <i>Heroism</i> 139:5, was +written about the thirteenth century by an unknown author; it supplied +much of the material for two Spanish chronicles and Spanish and French +tragedies written later on the same subject.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_591_591" id="Footnote_591_591"></a><a href="#FNanchor_591_591"><span class="label">[591]</span></a> <b>Iliad.</b> The poem in which the Greek, poet, +Homer, describes the siege and fall of Troy. Emerson here expresses +the view adopted by many scholars that it was the work, not of one, +but of many men.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_592_592" id="Footnote_592_592"></a><a href="#FNanchor_592_592"><span class="label">[592]</span></a> <b>Robin Hood.</b> The ballads about Robin Hood, an +English outlaw and popular hero of the twelfth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_593_593" id="Footnote_593_593"></a><a href="#FNanchor_593_593"><span class="label">[593]</span></a> <b>Scottish Minstrelsy.</b> <i>The Minstrelsy of the +Scottish Border</i>, a collection of original and collected poems, +published by Sir Walter Scott in 1802.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_594_594" id="Footnote_594_594"></a><a href="#FNanchor_594_594"><span class="label">[594]</span></a> <b>Shakespeare Society.</b> The Shakespeare Society, +founded in 1841, was dissolved in 1853. In 1874 The New Shakespeare +Society was founded.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_595_595" id="Footnote_595_595"></a><a href="#FNanchor_595_595"><span class="label">[595]</span></a> <b>Mysteries.</b> See "Kyd, Marlowe, etc." <a href="#Footnote_531_531">531</a>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_596_596" id="Footnote_596_596"></a><a href="#FNanchor_596_596"><span class="label">[596]</span></a> <b>Ferrex and Porrex</b>, or <b> Gorboduc.</b> The first +regular English tragedy, by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, +printed in 1565.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_597_597" id="Footnote_597_597"></a><a href="#FNanchor_597_597"><span class="label">[597]</span></a> <b>Gammer Gurtor's Needle.</b> One of the first +English comedies, written by Bishop Still and printed in 1575.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_598_598" id="Footnote_598_598"></a><a href="#FNanchor_598_598"><span class="label">[598]</span></a> <b>Whether the boy Shakespeare poached</b>, etc. For +a fuller account of the facts of Shakespeare's life, of which some +traditions and facts are mentioned here, consult some good biography +of the poet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_599_599" id="Footnote_599_599"></a><a href="#FNanchor_599_599"><span class="label">[599]</span></a> <b>Queen Elizabeth.</b> Dining her reign, 1558-1603, +the English drama rose and attained its height, and there was produced +a prose literature hardly inferior to the poetic.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_600_600" id="Footnote_600_600"></a><a href="#FNanchor_600_600"><span class="label">[600]</span></a> <b>King James.</b> King James VI. of Scotland and I. +of England who was Elizabeth's kinsman and successor; he reigned in +England from 1603 to 1625.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_328" id="Page_328"></a>[328] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_601_601" id="Footnote_601_601"></a><a href="#FNanchor_601_601"><span class="label">[601]</span></a> <b>Essexes.</b> Walter Devereux was a brave English +gentleman whom Elizabeth made Earl of Essex in 1572. His son Robert, +the second Earl of Essex, was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth's.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_602_602" id="Footnote_602_602"></a><a href="#FNanchor_602_602"><span class="label">[602]</span></a> <b>Leicester.</b> The Earl of Leicester, famous in +Shakespeare's time, was Robert Dudley, an English courtier, +politician, and general, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_603_603" id="Footnote_603_603"></a><a href="#FNanchor_603_603"><span class="label">[603]</span></a> <b>Burleighs</b> or Burghleys: William Cecil, baron +of Burghley, was an English statesman, who, for forty years, was +Elizabeth's chief minister.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_604_604" id="Footnote_604_604"></a><a href="#FNanchor_604_604"><span class="label">[604]</span></a> <b>Buckinghams.</b> George Villiers, the first duke +of Buckingham, was an English courtier and politician, a favorite of +James I. and Charles I.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_605_605" id="Footnote_605_605"></a><a href="#FNanchor_605_605"><span class="label">[605]</span></a> <b>Tudor dynasty.</b> The English dynasty of +sovereigns descended on the male side from Owen Tudor. It began with +Henry VII. and ended with Elizabeth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_606_606" id="Footnote_606_606"></a><a href="#FNanchor_606_606"><span class="label">[606]</span></a> <b>Bacon.</b> Consult English literature and history +for an account of the great statesman and author, Francis Bacon, "the +wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_607_607" id="Footnote_607_607"></a><a href="#FNanchor_607_607"><span class="label">[607]</span></a> <b>Ben Jonson</b>, etc. In his <i>Timber or +Discoveries</i>, Ben Jonson, a famous classical dramatist contemporary +with Shakespeare, says: "I loved the man and do honor his memory on +this side idolatry as much as any. He was indeed honest and of an open +and free nature: had an excellent fancy; brave notions and gentle +expressions: wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it +was necessary he should be stopped.... His wit was in his own power; +would the rule of it had been so, too. Many times he fell into those +things could not escape laughter.... But he redeemed his vices with +his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be +pardoned."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_608_608" id="Footnote_608_608"></a><a href="#FNanchor_608_608"><span class="label">[608]</span></a> <b>Sir Henry Wotton.</b> An English diplomatist and +author of wide culture.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_609_609" id="Footnote_609_609"></a><a href="#FNanchor_609_609"><span class="label">[609]</span></a> <b>The following persons</b>, etc. The persons +enumerated were all people of note of the seventeenth century. Sir +Philip Sidney, Earl of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John +Milton, Sir Henry Vane, Isaac Walton, Dr. John Donne, Abraham Cowley, +Charles Cotton, John Pym, and John Hales were Englishmen, scholars, +statesmen, and authors. Theodore Beza was a French theologian; Isaac +Casaubon was a French-Swiss scholar; Roberto Berlarmine was an Italian +cardinal; Johann Kepler was a German astronomer; Francis Vieta was a +French mathematician; <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_329" id="Page_329"></a>[329] </span> Albericus Gentilis was an Italian jurist; Paul +Sarpi was an Italian historian; Arminius was a Dutch theologian.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_610_610" id="Footnote_610_610"></a><a href="#FNanchor_610_610"><span class="label">[610]</span></a> <b>Many others whom doubtless</b>, etc. Emerson here +enumerates some famous English authors of the same period, not +mentioned in the preceeding list.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_611_611" id="Footnote_611_611"></a><a href="#FNanchor_611_611"><span class="label">[611]</span></a> <b>Pericles.</b> See note on <i>Heroism</i>, <a href="#Footnote_352_352">352</a>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_612_612" id="Footnote_612_612"></a><a href="#FNanchor_612_612"><span class="label">[612]</span></a> <b>Lessing.</b> Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a German +critic and poet of the eighteenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_613_613" id="Footnote_613_613"></a><a href="#FNanchor_613_613"><span class="label">[613]</span></a> <b>Wieland.</b> Christopher Martin Wieland was a +German contemporary of Lessing's, who made a prose translation into +German of Shakespeare's plays.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_614_614" id="Footnote_614_614"></a><a href="#FNanchor_614_614"><span class="label">[614]</span></a> <b>Schlegel.</b> August Wilhelm von Schlegel, a +German critic and poet, who about the first of the nineteenth century +translated some of Shakespeare's plays into classical German.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_615_615" id="Footnote_615_615"></a><a href="#FNanchor_615_615"><span class="label">[615]</span></a> <b>Hamlet.</b> The hero of Shakespeare's play of the +same name.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_616_616" id="Footnote_616_616"></a><a href="#FNanchor_616_616"><span class="label">[616]</span></a> <b>Coleridge.</b> Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English +poet, author of critical lectures and notes on Shakespeare.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_617_617" id="Footnote_617_617"></a><a href="#FNanchor_617_617"><span class="label">[617]</span></a> <b>Goethe.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_85_85">85</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_618_618" id="Footnote_618_618"></a><a href="#FNanchor_618_618"><span class="label">[618]</span></a> <b>Blackfriar's Theater.</b> A famous London theater +in which nearly all the great dramas of the Elizabethan age were +performed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_619_619" id="Footnote_619_619"></a><a href="#FNanchor_619_619"><span class="label">[619]</span></a> <b>Stratford.</b> Stratford-on-Avon, a little town in +Warwickshire, England, where Shakespeare was born and where he spent +his last years.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_620_620" id="Footnote_620_620"></a><a href="#FNanchor_620_620"><span class="label">[620]</span></a> <b>Macbeth.</b> One of Shakespeare's greatest +tragedies, written about 1606.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_621_621" id="Footnote_621_621"></a><a href="#FNanchor_621_621"><span class="label">[621]</span></a> <b>Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and Collier.</b> English +scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who edited the +works of Shakespeare.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_622_622" id="Footnote_622_622"></a><a href="#FNanchor_622_622"><span class="label">[622]</span></a> <b>Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and +Tremont</b>: The leading London theaters in the eighteenth and nineteenth +centuries.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_623_623" id="Footnote_623_623"></a><a href="#FNanchor_623_623"><span class="label">[623]</span></a> <b>Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and +Macready</b>, famous British actors of the Shakespearian parts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_624_624" id="Footnote_624_624"></a><a href="#FNanchor_624_624"><span class="label">[624]</span></a> <b>The Hamlet of a famed performer</b>, etc. +Macready. Emerson said to a friend: "I see you are one of the happy +mortals who are capable of being carried away by an actor of +Shakespeare. Now, whenever I visit the theater to witness the +performance of one of his dramas, I am carried away by the poet."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_625_625" id="Footnote_625_625"></a><a href="#FNanchor_625_625"><span class="label">[625]</span></a> <b>What may this mean</b>, etc. <i>Hamlet</i>, I. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_626_626" id="Footnote_626_626"></a><a href="#FNanchor_626_626"><span class="label">[626]</span></a> <b>Midsummer Night's Dream.</b> One of Shakespeare's +plays.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_330" id="Page_330"></a>[330] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_627_627" id="Footnote_627_627"></a><a href="#FNanchor_627_627"><span class="label">[627]</span></a> <b>The forest of Arden.</b> In which is laid, the +scene of Shakespeare's play, <i>As You Like It</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_628_628" id="Footnote_628_628"></a><a href="#FNanchor_628_628"><span class="label">[628]</span></a> <b>The nimble air of Scone Castle.</b> It was of the +air of Inverness, not of Scone, that "the air nimbly and sweetly +recommends itself unto our gentle senses."—<i>Macbeth</i>, <span class="smcap">i.</span> 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_629_629" id="Footnote_629_629"></a><a href="#FNanchor_629_629"><span class="label">[629]</span></a> <b>Portia's villa.</b> See the moonlight scene, +<i>Merchant of Venice</i>, <span class="smcap">v.</span> 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_630_630" id="Footnote_630_630"></a><a href="#FNanchor_630_630"><span class="label">[630]</span></a> <b>The antres vost</b>, etc. See <i>Othello</i>, +<span class="smcap">I.</span> 3. "Antres" is an old word, meaning caves, caverns.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_631_631" id="Footnote_631_631"></a><a href="#FNanchor_631_631"><span class="label">[631]</span></a> <b>Cyclopean architecture.</b> In Greek mythology, +the Cyclops were a race of giants. The term 'Cyclopean' is applied +here to the architecture of Egypt and India, because of the majestic +size of the buildings, and the immense size of the stones used, as if +it would require giants to perform such works.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_632_632" id="Footnote_632_632"></a><a href="#FNanchor_632_632"><span class="label">[632]</span></a> <b>Phidian sculpture.</b> Phidias was a famous Greek +sculptor who lived in the age of Pericles and beautified Athens with +his works.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_633_633" id="Footnote_633_633"></a><a href="#FNanchor_633_633"><span class="label">[633]</span></a> <b>Gothic minsters.</b> Churches or cathedrals, built +in the Gothic, or pointed, style of architecture which prevailed +during the Middle Ages; it owed nothing to the Goths, and this term +was originally used in reproach, in the sense of "barbarous."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_634_634" id="Footnote_634_634"></a><a href="#FNanchor_634_634"><span class="label">[634]</span></a> <b>The Italian painting.</b> In Italy during the +fifteenth and sixteenth centuries pictorial art was carried to a +degree of perfection unknown in any other time or country.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_635_635" id="Footnote_635_635"></a><a href="#FNanchor_635_635"><span class="label">[635]</span></a> <b>Ballads of Spain and Scotland.</b> The old +ballads of these countries are noted for beauty and spirit.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_636_636" id="Footnote_636_636"></a><a href="#FNanchor_636_636"><span class="label">[636]</span></a> <b>Tripod.</b> Define this word, and explain its +appropriateness here.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_637_637" id="Footnote_637_637"></a><a href="#FNanchor_637_637"><span class="label">[637]</span></a> <b>Aubrey.</b> John Aubrey, an English antiquarian of +the seventeenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_638_638" id="Footnote_638_638"></a><a href="#FNanchor_638_638"><span class="label">[638]</span></a> <b>Rowe.</b> Nicholas Rowe, an English author of the +seventeenth century, who wrote a biography of Shakespeare.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_639_639" id="Footnote_639_639"></a><a href="#FNanchor_639_639"><span class="label">[639]</span></a> <b>Timon.</b> See note on <i>Gifts</i>, <a href="#Footnote_466_466">466</a>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_640_640" id="Footnote_640_640"></a><a href="#FNanchor_640_640"><span class="label">[640]</span></a> <b>Warwick.</b> An English politician and commander +of the fifteenth century, called "the King Maker." He appears in +Shakespeare's plays, <i>Henry IV.</i>, <i>V.</i>, and <i>VI.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_641_641" id="Footnote_641_641"></a><a href="#FNanchor_641_641"><span class="label">[641]</span></a> <b>Antonio.</b> The Venetian Merchant in +Shakespeare's play, <i>The Merchant of Venice</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_642_642" id="Footnote_642_642"></a><a href="#FNanchor_642_642"><span class="label">[642]</span></a> <b>Talma.</b> François Joseph Talma was a French +tragic actor, to whom Napoleon showed favor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_643_643" id="Footnote_643_643"></a><a href="#FNanchor_643_643"><span class="label">[643]</span></a> <b>An omnipresent humanity</b>, etc. See what Carlyle +has to say on this subject in his <i>Hero as Poet</i>.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_331" id="Page_331"></a>[331] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_644_644" id="Footnote_644_644"></a><a href="#FNanchor_644_644"><span class="label">[644]</span></a> <b>Daguerre.</b> Louis Jacques Daguerre, a French +painter, one of the inventors of the daguerreotype process, by means +of which an image is fixed on a metal plate by the chemical action of +light.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_645_645" id="Footnote_645_645"></a><a href="#FNanchor_645_645"><span class="label">[645]</span></a> <b>Euphuism.</b> The word here has rather the force +of euphemism, an entirely different word. Euphuism was an affected +ornate style of expression, so called from <i>Euphues</i>, by John Lyly, a +sixteenth century master of that style.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_646_646" id="Footnote_646_646"></a><a href="#FNanchor_646_646"><span class="label">[646]</span></a> <b>Epicurus.</b> A Greek philosopher of the third +century before Christ. He was the founder of the Epicurean school of +philosophy which taught that pleasure should be man's chief aim and +that the highest pleasure is freedom.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_647_647" id="Footnote_647_647"></a><a href="#FNanchor_647_647"><span class="label">[647]</span></a> <b>Dante.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_258_258">258</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_648_648" id="Footnote_648_648"></a><a href="#FNanchor_648_648"><span class="label">[648]</span></a> <b>Master of the revels</b>, etc. Emerson always +expressed thankfulness for "the spirit of joy which Shakespeare had +shed over the universe." See what Carlyle says in <i>The Hero as Poet</i>, +about Shakespeare's "mirthfulness and love of laughter."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_649_649" id="Footnote_649_649"></a><a href="#FNanchor_649_649"><span class="label">[649]</span></a> <b>Koran.</b> The Sacred book of the Mohammedans.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_650_650" id="Footnote_650_650"></a><a href="#FNanchor_650_650"><span class="label">[650]</span></a> <b>Twelfth Night</b>, etc. The names of three bright, +merry, or serene plays by Shakespeare.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_651_651" id="Footnote_651_651"></a><a href="#FNanchor_651_651"><span class="label">[651]</span></a> <b>Egyptian verdict.</b> Emerson used Egyptian +probably in the sense of "gipsy." He compares such opinions to the +fortunes told by the gipsies.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_652_652" id="Footnote_652_652"></a><a href="#FNanchor_652_652"><span class="label">[652]</span></a> <b>Tasso.</b> An Italian poet of the sixteenth +century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_653_653" id="Footnote_653_653"></a><a href="#FNanchor_653_653"><span class="label">[653]</span></a> <b>Cervantes.</b> A Spanish poet and romancer of the +sixteenth century, the author of <i>Don Quixote</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_654_654" id="Footnote_654_654"></a><a href="#FNanchor_654_654"><span class="label">[654]</span></a> <b>Israelite.</b> Such Hebrew prophets as Isaiah and +Jeremiah.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_655_655" id="Footnote_655_655"></a><a href="#FNanchor_655_655"><span class="label">[655]</span></a> <b>German.</b> Such as Luther.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_656_656" id="Footnote_656_656"></a><a href="#FNanchor_656_656"><span class="label">[656]</span></a> <b>Swede.</b> Such as Swedenborg, the mystic +philosopher of the eighteenth century of whom Emerson had already +written in <i>Representative Men</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_657_657" id="Footnote_657_657"></a><a href="#FNanchor_657_657"><span class="label">[657]</span></a> <b>A pilgrim's progress.</b> As described by John +Bunyan, the English writer, in his famous <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_658_658" id="Footnote_658_658"></a><a href="#FNanchor_658_658"><span class="label">[658]</span></a> <b>Doleful histories of Adam's fall</b>, etc. The +subject of <i>Paradise Lost,</i> the great poem by John Milton.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_659_659" id="Footnote_659_659"></a><a href="#FNanchor_659_659"><span class="label">[659]</span></a> <b>With doomsdays and purgatorial</b>, etc. As +described by Dante in his <i>Divine Commedia</i>, an epic about hell, +purgatory, and paradise.</p></div> + + +<h3>PRUDENCE</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_660_660" id="Footnote_660_660"></a><a href="#FNanchor_660_660"><span class="label">[660]</span></a> The essay on <i>Prudence</i> was given as a lecture in +the course on <i>Human Culture</i>, in the winter of 1837-8. It was <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_332" id="Page_332"></a>[332] </span> +published in the first series of <i>Essays</i>, which appeared in 1841.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_661_661" id="Footnote_661_661"></a><a href="#FNanchor_661_661"><span class="label">[661]</span></a> <b>Lubricity.</b> The word means literally the state +or quality of being slippery; Emerson uses it several times, in its +derived sense of "instability."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_662_662" id="Footnote_662_662"></a><a href="#FNanchor_662_662"><span class="label">[662]</span></a> <b>Love and Friendship.</b> The subjects of the two +essays preceding <i>Prudence</i>, in the volume of 1841.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_663_663" id="Footnote_663_663"></a><a href="#FNanchor_663_663"><span class="label">[663]</span></a> <b>The world is filled with the proverbs</b>, etc. +Compare with this passage Emerson's words in <i>Compensation</i> on "the +flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as +that of birds and flies."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_664_664" id="Footnote_664_664"></a><a href="#FNanchor_664_664"><span class="label">[664]</span></a> <b>A good wheel or pin.</b> That is, a part of a +machine.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_665_665" id="Footnote_665_665"></a><a href="#FNanchor_665_665"><span class="label">[665]</span></a> <b>The law of polarity.</b> Having two opposite +poles, the properties of the one of which are the opposite of the +other.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_666_666" id="Footnote_666_666"></a><a href="#FNanchor_666_666"><span class="label">[666]</span></a> <b>Summer will have its flies.</b> Emerson discoursed +with philosophic calm about the impediments and disagreeableness which +beset every path; he also accepted them with serenity when he +encountered them in his daily life.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_667_667" id="Footnote_667_667"></a><a href="#FNanchor_667_667"><span class="label">[667]</span></a> <b>The inhabitants of the climates</b>, etc. As a +northerner, Emerson naturally felt that the advantage and superiority +were with his own section. He expressed in his poems <i>Voluntaries</i> and +<i>Mayday</i> views similar to those declared here.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_668_668" id="Footnote_668_668"></a><a href="#FNanchor_668_668"><span class="label">[668]</span></a> <b>Peninsular campaign.</b> Emerson here refers to +the military operations carried on from 1808 to 1814 in Portugal, +Spain, and southern France against the French, by the British, +Spanish, and Portuguese forces commanded by Wellington. What was the +"Peninsular campaign" in American history?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_669_669" id="Footnote_669_669"></a><a href="#FNanchor_669_669"><span class="label">[669]</span></a> <b>Dr. Johnson is reported to have said</b>, etc. Dr. +Samuel Johnson was an eminent English scholar of the eighteenth +century. In this, as in many other instances, Emerson quotes from his +memory instead of from the book. The words of Dr. Johnson, as reported +by his biographer Boswell, are: "Accustom your children constantly to +this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, +say it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check +them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_670_670" id="Footnote_670_670"></a><a href="#FNanchor_670_670"><span class="label">[670]</span></a> <b>Rifle.</b> A local name in England and New England +for an instrument, on the order of a whetstone, used for sharpening +scythes; it is made of wood, covered with fine sand or emery.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_671_671" id="Footnote_671_671"></a><a href="#FNanchor_671_671"><span class="label">[671]</span></a> <b>Last grand duke of Weimar.</b> +Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach is a grand duchy of Germany. The grand duke +referred to was Charles Augustus, who died in 1828. He was <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_333" id="Page_333"></a>[333] </span> the friend +and patron of the great German authors, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and +Wieland.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_672_672" id="Footnote_672_672"></a><a href="#FNanchor_672_672"><span class="label">[672]</span></a> <b>The Raphael in the Dresden gallery.</b> The +Sistine Madonna, the most famous picture of the great Italian artist, +Raphael.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_673_673" id="Footnote_673_673"></a><a href="#FNanchor_673_673"><span class="label">[673]</span></a> <b>Call a spade a spade.</b> Plutarch, the Greek +historian, said, "These Macedonians ... call a spade a spade."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_674_674" id="Footnote_674_674"></a><a href="#FNanchor_674_674"><span class="label">[674]</span></a> <b>Parts.</b> A favorite eighteenth century term for +abilities, talents.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_675_675" id="Footnote_675_675"></a><a href="#FNanchor_675_675"><span class="label">[675]</span></a> <b>We have found out</b>, etc. Emerson always +insisted that morals and intellect should be united. He urged that +power and insight are lessened by shortcomings in morals.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_676_676" id="Footnote_676_676"></a><a href="#FNanchor_676_676"><span class="label">[676]</span></a> <b>Goethe's Tasso.</b> A play by the German poet +Goethe, founded on the belief that the imprisonment of Tasso was due +to his aspiration to the hand of Leonora d'Este, sister of the duke of +Ferrara. Tasso was a famous Italian poet of the seventeenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_677_677" id="Footnote_677_677"></a><a href="#FNanchor_677_677"><span class="label">[677]</span></a> <b>Richard III.</b> An English king, the last of the +Plantagenet line, the hero—or villain—of Shakespeare's historical +play, Richard III.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_678_678" id="Footnote_678_678"></a><a href="#FNanchor_678_678"><span class="label">[678]</span></a> <b>Bifold.</b> Give a simpler word that means the +same.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_679_679" id="Footnote_679_679"></a><a href="#FNanchor_679_679"><span class="label">[679]</span></a> <b>Cæsar.</b> Why is Cæsar the great Roman ruler, +given as a type of greatness?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_680_680" id="Footnote_680_680"></a><a href="#FNanchor_680_680"><span class="label">[680]</span></a> <b>Job.</b> Why is Job, the hero of the Old Testament +book of the same name, given as a type of misery?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_681_681" id="Footnote_681_681"></a><a href="#FNanchor_681_681"><span class="label">[681]</span></a> <b>Poor Richard.</b> <i>Poor Richard's Almanac</i>, +published (1732-1757) by Benjamin Franklin was a collection of maxims +inculcating prudence and thrift. These were given as the sayings of +"Poor Richard."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_682_682" id="Footnote_682_682"></a><a href="#FNanchor_682_682"><span class="label">[682]</span></a> <b>State Street.</b> A street in Boston, +Massachusetts, noted as a financial center.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_683_683" id="Footnote_683_683"></a><a href="#FNanchor_683_683"><span class="label">[683]</span></a> <b>Stick in a tree between whiles</b>, etc. "Jock, +when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it +will be growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping."—Scott's <i>Heart of +Midlothian</i>. It is said that these were the words of a dying Scotchman +to his son.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_684_684" id="Footnote_684_684"></a><a href="#FNanchor_684_684"><span class="label">[684]</span></a> <b>Minor virtues.</b> Emerson suggests that +punctuality and regard for a promise are two of these. Can you name +others?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_685_685" id="Footnote_685_685"></a><a href="#FNanchor_685_685"><span class="label">[685]</span></a> <b>The Latin proverb says</b>, etc. This is quoted +from Tacitus, the famous Roman historian.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_686_686" id="Footnote_686_686"></a><a href="#FNanchor_686_686"><span class="label">[686]</span></a> <b>If he set out to contend</b>, etc. In contention, +Emerson holds, the best men would lose their characteristic virtues, <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_334" id="Page_334"></a>[334] </span> +—the fearless apostle Paul, his devotion to truth; the gentle +disciple John, his loving charity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_687_687" id="Footnote_687_687"></a><a href="#FNanchor_687_687"><span class="label">[687]</span></a> <b>Though your views are in straight antagonism</b>, +&c. This was Emerson's own method, and by it he won a courteous +hearing from those to whom his views were most objectionable.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_688_688" id="Footnote_688_688"></a><a href="#FNanchor_688_688"><span class="label">[688]</span></a> <b>Consuetudes.</b> Give a simpler word that has the +same meaning.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_689_689" id="Footnote_689_689"></a><a href="#FNanchor_689_689"><span class="label">[689]</span></a> <b>Begin where we will</b>, etc. Explain what Emerson +means by this expression.</p></div> + + +<h3>CIRCLES</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_690_690" id="Footnote_690_690"></a><a href="#FNanchor_690_690"><span class="label">[690]</span></a> This essay first appeared in the first series of +<i>Essays</i>, published in 1841. Unlike most of the other essays in the +volume, no earlier form of it exists, and it was probably not +delivered first as a lecture. +</p><p> +Dr. Richard Garnett says in his <i>Life of Emerson</i>: "The object of this +fine essay quaintly entitled <i>Circles</i> is to reconcile this rigidity +of unalterable law with the fact of human progress. Compensation +illustrates one property of a circle, which always returns to the +point where it began, but it is no less true that around every circle +another can be drawn.... Emerson followed his own counsel; he always +keeps a reserve of power. His theory of <i>Circles</i> reappears without +the least verbal indebtedness to himself in the splendid essay on +<i>Love</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_691_691" id="Footnote_691_691"></a><a href="#FNanchor_691_691"><span class="label">[691]</span></a> <b>St. Augustine.</b> A celebrated father of the +Latin church, who flourished in the fourth century. His most famous +work is his <i>Confessions</i>, an autobiographical volume of religious +meditations.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_692_692" id="Footnote_692_692"></a><a href="#FNanchor_692_692"><span class="label">[692]</span></a> <b>Another dawn risen on mid-noon.</b> "Another morn +has risen on mid-noon." Milton, <i>Paradise Lost</i>, Book V.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_693_693" id="Footnote_693_693"></a><a href="#FNanchor_693_693"><span class="label">[693]</span></a> <b>Greek sculpture.</b> The greatest development of +the art of sculpture that the world has ever known was that which took +place in Greece, with Athens as the center, in the fifth century +before Christ. The masterpieces which remain are the models on which +modern art formed itself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_694_694" id="Footnote_694_694"></a><a href="#FNanchor_694_694"><span class="label">[694]</span></a> <b>Greek letters.</b> In literature—in drama, +philosophy and history—Greece attained an excellence as signal as in +art. Emerson as a scholar, felt that the literature of Greece was more +permanent than its art. Would an artist be apt to take this view?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_695_695" id="Footnote_695_695"></a><a href="#FNanchor_695_695"><span class="label">[695]</span></a> <b>New arts destroy the old</b>, etc. Tell the ways +in <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_335" id="Page_335"></a>[335] </span> which the improvements and inventions mentioned by Emerson have +been superseded by others; give the reasons. Mention other similar +cases of more recent date.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_696_696" id="Footnote_696_696"></a><a href="#FNanchor_696_696"><span class="label">[696]</span></a> <b>The life of man is a self-evolving circle</b>, +etc. "Throw a stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate +themselves are the beautiful type of all +influence."—<span class="smcap">Emerson</span>, in <i>Nature</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_697_697" id="Footnote_697_697"></a><a href="#FNanchor_697_697"><span class="label">[697]</span></a> <b>The heart refuses to be imprisoned.</b> It is a +superstition current in many countries that an evil spirit cannot +escape from a circle drawn round it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_698_698" id="Footnote_698_698"></a><a href="#FNanchor_698_698"><span class="label">[698]</span></a> <b>Crass.</b> Gross; coarse.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_699_699" id="Footnote_699_699"></a><a href="#FNanchor_699_699"><span class="label">[699]</span></a> <b>The continual effort to raise himself above +himself</b>, etc. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Unless above himself he can<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!"<br /></span> +<span class="i12 smcap">Samuel Daniel</span>. +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_700_700" id="Footnote_700_700"></a><a href="#FNanchor_700_700"><span class="label">[700]</span></a> <b>If he were high enough</b>, etc. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Have I a lover<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who is noble and free?—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would he were nobler<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than to love me.</span><span class="i6"><span class="smcap">Emerson,</span><i>The Sphinx.</i></span><br /> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_701_701" id="Footnote_701_701"></a><a href="#FNanchor_701_701"><span class="label">[701]</span></a> <b>Aristotle and Plato.</b> Plato was a famous Greek +philosopher who flourished in the fourth century before Christ. He was +the disciple of Socrates, the teacher of Aristotle, and the founder of +the academic school of philosophy. His exposition of idealism was +founded on the teachings of Socrates. Aristotle, another famous Greek +philosopher, was for twenty years the pupil of Plato. He founded the +peripatetic school of philosophy, and his writing dealt with all the +then known branches of science.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_702_702" id="Footnote_702_702"></a><a href="#FNanchor_702_702"><span class="label">[702]</span></a> <b>Berkeley.</b> George Berkeley was a British +clergyman of the eighteenth century. He was the author of works on +philosophy which are marked by extreme subjective idealism.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_703_703" id="Footnote_703_703"></a><a href="#FNanchor_703_703"><span class="label">[703]</span></a> <b>Termini.</b> Boundaries or marks to indicate +boundaries. In Roman mythology, Terminus was the god who presided over +boundaries or landmarks. He is represented with a human head, but +without feet or arms,—to indicate that he never moved from his +place.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_704_704" id="Footnote_704_704"></a><a href="#FNanchor_704_704"><span class="label">[704]</span></a> <b>Pentecost.</b> One of three great Jewish +festivals. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the +infant Christian church, with the gift of tongues. See Acts ii. +1-20.</p></div><p> <span class="pagenum"> <a name="Page_336" id="Page_336"></a>[336] </span> </p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_705_705" id="Footnote_705_705"></a><a href="#FNanchor_705_705"><span class="label">[705]</span></a> <b>Hodiernal.</b> Belonging to our present day.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_706_706" id="Footnote_706_706"></a><a href="#FNanchor_706_706"><span class="label">[706]</span></a> <b>Punic.</b> Of Carthage, a famous ancient city, and +state of northern Africa. Carthage was the rival of Rome, but was, +after long warfare, overcome in the second century before Christ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_707_707" id="Footnote_707_707"></a><a href="#FNanchor_707_707"><span class="label">[707]</span></a> <b>In like manner</b>, etc. Emerson always urged that +in order to get the best from all, one must pass from affairs to +thought, society to solitude, books to nature. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"See thou bring not to field or stone<br /></span> +<span class="i3">The fancies found in books;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To brave the landscape's look."</span> +<span class="i12"><span class="smcap">Emerson,</span> <i>Waldeinsamkeit</i>.</span><br /> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_708_708" id="Footnote_708_708"></a><a href="#FNanchor_708_708"><span class="label">[708]</span></a> <b>Petrarch.</b> (See note <a href="#Footnote_563_563">563</a>.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_709_709" id="Footnote_709_709"></a><a href="#FNanchor_709_709"><span class="label">[709]</span></a> <b>Ariosto.</b> A famous Italian author of the +sixteenth century, who wrote comedies, satires, and a metrical +romance, <i>Orlando Furioso</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_710_710" id="Footnote_710_710"></a><a href="#FNanchor_710_710"><span class="label">[710]</span></a> "<b>Then shall also the Son</b>", etc. See 1 +Corinthians xv. 28: Does Emerson quote the passage verbatim?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_711_711" id="Footnote_711_711"></a><a href="#FNanchor_711_711"><span class="label">[711]</span></a> <b>These manifold tenacious qualities</b>, etc. It is +remarked of Emerson that the idea of the symbolism of nature which he +received from Plato, was the source of much of his pleasure in +Swedenborg, the Swedish mystic philosopher. Emerson says in his volume +on <i>Nature</i>: "The noblest ministry of nature is to stand as an +apparition of God."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_712_712" id="Footnote_712_712"></a><a href="#FNanchor_712_712"><span class="label">[712]</span></a> "<b>Forgive his crimes</b>," etc. This is quoted from +<i>Night Thoughts</i> by the English didactic poet, Edward Young.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_713_713" id="Footnote_713_713"></a><a href="#FNanchor_713_713"><span class="label">[713]</span></a> <b>Pyrrhonism.</b> A doctrine held by a follower of +Pyrrho, a Greek philosopher of the third century before Christ, who +founded the sceptical school. He taught that it is impossible to +attain truth, and that men should be indifferent to all external +circumstances.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_714_714" id="Footnote_714_714"></a><a href="#FNanchor_714_714"><span class="label">[714]</span></a> <b>I own I am gladdened</b>, etc. Emerson always +held fast to the consoling thought that there was no evil without +good, none out of which Good did not or could not come.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_715_715" id="Footnote_715_715"></a><a href="#FNanchor_715_715"><span class="label">[715]</span></a> <b>Sempiternal.</b> Everlasting; eternal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_716_716" id="Footnote_716_716"></a><a href="#FNanchor_716_716"><span class="label">[716]</span></a> <b>Oliver Cromwell.</b> An Englishman of the +middle classes who became the military and civil leader of the English +Revolution of the seventeenth century. He refused the title of king; +but as Lord Protector of the English commonwealth, he exercised royal +power.</p></div> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. +</div> + +<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br /> +<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br /> +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person +or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the +Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when +you share it without charge with others. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work +on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: +</div> + +<blockquote> + <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most + other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions + whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms + of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online + at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you + are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws + of the country where you are located before using this eBook. + </div> +</blockquote> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg™ License. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format +other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain +Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +provided that: +</div> + +<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation.” + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ + works. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. + </div> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread +public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state +visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. +</div> + +</div> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/16643-h/images/image_01.jpg b/16643-h/images/image_01.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..72f25ac --- /dev/null +++ b/16643-h/images/image_01.jpg diff --git a/16643-h/images/image_02.jpg b/16643-h/images/image_02.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..017d72e --- /dev/null +++ b/16643-h/images/image_02.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dca055e --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #16643 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16643) diff --git a/old/16643-8.txt b/old/16643-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0eaaa33 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16643-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10231 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Essays + +Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson + +Editor: Edna H. L. Turpin + +Release Date: September 4, 2005 [EBook #16643] +[Last updated: March 15, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Sankar Viswanathan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + ESSAYS + + BY + + RALPH WALDO EMERSON + + + + + Merrill's English Texts + + SELECTED AND EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION + AND NOTES, BY EDNA H.L. TURPIN, AUTHOR + OF "STORIES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY," + "CLASSIC FABLES," "FAMOUS PAINTERS," ETC. + + + + NEW YORK + + CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. + + 1907 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + LIFE OF EMERSON + CRITICAL OPINIONS + CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PRINCIPAL WORKS + +THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR + +COMPENSATION + +SELF RELIANCE + +FRIENDSHIP + +HEROISM + +MANNERS + +GIFTS + +NATURE + +SHAKESPEARE; OR, THE POET + +PRUDENCE + +CIRCLES + +NOTES + + + + +PUBLISHERS' NOTE + +Merrill's English Texts + + +This series of books will include in complete editions those +masterpieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the use +of schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes will be +chosen for their special qualifications in connection with the texts +to be issued under their individual supervision, but familiarity with +the practical needs of the classroom, no less than sound scholarship, +will characterize the editing of every book in the series. + +In connection with each text, a critical and historical introduction, +including a sketch of the life of the author and his relation to the +thought of his time, critical opinions of the work in question chosen +from the great body of English criticism, and, where possible, a +portrait of the author, will be given. Ample explanatory notes of such +passages in the text as call for special attention will be supplied, +but irrelevant annotation and explanations of the obvious will be +rigidly excluded. + +CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. + + + + +LIFE OF EMERSON + + +Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, May 25, 1803. He was descended +from a long line of New England ministers, men of refinement and +education. As a school-boy he was quiet and retiring, reading a great +deal, but not paying much attention to his lessons. He entered Harvard +at the early age of fourteen, but never attained a high rank there, +although he took a prize for an essay on Socrates, and was made class +poet after several others had declined. Next to his reserve and the +faultless propriety of his conduct, his contemporaries at college +seemed most impressed by the great maturity of his mind. Emerson +appears never to have been really a boy. He was always serene and +thoughtful, impressing all who knew him with that spirituality which +was his most distinguishing characteristic. + +After graduating from college he taught school for a time, and then +entered the Harvard Divinity School under Dr. Channing, the great +Unitarian preacher. Although he was not strong enough to attend all +the lectures of the divinity course, the college authorities deemed +the name Emerson sufficient passport to the ministry. He was +accordingly "approbated to preach" by the Middlesex Association of +Ministers on October 10, 1826. As a preacher, Emerson was interesting, +though not particularly original. His talent seems to have been in +giving new meaning to the old truths of religion. One of his hearers +has said: "In looking back on his preaching I find he has impressed +truths to which I always assented in such a manner as to make them +appear new, like a clearer revelation." Although his sermons were +always couched in scriptural language, they were touched with the +light of that genius which avoids the conventional and commonplace. In +his other pastoral duties Emerson was not quite so successful. It is +characteristic of his deep humanity and his dislike for all fuss and +commonplace that he appeared to least advantage at a funeral. A +connoisseur in such matters, an old sexton, once remarked that on such +occasions "he did not appear at ease at all. To tell the truth, in my +opinion, that young man was not born to be a minister." + +Emerson did not long remain a minister. In 1832 he preached a sermon +in which he announced certain views in regard to the communion service +which were disapproved by a large part of his congregation. He found +it impossible to continue preaching, and, with the most friendly +feelings on both sides, he parted from his congregation. + +A few months later (1833) he went to Europe for a short year of +travel. While abroad, he visited Walter Savage Landor, Coleridge and +Wordsworth, and Thomas Carlyle. This visit to Carlyle was to both men +a most interesting experience. They parted feeling that they had much +intellectually in common. This belief fostered a sympathy which, by +the time they had discovered how different they really were, had grown +so strong a habit that they always kept up their intimacy. This year +of travel opened Emerson's eyes to many things of which he had +previously been ignorant; he had profited by detachment from the +concerns of a limited community and an isolated church. + +After his return he began to find his true field of activity in the +lecture-hall, and delivered a number of addresses in Boston and its +vicinity. While thus coming before the open public on the lecture +platform, he was all the time preparing the treatise which was to +embody all the quintessential elements of his philosophical doctrine. +This was the essay _Nature_, which was published in 1836. By its +conception of external Nature as an incarnation of the Divine Mind it +struck the fundamental principle of Emerson's religious belief. The +essay had a very small circulation at first, though later it became +widely known. + +In the winter of 1836 Emerson followed up his discourse on Nature by a +course of twelve lectures on the "Philosophy of History," a +considerable portion of which eventually became embodied in his +essays. The next year (1837) was the year of the delivery of the _Man +Thinking, or the American Scholar_ address before the Phi Beta Kappa +Society at Cambridge. + +This society, composed of the first twenty-five men in each class +graduating from college, has annual meetings which have called forth +the best efforts of many distinguished scholars and thinkers. +Emerson's address was listened to with the most profound interest. It +declared a sort of intellectual independence for America. Henceforth +we were to be emancipated from clogging foreign influences, and a +national literature was to expand under the fostering care of the +Republic. + +These two discourses, _Nature_ and _The American Scholar_, strike the +keynote of Emerson's philosophical, poetical, and moral teachings. In +fact he had, as every great teacher has, only a limited number of +principles and theories to teach. These principles of life can all be +enumerated in twenty words--self-reliance, culture, intellectual and +moral independence, the divinity of nature and man, the necessity of +labor, and high ideals. + +Emerson spent the latter part of his life in lecturing and in literary +work. His son, Dr. Edward Emerson, gave an interesting account of how +these lectures were constructed. "All through his life he kept a +journal. This book, he said, was his 'Savings Bank.' The thoughts thus +received and garnered in his journals were indexed, and a great many +of them appeared in his published works. They were religiously set +down just as they came, in no order except chronological, but later +they were grouped, enlarged or pruned, illustrated, worked into a +lecture or discourse, and, after having in this capacity undergone +repeated testing and rearranging, were finally carefully sifted and +more rigidly pruned, and were printed as essays." + +Besides his essays and lectures Emerson left some poetry in which is +embodied those thoughts which were to him too deep for prose +expression. Oliver Wendell Holmes in speaking of this says: "Emerson +wrote occasionally in verse from his school-days until he had reached +the age which used to be known as the grand climacteric, +sixty-three.... His poems are not and hardly can become popular; they +are not meant to be liked by the many, but to be dearly loved and +cherished by the few.... His occasional lawlessness in technical +construction, his somewhat fantastic expressions, his enigmatic +obscurities hardly detract from the pleasant surprise his verses so +often bring with them.... The poetic license which we allow in the +verse of Emerson is more than excused by the noble spirit which makes +us forget its occasional blemishes, sometimes to be pleased with them +as characteristic of the writer." + +Emerson was always a striking figure in the intellectual life of +America. His discourses were above all things inspiring. Through them +many were induced to strive for a higher self-culture. His influence +can be discerned in all the literary movements of the time. He was the +central figure of the so-called transcendental school which was so +prominent fifty years ago, although he always rather held aloof from +any enthusiastic participation in the movement. + +Emerson lived a quiet life in Concord, Massachusetts. "He was a +first-rate neighbor and one who always kept his fences up." He +traveled extensively on his lecturing tours, even going as far as +England. In _English Traits_ he has recorded his impressions of what +he saw of English life and manners. + +Oliver Wendell Holmes has described him in this wise: "His personal +appearance was that of the typical New Englander of college-bred +ancestry. Tall, spare, slender, with sloping shoulders, slightly +stooping in his later years, with light hair and eyes, the scholar's +complexion, the prominent, somewhat arched nose which belongs to many +of the New England sub-species, thin lips, suggestive of delicacy, but +having nothing like primness, still less of the rigidity which is +often noticeable in the generation succeeding next to that of the men +in their shirt-sleeves, he would have been noticed anywhere as one +evidently a scholarly thinker astray from the alcove or the study, +which were his natural habitats. His voice was very sweet, and +penetrating without any loudness or mark of effort. His enunciation +was beautifully clear, but he often hesitated as if waiting for the +right word to present itself. His manner was very quiet, his smile was +pleasant, but he did not like explosive laughter any better than +Hawthorne did. None who met him can fail to recall that serene and +kindly presence, in which there was mingled a certain spiritual +remoteness with the most benignant human welcome to all who were +privileged to enjoy his companionship." + +Emerson died April 27, 1882, after a few days' illness from pneumonia. +Dr. Garnett in his excellent biography says: "Seldom had 'the reaper +whose name is Death' gathered such illustrious harvest as between +December 1880 and April 1882. In the first month of this period George +Eliot passed away, in the ensuing February Carlyle followed; in April +Lord Beaconsfield died, deplored by his party, nor unregretted by his +country; in February of the following year Longfellow was carried to +the tomb; in April Rossetti was laid to rest by the sea, and the +pavement of Westminster Abbey was disturbed to receive the dust of +Darwin. And now Emerson lay down in death beside the painter of man +and the searcher of nature, the English-Oriental statesman, the poet +of the plain man and the poet of the artist, and the prophet whose +name is indissolubly linked with his own. All these men passed into +eternity laden with the spoils of Time, but of none of them could it +be said, as of Emerson, that the most shining intellectual glory and +the most potent intellectual force of a continent had departed along +with him." + + + + +CRITICAL OPINIONS OF EMERSON AND HIS WRITINGS. + + +Matthew Arnold, in an address on Emerson delivered in Boston, gave +an excellent estimate of the rank we should accord to him in the great +hierarchy of letters. Some, perhaps, will think that Arnold was +unappreciative and cold, but dispassionate readers will be inclined to +agree with his judgment of our great American. + +After a review of the poetical works of Emerson the English critic +draws his conclusions as follows: + +"I do not then place Emerson among the great poets. But I go farther, +and say that I do not place him among the great writers, the great men +of letters. Who are the great men of letters? They are men like +Cicero, Plato, Bacon, Pascal, Swift, Voltaire--writers with, in the +first place, a genius and instinct for style.... Brilliant and +powerful passages in a man's writings do not prove his possession of +it. Emerson has passages of noble and pathetic eloquence; he has +passages of shrewd and felicitous wit; he has crisp epigram; he has +passages of exquisitely touched observation of nature. Yet he is not a +great writer.... Carlyle formulates perfectly the defects of his +friend's poetic and literary productions when he says: 'For me it is +too ethereal, speculative, theoretic; I will have all things condense +themselves, take shape and body, if they are to have my sympathy.' ... + +".... Not with the Miltons and Grays, not with the Platos and Spinozas, +not with the Swifts and Voltaires, not with the Montaignes and +Addisons, can we rank Emerson. No man could see this clearer than +Emerson himself. 'Alas, my friend,' he writes in reply to Carlyle, who +had exhorted him to creative work,--'Alas, my friend, I can do no such +gay thing as you say. I do not belong to the poets, but only to a low +department of literature,--the reporters; suburban men.' He deprecated +his friend's praise; praise 'generous to a fault' he calls it; praise +'generous to the shaming of me,--cold, fastidious, ebbing person that +I am.'" + +After all this unfavorable criticism Arnold begins to praise. Quoting +passages from the Essays, he adds: + +"This is tonic indeed! And let no one object that it is too general; +that more practical, positive direction is what we want.... Yes, +truly, his insight is admirable; his truth is precious. Yet the secret +of his effect is not even in these; it is in his temper. It is in the +hopeful, serene, beautiful temper wherewith these, in Emerson, are +indissolubly united; in which they work and have their being.... One +can scarcely overrate the importance of holding fast to happiness and +hope. It gives to Emerson's work an invaluable virtue. As Wordsworth's +poetry is, in my judgment, the most important done in verse, in our +language, during the present century, so Emerson's Essays are, I +think, the most important work done in prose.... But by his conviction +that in the life of the spirit is happiness, and by his hope that this +life of the spirit will come more and more to be sanely understood, +and to prevail, and to work for happiness,--by this conviction and +hope Emerson was great, and he will surely prove in the end to have +been right in them.... You cannot prize him too much, nor heed him too +diligently." + +Herman Grimm, a German critic of great influence in his own country, +did much to obtain a hearing for Emerson's works in Germany. At first +the Germans could not understand the unusual English, the unaccustomed +turns of phrase which are so characteristic of Emerson's style. + +"Macaulay gives them no difficulty; even Carlyle is comprehended. But +in Emerson's writings the broad turnpike is suddenly changed into a +hazardous sandy foot-path. His thoughts and his style are American. He +is not writing for Berlin, but for the people of Massachusetts.... It +is an art to rise above what we have been taught.... All great men are +seen to possess this freedom. They derive their standard from their +own natures, and their observations on life are so natural and +spontaneous that it would seem as if the most illiterate person with a +scrap of common-sense would have made the same.... We become wiser +with them, and know not how the difficult appears easy and the +involved plain. + +"Emerson possesses this noble manner of communicating himself. He +inspires me with courage and confidence. He has read and seen but +conceals the labor. I meet in his works plenty of familiar facts, but +he does not employ them to figure up anew the old worn-out problems: +each stands on a new spot and serves for new combinations. From +everything he sees the direct line issuing which connects it with the +focus of life.... + +".... Emerson's theory is that of the 'sovereignty of the individual.' +To discover what a young man is good for, and to equip him for the +path he is to strike out in life, regardless of any other +consideration, is the great duty to which he calls attention. He makes +men self-reliant. He reveals to the eyes of the idealist the +magnificent results of practical activity, and unfolds before the +realist the grandeur of the ideal world of thought. No man is to allow +himself, through prejudice, to make a mistake in choosing the task to +which he will devote his life. Emerson's essays are, as it were, +printed sermons--all having this same text.... The wealth and harmony +of his language overpowered and entranced me anew. But even now I +cannot say wherein the secret of his influence lies. What he has +written is like life itself--the unbroken thread ever lengthened +through the addition of the small events which make up each day's +experience." + +Froude in his famous "Life of Carlyle" gives an interesting description +of Emerson's visit to the Carlyles in Scotland: + +"The Carlyles were sitting alone at dinner on a Sunday afternoon at +the end of August when a Dumfries carriage drove to the door, and +there stepped out of it a young American then unknown to fame, but +whose influence in his own country equals that of Carlyle in ours, and +whose name stands connected with his wherever the English language is +spoken. Emerson, the younger of the two, had just broken his Unitarian +fetters, and was looking out around him like a young eagle longing for +light. He had read Carlyle's articles and had discerned with the +instinct of genius that here was a voice speaking real and fiery +convictions, and no longer echoes and conventionalisms. He had come to +Europe to study its social and spiritual phenomena; and to the young +Emerson as to the old Goethe, the most important of them appeared to +be Carlyle.... The acquaintance then begun to their mutual pleasure +ripened into a deep friendship, which has remained unclouded in spite +of wide divergences of opinion throughout their working lives." + +Carlyle wrote to his mother after Emerson had left: + +"Our third happiness was the arrival of a certain young unknown friend +named Emerson, from Boston, in the United States, who turned aside so +far from his British, French, and Italian travels to see me here! He +had an introduction from Mill and a Frenchman (Baron d'Eichthal's +nephew) whom John knew at Rome. Of course, we could do no other than +welcome him; the rather as he seemed to be one of the most lovable +creatures in himself we had ever looked on. He stayed till next day +with us, and talked and heard to his heart's content, and left us all +really sad to part with him." + +In 1841 Carlyle wrote to John Sterling a few words apropos of the +recent publication of Emerson's essays in England: + +"I love Emerson's book, not for its detached opinions, not even for +the scheme of the general world he has framed for himself, or any +eminence of talent he has expressed that with, but simply because it +is his own book; because there is a tone of veracity, an unmistakable +air of its being _his_, and a real utterance of a human soul, not a +mere echo of such. I consider it, in that sense, highly remarkable, +rare, very rare, in these days of ours. Ach Gott! It is frightful to +live among echoes. The few that read the book, I imagine, will get +benefit of it. To America, I sometimes say that Emerson, such as he +is, seems to me like a kind of New Era." + +John Morley, the acute English critic, has made an analytic study of +Emerson's style, which may reconcile the reader to some of its +exasperating peculiarities. + +"One of the traits that every critic notes in Emerson's writing is +that it is so abrupt, so sudden in its transitions, so discontinuous, +so inconsecutive. Dislike of a sentence that drags made him +unconscious of the quality that French critics name _coulant_. +Everything is thrown in just as it comes, and sometimes the pell-mell +is enough to persuade us that Pope did not exaggerate when he said +that no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer as the +power of rejecting his own thoughts.... Apart from his difficult +staccato, Emerson is not free from secondary faults. He uses words +that are not only odd, but vicious in construction; he is sometimes +oblique and he is often clumsy; and there is a visible feeling after +epigrams that do not always come. When people say that Emerson's style +must be good and admirable because it fits his thought, they forget +that though it is well that a robe should fit, there is still +something to be said about its cut and fashion.... Yet, as happens to +all fine minds, there came to Emerson ways of expression deeply marked +with character. On every page there is set the strong stamp of +sincerity, and the attraction of a certain artlessness; the most +awkward sentence rings true; and there is often a pure and simple note +that touches us more than if it were the perfection of elaborated +melody. The uncouth procession of the periods discloses the travail of +the thought, and that, too, is a kind of eloquence. An honest reader +easily forgives the rude jolt or unexpected start when it shows a +thinker faithfully working his way along arduous and unworn tracks. +Even at the roughest, Emerson often interjects a delightful cadence. +As he says of Landor, his sentences are cubes which will stand firm, +place them how or where you will. He criticised Swedenborg for being +superfluously explanatory, and having an exaggerated feeling of the +ignorance of men. 'Men take truths of this nature,' said Emerson, +'very fast;' and his own style does no doubt very boldly take this +capacity for granted in us. In 'choice and pith of diction,' again, of +which Mr. Lowell speaks, he hits the mark with a felicity that is +almost his own in this generation. He is terse, concentrated, and free +from the important blunder of mistaking intellectual dawdling for +meditation. Nor in fine does his abruptness ever impede a true +urbanity. The accent is homely and the apparel plain, but his bearing +has a friendliness, a courtesy, a hospitable humanity, which goes +nearer to our hearts than either literary decoration or rhetorical +unction. That modest and lenient fellow-feeling which gave such charm +to his companionship breathes in his gravest writing, and prevents us +from finding any page of it cold or hard or dry." + +E.P. Whipple, the well-known American critic, wrote soon after Emerson's +death: + +"But 'sweetness and light' are precious and inspiring only so far as +they express the essential sweetness of the disposition of the +thinker, and the essential illuminating power of his intelligence. +Emerson's greatness came from his character. Sweetness and light +streamed from him because they were _in_ him. In everything he +thought, wrote, and did, we feel the presence of a personality as +vigorous and brave as it was sweet, and the particular radical thought +he at any time expressed derived its power to animate and illuminate +other minds from the might of the manhood, which was felt to be within +and behind it. To 'sweetness and light' he therefore added the prime +quality of fearless manliness. + +"If the force of Emerson's character was thus inextricably blended +with the force of all his faculties of intellect and imagination, and +the refinement of all his sentiments, we have still to account for the +peculiarities of his genius, and to answer the question, why do we +instinctively apply the epithet 'Emersonian' to every characteristic +passage in his writings? We are told that he was the last in a long +line of clergymen, his ancestors, and that the modern doctrine of +heredity accounts for the impressive emphasis he laid on the moral +sentiment; but that does not solve the puzzle why he unmistakably +differed in his nature and genius from all other Emersons. An +imaginary genealogical chart of descent connecting him with Confucius +or Gautama would be more satisfactory. + +"What distinguishes _the_ Emerson was his exceptional genius and +character, that something in him which separated him from all other +Emersons, as it separated him from all other eminent men of letters, +and impressed every intelligent reader with the feeling that he was +not only 'original but aboriginal.' Some traits of his mind and +character may be traced back to his ancestors, but what doctrine of +heredity can give us the genesis of his genius? Indeed, the safest +course to pursue is to quote his own words, and despairingly confess +that it is the nature of genius 'to spring, like the rainbow daughter +of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse all +history.'" + + + + +CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF EMERSON'S PRINCIPAL WORKS. + + +Nature 1836 +Essays (First Series) 1841 +Essays (Second Series) 1844 +Poems 1847 +Miscellanies 1849 +Representative Men 1850 +English Traits 1856 +Conduct of Life 1860 +Society and Solitude 1870 +Correspondence of Thomas +Carlyle and R.W. Emerson 1883 + + + + +THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. + + This address was delivered at Cambridge in 1837, before the + Harvard Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, a college + fraternity composed of the first twenty-five men in each + graduating class. The society has annual meetings, which + have been the occasion for addresses from the most + distinguished scholars and thinkers of the day. + + +MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN, + +I greet you on the recommencement of our literary year. Our +anniversary is one of hope, and, perhaps, not enough of labor. We do +not meet for games of strength[1] or skill, for the recitation of +histories, tragedies, and odes, like the ancient Greeks; for +parliaments of love and poesy, like the Troubadours;[2] nor for the +advancement of science, like our co-temporaries in the British and +European capitals. Thus far, our holiday has been simply a friendly +sign of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy +to give to letters any more. As such it is precious as the sign of an +indestructible instinct. Perhaps the time is already come when it +ought to be, and will be, something else; when the sluggard intellect +of this continent will look from under its iron lids and fill the +postponed expectation of the world with something better than the +exertions of mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, our long +apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The +millions that around us are rushing into life cannot always be fed on +the sere remains of foreign harvests.[3] Events, actions arise that +must be sung, that will sing themselves. Who can doubt that poetry +will revive and lead in a new age, as the star in the constellation +Harp, which now flames in our zenith, astronomers announce, shall one +day be the pole-star[4] for a thousand years? + +In the light of this hope I accept the topic which not only usage but +the nature of our association seem to prescribe to this day,--the +AMERICAN SCHOLAR. Year by year we come up hither to read one +more chapter of his biography. Let us inquire what new lights, new +events, and more days have thrown on his character, his duties, and +his hopes. + +It is one of those fables which out of an unknown antiquity convey an +unlooked-for wisdom, that the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into +men, that he might be more helpful to himself; just as the hand was +divided into fingers, the better to answer its end.[5] + +The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is +One Man,--present to all particular men only partially, or through one +faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole +man. Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is +all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and +soldier. In the _divided_ or social state these functions are parceled +out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint[6] of the joint +work, whilst each other performs his. The fable implies that the +individual, to possess himself, must sometimes return from his own +labor to embrace all the other laborers. But, unfortunately, this +original unit, this fountain of power, has been so distributed to +multitudes, has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out, that it +is spilled into drops, and cannot be gathered. The state of society is +one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk and +strut about so many walking monsters,--a good finger, a neck, a +stomach, an elbow, but never a man. + +Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, +who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered +by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel +and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead +of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth +to his work, but is ridden[7] by the routine of his craft, and the +soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the attorney a +statute-book; the mechanic a machine; the sailor a rope of the ship. + +In this distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated +intellect. In the right state he is _Man Thinking_. In the degenerate +state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, +or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking. + +In this view of him, as Man Thinking, the whole theory of his office +is contained. Him Nature solicits with all her placid, all her +monitory pictures.[8] Him the past instructs. Him the future invites. +Is not indeed every man a student, and do not all things exist for the +student's behoof? And, finally, is not the true scholar the only true +master? But as the old oracle said, "All things have two handles: +Beware of the wrong one."[9] In life, too often, the scholar errs with +mankind and forfeits his privilege. Let us see him in his school, and +consider him in reference to the main influences he receives. + + * * * * * + +I. The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon +the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun;[10] and, after sunset, +Night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. Every +day, men and women, conversing, beholding and beholden.[11] The scholar +must needs stand wistful and admiring before this great spectacle. He +must settle its value in his mind. What is nature to him? There is never +a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of +this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.[12] +Therein it resembles his own spirit, whose beginning, whose ending, he +never can find,--so entire, so boundless. Far too as her splendors +shine, system on system shooting like rays, upward, downward, without +center, without circumference,--in the mass and in the particle, Nature +hastens to render account of herself to the mind. Classification begins. +To the young mind everything is individual, stands by itself. By and by +it finds how to join two things and see in them one nature; then three, +then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying +instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, +discovering roots running under ground whereby contrary and remote +things cohere and flower out from one stem. It presently learns that +since the dawn of history there has been a constant accumulation and +classifying of facts. But what is classification but the perceiving that +these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law which +is also a law of the human mind? The astronomer discovers that geometry, +a pure abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of planetary +motion. The chemist finds proportions and intelligible method throughout +matter; and science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in +the most remote parts. The ambitious soul sits down before each +refractory fact; one after another reduces all strange constitutions, +all new powers, to their class and their law, and goes on forever to +animate the last fiber of organization, the outskirts of nature, by +insight. + +Thus to him, to this school-boy under the bending dome of day, is +suggested that he and it proceed from one Root; one is leaf and one is +flower; relation, sympathy, stirring in every vein. And what is that +root? Is not that the soul of his soul?--A thought too bold?--A dream +too wild? Yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of +more earthly natures,--when he has learned to worship the soul, and to +see that the natural philosophy that now is, is only the first +gropings of its gigantic hand,--he shall look forward to an +ever-expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator.[13] He shall see +that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for +part. One is seal and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his +own mind. Its laws are the laws of his own mind. Nature then becomes +to him the measure of his attainments. So much of nature as he is +ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he not yet possess. And, in +fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself,"[14] and the modern precept, +"Study nature," become at last one maxim. + + * * * * * + +II. The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar is the +mind of the Past,--in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of +institutions, that mind is inscribed. Books are the best type of the +influence of the past, and perhaps we shall get at the truth,--learn +the amount of this influence more conveniently,--by considering their +value alone. + +The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received +into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new +arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again. It came into him +life; it went out from him truth. It came to him short-lived actions; +it went out from him immortal thoughts. It came to him business; it +went from him poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It +can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now +inspires.[15] Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which +it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing. + +Or, I might say, it depends on how far the process had gone, of +transmuting life into truth. In proportion to the completeness of the +distillation, so will the purity and imperishableness of the product +be. But none is quite perfect. As no air-pump can by any means make a +perfect vacuum,[16] so neither can any artist entirely exclude the +conventional, the local, the perishable from his book, or write a book +of pure thought, that shall be as efficient, in all respects, to a +remote posterity, as to contemporaries, or rather to the second age. +Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each +generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will +not fit this. + +Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacredness which attaches to +the act of creation, the act of thought, is instantly transferred to +the record. The poet chanting was felt to be a divine man. Henceforth +the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit. +Henceforward it is settled the book is perfect; as love of the hero +corrupts into worship of his statue. Instantly the book becomes +noxious.[17] The guide is a tyrant. We sought a brother, and lo, a +governor. The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, always +slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, +having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry if +it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by +thinkers, not by Man Thinking, by men of talent, that is, who start +wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of +principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their +duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke,[18] which +Bacon,[19] have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were +only young men in libraries when they wrote these books. + +Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence the +book-learned class, who value books, as such; not as related to nature +and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate[20] +with the world and soul. Hence the restorers of readings,[21] the +emendators,[22] the bibliomaniacs[23] of all degrees. This is bad; +this is worse than it seems. + +Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What +is the right use? What is the one end which all means go to effect? +They are for nothing but to inspire.[24] I had better never see a book +than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and +made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world of +value is the active soul,--the soul, free, sovereign, active. This +every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although +in almost all men obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees +absolute truth and utters truth, or creates. In this action it is +genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound +estate of every man.[25] In its essence it is progressive. The book, +the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with +some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they,--let us hold by +this. They pin me down.[26] They look backward and not forward. But +genius always looks forward. The eyes of man are set in his forehead, +not in his hindhead. Man hopes. Genius creates. To create,--to +create,--is the proof of a divine presence. Whatever talents may be, +if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not +his;[27]--cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are +creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative words; +manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or +authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good +and fair. + +On the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it receive +always from another mind its truth, though it were in torrents of +light, without periods of solitude, inquest, and self-recovery; and a +fatal disservice[28] is done. Genius is always sufficiently the enemy +of genius by over-influence.[29] The literature of every nation bear +me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakespearized now for two +hundred years.[30] + +Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly +subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. +Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, +the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of +their readings.[31] But when the intervals of darkness come, as come +they must,--when the soul seeth not, when the sun is hid and the stars +withdraw their shining,--we repair to the lamps which were kindled by +their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn +is.[32] We hear, that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, "A +fig-tree, looking on a fig-tree, becometh fruitful." + +It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the +best books. They impress us ever with the conviction that one nature +wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great +English poets, of Chaucer,[33] of Marvell,[34] of Dryden,[35] with the +most modern joy,--with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part +caused by the abstraction of all _time_ from their verses. There is +some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived +in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which +lies close to my own soul, that which I also had well-nigh thought and +said. But for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical +doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should suppose some +pre-established harmony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and +some preparation of stores for their future wants, like the fact +observed in insects, who lay up food before death for the young grub +they shall never see. + +I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration of +instincts, to underrate the Book. We all know that as the human body +can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the +broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge. And +great and heroic men have existed who had almost no other information +than by the printed page. I only would say that it needs a strong head +to bear that diet. One must be an inventor to read well. As the +proverb says, "He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies must +carry out the wealth of the Indies." There is then creative reading as +well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and +invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with +manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense +of our author is as broad as the world. We then see, what is always +true, that as the seer's hour of vision is short and rare among heavy +days and months, so is its record, perchance, the least part of his +volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato[36] or Shakespeare, +only that least part,--only the authentic utterances of the +oracle;--all the rest he rejects, were it never so many times Plato's +and Shakespeare's. + +Of course there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise +man. History and exact science he must learn by laborious reading. +Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office,--to teach +elements. But they can only highly serve us when they aim not to +drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various +genius to their hospitable halls, and by the concentrated fires set +the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are natures +in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns[37] and +pecuniary foundations,[38] though of towns of gold, can never +countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit.[39] Forget this, +and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, +whilst they grow richer every year. + + * * * * * + +III. There goes in the world a notion that the scholar should be a +recluse, a valetudinarian,[40]--as unfit for any handiwork or public +labor as a penknife for an axe. The so-called "practical men" sneer at +speculative men, as if, because they speculate or _see_, they could do +nothing. I have heard it said that the clergy--who are always, more +universally than any other class, the scholars of their day--are +addressed as women; that the rough, spontaneous conversation of men +they do not hear, but only a mincing[41] and diluted speech. They are +often virtually disfranchised; and indeed there are advocates for +their celibacy. As far as this is true of the studious classes, it is +not just and wise. Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is +essential. Without it he is not yet man. Without it thought can never +ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of +beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, but +there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. The preamble[42] of +thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious +to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. +Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not. + +The world--this shadow of the soul, or _other me_, lies wide around. +Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me +acquainted with myself. I launch eagerly into this resounding tumult. +I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to +suffer and to work, taught by an instinct that so shall the dumb +abyss[43] be vocal with speech. I pierce its order; I dissipate its +fear;[44] I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So +much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness +have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my +dominion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his +nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is +pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, +want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar +grudges every opportunity of action passed by, as a loss of power. + +It is the raw material out of which the intellect molds her splendid +products. A strange process too, this by which experience is converted +into thought, as a mulberry-leaf is converted into satin.[45] The +manufacture goes forward at all hours. + +The actions and events of our childhood and youth are now matters of +calmest observation. They lie like fair pictures in the air. Not so +with our recent actions,--with the business which we now have in hand. +On this we are quite unable to speculate. Our affections as yet +circulate through it. We no more feel or know it than we feel the +feet, or the hand, or the brain of our body. The new deed is yet a +part of life,--remains for a time immersed in our unconscious life. In +some contemplative hour it detaches itself from the life like a ripe +fruit,[46] to become a thought of the mind. Instantly it is raised, +transfigured; the corruptible has put on incorruption.[47] Henceforth +it is an object of beauty, however base its origin and neighborhood. +Observe, too, the impossibility of antedating this act. In its grub +state it cannot fly, it cannot shine, it is a dull grub. But suddenly, +without observation, the selfsame thing unfurls beautiful wings, and +is an angel of wisdom. So is there no fact, no event, in our private +history, which shall not, sooner or later, lose its adhesive, inert +form, and astonish us by soaring from our body into the empyrean.[48] +Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the fear of boys, and dogs, +and ferules,[49] the love of little maids and berries, and many +another fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already; friend +and relative, profession and party, town and country, nation and +world, must also soar and sing.[50] + +Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions has +the richest return of wisdom. I will not shut myself out of this globe +of action, and transplant an oak into a flower-pot, there to hunger +and pine; nor trust the revenue of some single faculty, and exhaust +one vein of thought, much like those Savoyards,[51] who, getting their +livelihood by carving shepherds, shepherdesses, and smoking Dutchmen, +for all Europe, went out one day to the mountain to find stock, and +discovered that they had whittled up the last of their pine-trees. +Authors we have, in numbers, who have written out their vein, and who, +moved by a commendable prudence, sail for Greece or Palestine, follow +the trapper into the prairie, or ramble round Algiers, to replenish +their merchantable stock. + +If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would be covetous of +action. Life is our dictionary.[52] Years are well spent in country +labors; in town; in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank +intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one +end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate +and embody our perceptions. I learn immediately from any speaker how +much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his +speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and +copestones for the masonry of to-day. This is the way to learn +grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and +the work-yard made. + +But the final value of action, like that of books, and better than +books, is that it is a resource. That great principle of Undulation in +nature, that shows itself in the inspiring and expiring of the breath; +in desire and satiety; in the ebb and flow of the sea; in day and night; +in heat and cold; and, as yet more deeply ingrained in every atom and +every fluid, is known to us under the name of Polarity,--these "fits of +easy transmission and reflection," as Newton[53] called them, are the +law of nature because they are the law of spirit. + +The mind now thinks, now acts, and each fit reproduces the other. When +the artist has exhausted his materials, when the fancy no longer +paints, when thoughts are no longer apprehended and books are a +weariness,--he has always the resource _to live_. Character is higher +than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary. +The stream retreats to its source. A great soul will be strong to +live, as well as strong to think. Does he lack organ or medium to +impart his truth? He can still fall back on this elemental force of +living them. This is a total act. Thinking is a partial act. Let the +grandeur of justice shine in his affairs. Let the beauty of affection +cheer his lowly roof. Those "far from fame," who dwell and act with +him, will feel the force of his constitution in the doings and +passages of the day better than it can be measured by any public and +designed display. Time shall teach him that the scholar loses no hour +which the man lives. Herein he unfolds the sacred germ of his +instinct, screened from influence. What is lost in seemliness is +gained in strength. Not out of those on whom systems of education have +exhausted their culture comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or +to build the new, but out of unhandselled[54] savage nature; out of +terrible Druids[55] and Berserkers[56] come at last Alfred[57] and +Shakespeare. I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be +said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is +virtue yet in the hoe and the spade,[58] for learned as well as for +unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are +invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall +not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the +popular judgments and modes of action. + + * * * * * + +I have now spoken of the education of the scholar by nature, by books, +and by action. It remains to say somewhat of his duties. + +They are such as become Man Thinking. They may all be comprised in +self-trust. The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to +guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, +unhonored, and unpaid task of observation. Flamsteed[59] and +Herschel,[60] in their glazed observatories, may catalogue the stars +with the praise of all men, and, the results being splendid and +useful, honor is sure. But he, in his private observatory, cataloguing +obscure and nebulous[61] stars of the human mind, which as yet no man +has thought of as such,--watching days and months sometimes for a few +facts; correcting still his old records,--must relinquish display and +immediate fame. In the long period of his preparation he must betray +often an ignorance and shiftlessness in popular arts, incurring the +disdain of the able who shoulder him aside. Long he must stammer in +his speech; often forego the living for the dead. Worse yet, he must +accept--how often!--poverty and solitude. For the ease and pleasure of +treading the old road, accepting the fashions, the education, the +religion of society, he takes the cross of making his own, and, of +course, the self-accusation, the faint heart, the frequent uncertainty +and loss of time, which are the nettles and tangling vines in the way +of the self-relying and self-directed; and the state of virtual +hostility in which he seems to stand to society, and especially to +educated society. For all this loss and scorn, what offset? He is to +find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. +He is one who raises himself from private considerations and breathes +and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world's eye. +He is the world's heart. He is to resist the vulgar prosperity that +retrogrades ever to barbarism, by preserving and communicating heroic +sentiments, noble biographies, melodious verse, and the conclusions of +history. Whatsoever oracles the human heart, in all emergencies, in +all solemn hours, has uttered as its commentary on the world of +actions,--these he shall receive and impart. And whatsoever new +verdict Reason from her inviolable seat pronounces on the passing men +and events of to-day,--this he shall hear and promulgate. + +These being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in +himself, and to defer never to the popular cry. He and he only knows +the world. The world of any moment is the merest appearance. Some +great decorum, some fetich[62] of a government, some ephemeral trade, +or war, or man, is cried up[63] by half mankind and cried down by the +other half, as if all depended on this particular up or down. The odds +are that the whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the +scholar has lost in listening to the controversy. Let him not quit his +belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable[64] +of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In silence, in +steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add +observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach, +and bide his own time,--happy enough if he can satisfy himself alone +that this day he has seen something truly. Success treads on every +right step. For the instinct is sure that prompts him to tell his +brother what he thinks. He then learns that in going down into the +secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all +minds. He learns that he who has mastered any law in his private +thoughts is master to that extent of all men whose language he speaks, +and of all into whose language his own can be translated. The poet, in +utter solitude remembering his spontaneous thoughts and recording +them, is found to have recorded that which men in cities vast find +true for them also. The orator distrusts at first the fitness of his +frank confessions, his want of knowledge of the persons he addresses, +until he finds that he is the complement[65] of his hearers;--that +they drink his words because he fulfills for them their own nature; +the deeper he dives into his privatest, secretest presentiment, to his +wonder he finds this is the most acceptable, most public and +universally true. The people delight in it; the better part of every +man feels--This is my music; this is myself. + +In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the +scholar be,--free and brave. Free even to the definition of freedom, +"without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own +constitution." Brave; for fear is a thing which a scholar by his very +function puts behind him. Fear always springs from ignorance. It is a +shame to him if his tranquility, amid dangerous times, arise from the +presumption that like children and women his is a protected class; or +if he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from +politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the +flowering bushes, peeping into microscopes, and turning rhymes, as a +boy whistles to keep his courage up. So is the danger a danger still; +so is the fear worse. Manlike let him turn and face it. Let him look +into its eye and search its nature, inspect its origin,--see the +whelping of this lion,--which lies no great way back; he will then +find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent; he +will have made his hands meet on the other side, and can henceforth +defy it and pass on superior. The world is his who can see through its +pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown +error you behold is there only by sufferance,--by your sufferance. See +it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow. + +Yes, we are the cowed,--we the trustless. It is a mischievous notion +that we are come late into nature; that the world was finished a long +time ago. As the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of God, so +it is ever to so much of his attributes as we bring to it. To +ignorance and sin it is flint. They adapt themselves to it as they +may; but in proportion as a man has any thing in him divine, the +firmament flows before him and takes his signet[66] and form. Not he +is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind. +They are the kings of the world who give the color of their present +thought to all nature and all art, and persuade men, by the cheerful +serenity of their carrying the matter, that this thing which they do +is the apple which the ages have desired to pluck, now at last ripe, +and inviting nations to the harvest. The great man makes the great +thing. Wherever Macdonald[67] sits, there is the head of the table. +Linnæus[68] makes botany the most alluring of studies, and wins it +from the farmer and the herb-woman: Davy,[69] chemistry; and +Cuvier,[70] fossils. The day is always his who works in it with +serenity and great aims. The unstable estimates of men crowd to him +whose mind is filled with a truth, as the heaped waves of the Atlantic +follow the moon.[71] + +For this self-trust, the reason is deeper than can be fathomed,--darker +than can be enlightened. I might not carry with me the feeling of my +audience in stating my own belief. But I have already shown the ground +of my hope, in adverting to the doctrine that man is one. I believe man +has been wronged; he has wronged himself. He has almost lost the light +that can lead him back to his prerogatives. Men are become of no +account. Men in history, men in the world of to-day, are bugs, are +spawn, and are called "the mass" and "the herd." In a century, in a +millennium, one or two men;[72] that is to say, one or two +approximations to the right state of every man. All the rest behold in +the hero or the poet their own green and crude being,--ripened; yes, and +are content to be less, so _that_ may attain to its full stature. What a +testimony, full of grandeur, full of pity, is borne to the demands of +his own nature, by the poor clansman, the poor partisan, who rejoices in +the glory of his chief! The poor and the low find some amends to their +immense moral capacity, for their acquiescence in a political and social +inferiority.[73] They are content to be brushed like flies from the path +of a great person, so that justice shall be done by him to that common +nature which it is the dearest desire of all to see enlarged and +glorified. They sun themselves in the great man's light, and feel it to +be their own element. They cast the dignity of man from their downtrod +selves upon the shoulders of a hero, and will perish to add one drop of +blood to make that great heart beat, those giant sinews combat and +conquer. He lives for us, and we live in him. + +Men such as they[74] are very naturally seek money or power; and power +because it is as good as money,--the "spoils," so called, "of office." +And why not? For they aspire to the highest, and this, in their +sleep-walking, they dream is highest. Wake them and they shall quit +the false good and leap to the true, and leave governments to clerks +and desks. This revolution is to be wrought by the gradual +domestication of the idea of Culture. The main enterprise of the world +for splendor, for extent, is the upbuilding of a man. Here are the +materials strewn along the ground. The private life of one man shall +be a more illustrious monarchy, more formidable to its enemy, more +sweet and serene in its influence to its friend, than any kingdom in +history. For a man, rightly viewed, comprehendeth[75] the particular +natures of all men. Each philosopher, each bard, each actor has only +done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself. The +books which once we valued more than the apple of the eye, we have +quite exhausted. What is that but saying that we have come up with the +point of view which the universal mind took through the eyes of one +scribe; we have been that man, and have passed on. First, one, then +another, we drain all cisterns, and waxing greater by all these +supplies, we crave a better and a more abundant food. The man has +never lived that can feed us ever. The human mind cannot be enshrined +in a person who shall set a barrier on any one side to this unbounded, +unboundable empire. It is one central fire, which, flaming now out of +the lips of Etna, lightens the capes of Sicily, and now out of the +throat of Vesuvius, illuminates the towers and vineyards of Naples. It +is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which +animates all men. + + * * * * * + +But I have dwelt perhaps tediously upon this abstraction of the +Scholar. I ought not to delay longer to add what I have to say of +nearer reference to the time and to this country. + +Historically, there is thought to be a difference in the ideas which +predominate over successive epochs, and there are data for marking the +genius of the Classic, of the Romantic, and now of the Reflective or +Philosophical age.[76] With the views I have intimated of the oneness +or the identity of the mind through all individuals, I do not much +dwell on these differences. In fact, I believe each individual passes +through all three. The boy is a Greek; the youth, romantic; the +adult, reflective. I deny not, however, that a revolution in the +leading idea may be distinctly enough traced. + +Our age is bewailed as the age of Introversion.[77] Must that needs be +evil? We, it seems, are critical. We are embarrassed with second +thoughts.[78] We cannot enjoy anything for hankering to know whereof +the pleasure consists. We are lined with eyes. We see with our feet. +The time is infected with Hamlet's unhappiness,-- + + "Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."[79] + +Is it so bad then? Sight is the last thing to be pitied. Would we be +blind? Do we fear lest we should outsee nature and God, and drink +truth dry? I look upon the discontent of the literary class as a mere +announcement of the fact that they find themselves not in the state of +mind of their fathers, and regret the coming state as untried; as a +boy dreads the water before he has learned that he can swim. If there +is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of +Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side and admit of +being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and +by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by +the rich possibilities of the new era? This time, like all times, is a +very good one, if we but know what to do with it. + +I read with some joy of the auspicious signs of the coming days, as +they glimmer already through poetry and art, through philosophy and +science, through church and state. + +One of these signs is the fact that the same movement[80] which +effected the elevation of what was called the lowest class in the +state assumed in literature a very marked and as benign an aspect. +Instead of the sublime and beautiful, the near, the low, the common, +was explored and poetized. That which had been negligently trodden +under foot by those who were harnessing and provisioning themselves +for long journeys into far countries, is suddenly found to be richer +than all foreign parts. The literature of the poor, the feelings of +the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household +life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a +sign--is it not?--of new vigor when the extremities are made active, +when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet. I ask not +for the great, the remote, the romantic; what is doing in Italy or +Arabia; what is Greek art, or Provençal minstrelsy; I embrace the +common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. Give +me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future +worlds. What would we really know the meaning of? The meal in the +firkin; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street; the news of the +boat; the glance of the eye; the form and the gait of the body;--show +me the ultimate reason of these matters; show me the sublime presence +of the highest spiritual cause lurking, as always it does lurk, in +these suburbs and extremities of nature; let me see every trifle +bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal +law;[81] and the shop, the plow, and the ledger referred to the like +cause by which light undulates and poets sing;--and the world lies no +longer a dull miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and order: +there is no trifle, there is no puzzle, but one design unites and +animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench. + +This idea has inspired the genius of Goldsmith,[82] Burns,[83] +Cowper,[84] and, in a newer time, of Goethe,[85] Wordsworth,[86] and +Carlyle.[87] This idea they have differently followed and with various +success. In contrast with their writing, the style of Pope,[88] of +Johnson,[89] of Gibbon,[90] looks cold and pedantic. This writing is +blood-warm. Man is surprised to find that things near are not less +beautiful and wondrous than things remote. The near explains the far. +The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature. This +perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries. +Goethe, in this very thing the most modern of the moderns, has shown +us, as none ever did, the genius of the ancients. + +There is one man of genius who has done much for this philosophy of +life, whose literary value has never yet been rightly estimated:--I +mean Emanuel Swedenborg.[91] The most imaginative of men, yet writing +with the precision of a mathematician, he endeavored to engraft a +purely philosophical Ethics on the popular Christianity of his time. +Such an attempt of course must have difficulty which no genius could +surmount. But he saw and showed the connexion between nature and the +affections of the soul. He pierced the emblematic or spiritual +character of the visible, audible, tangible world. Especially did his +shade-loving muse hover over and interpret the lower parts of nature; +he showed the mysterious bond that allies moral evil to the foul +material forms, and has given in epical parables a theory of insanity, +of beasts, of unclean and fearful things. + +Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political +movement, is the new importance given to the single person. Everything +that tends to insulate the individual--to surround him with barriers +of natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his, and +man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign +state--tends to true union as well as greatness. "I learned," said the +melancholy Pestalozzi,[92] "that no man in God's wide earth is either +willing or able to help any other man." Help must come from the bosom +alone. The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the +ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes +of the future. He must be an university of knowledges. If there be one +lesson more than another that should pierce his ear, it is--The world +is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and +you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers +the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all; it is for you to dare +all. Mr. President and Gentlemen, this confidence in the unsearched +might of man belongs, by all motives, by all prophecy, by all +preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the +courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already +suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice +make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, +indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of +this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is +no work for any one but the decorous and the complaisant. Young men of +the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the +mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth +below not in unison with these, but are hindered from action by the +disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and +turn drudges, or die of disgust, some of them suicides. What is the +remedy? They did not yet see, and thousands of young men as hopeful +now crowding to the barriers for the career do not yet see, that if +the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there +abide, the huge world will come round to him. Patience,--patience; +with the shades of all the good and great for company; and for solace +the perspective of your own infinite life; and for work the study and +the communication of principles, the making those instincts prevalent, +the conversion of the world. Is it not the chief disgrace in the +world, not to be an unit; not to be reckoned one character; not to +yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, but to +be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand, of the +party, the section, to which we belong; and our opinion predicted +geographically, as the north, or the south? Not so, brothers and +friends,--please God, ours shall not be so. We will walk on our own +feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. +Then shall man be no longer a name for pity, for doubt, and for +sensual indulgence. The dread of man and the love of man shall be a +wall of defense and a wreath of joy around all. A nation of men will +for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by +the Divine Soul which also inspires all men. + + + + +COMPENSATION.[93] + + The wings of Time are black and white, + Pied with morning and with night. + Mountain tall and ocean deep + Trembling balance duly keep. + In changing moon, in tidal wave, + Glows the feud of Want and Have. + Gauge of more and less through space + Electric star and pencil plays. + The lonely Earth amid the balls + That hurry through the eternal halls, + A makeweight flying to the void, + Supplemental asteroid, + Or compensatory spark, + Shoots across the neutral Dark. + + Man's the elm, and Wealth the vine, + Stanch and strong the tendrils twine; + Through the frail ringlets thee deceive, + None from its stock that vine can reave. + Fear not, then, thou child infirm, + There's no god dare wrong a worm. + Laurel crowns cleave to deserts, + And power to him who power exerts; + Hast not thy share? On winged feet, + Lo! it rushes thee to meet; + And all that Nature made thy own, + Floating in air or pent in stone, + Will rive the hills and swim the sea, + And, like thy shadow, follow thee. + + +Ever since I was a boy, I have wished to write a discourse on +Compensation: for it seemed to me when very young, that on this +subject life was ahead of theology, and the people knew more than the +preachers taught. The documents,[94] too, from which the doctrine is +to be drawn, charmed my fancy by their endless variety, and lay always +before me, even in sleep; for they are the tools in our hands, the +bread in our basket, the transactions of the street, the farm, and the +dwelling-house, greetings, relations, debts and credits, the influence +of character, the nature and endowment of all men. It seemed to me, +also, that in it might be shown men a ray of divinity, the present +action of the soul of this world, clean from all vestige of tradition, +and so the heart of man might be bathed by an inundation of eternal +love, conversing with that which he knows was always and always must +be, because it really is now. It appeared, moreover, that if this +doctrine could be stated in terms with any resemblance to those bright +intuitions in which this truth is sometimes revealed to us, it would +be a star in many dark hours and crooked passages in our journey that +would not suffer us to lose our way. + +I was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon at church. +The preacher, a man esteemed for his orthodoxy, unfolded in the +ordinary manner the doctrine of the Last Judgment. He assumed that +judgment is not executed in this world; that the wicked are +successful; that the good are miserable;[95] and then urged from +reason and from Scripture a compensation to be made to both parties in +the next life. No offense appeared to be taken by the congregation at +this doctrine. As far as I could observe, when the meeting broke up, +they separated without remark on the sermon. + +Yet what was the import of this teaching? What did the preacher mean +by saying that the good are miserable in the present life? Was it that +houses and lands, offices, wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had by +unprincipled men, whilst the saints are poor and despised; and that a +compensation is to be made to these last hereafter, by giving them the +like gratifications another day,--bank stock and doubloons,[96] +venison and champagne? This must be the compensation intended; for +what else? Is it that they are to have leave to pray and praise? to +love and serve men? Why, that they can do now. The legitimate +inference the disciple would draw was: "We are to have _such_ a good +time as the sinners have now"; or, to push it to its extreme import: +"You sin now; we shall sin by and by; we would sin now, if we could; +not being successful, we expect our revenue to-morrow." + +The fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad are successful; +that justice is not done now. The blindness of the preacher consisted +in deferring to the base estimate of the market of what constitutes a +manly success, instead of confronting and convicting the world from +the truth; announcing the presence of the soul; the omnipotence of the +will: and so establishing the standard of good and ill, of success and +falsehood. + +I find a similar base tone in the popular religious works of the day, +and the same doctrines assumed by the literary men when occasionally +they treat the related topics. I think that our popular theology has +gained in decorum, and not in principle, over the superstitions it has +displaced. But men are better than this theology. Their daily life +gives it the lie. Every ingenuous and aspiring soul leaves the +doctrine behind him in his own experience; and all men feel sometimes +the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate. Few men are wiser than +they know. That which they hear in schools and pulpits without +afterthought, if said in conversation, would probably be questioned in +silence. If a man dogmatize in a mixed company on Providence and the +divine laws, he is answered by a silence which conveys well enough to +an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer, but his incapacity to +make his own statement. + +I shall attempt in this and the following chapter to record some facts +that indicate the path of the law of Compensation; happy beyond my +expectation, if I shall truly draw the smallest arc of this circle. + +POLARITY,[97] or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; +in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; +in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and +animals; in the equation of quantity and quality in the fluids of the +animal body; in the systole and diastole[98] of the heart; in the +undulations of fluids, and of sound; in the centrifugal and centripetal +gravity; in electricity, galvanism, and chemical affinity. Superinduce +magnetism at one end of a needle; the opposite magnetism takes place at +the other end. If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here, +you must condense there. An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that +each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole; as, +spirit, matter; man, woman; odd, even; subjective, objective; in, out; +upper, under; motion, rest; yea, nay. + +Whilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its parts. The +entire system of things gets represented in every particle. There is +somewhat that resembles the ebb and flow of the sea, day and night, +man and woman, in a single needle of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in +each individual of every animal tribe. The reaction, so grand in the +elements, is repeated within these small boundaries. For example, in +the animal kingdom the physiologist has observed that no creatures +are favorites, but a certain compensation balances every gift and +every defect. A surplusage given to one part is paid out of a +reduction from another part of the same creature. If the head and neck +are enlarged, the trunk and extremities are cut short. + +The theory of the mechanic forces is another example. What we gain in +power is lost in time; and the converse. The periodic or compensating +errors of the planets is another instance. The influences of climate +and soil in political history is another. The cold climate +invigorates. The barren soil does not breed fevers, crocodiles, +tigers, or scorpions. + +The same dualism underlies the nature and condition of man. Every +excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its +sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of +pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for +its moderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain +of folly. For everything you have missed, you have gained something +else; and for everything you gain, you lose something. If riches +increase, they are increased[99] that use them. If the gatherer +gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his +chest, swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies +and exceptions. The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level +from their loftiest tossing, than the varieties of condition tend to +equalize themselves. There is always some leveling circumstance that +puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, +substantially on the same ground with all others. Is a man too strong +and fierce for society, and by temper and position a bad citizen,--a +morose ruffian, with a dash of the pirate in him;--nature sends him a +troop of pretty sons and daughters, who are getting along in the +dame's classes at the village school, and love and fear for them +smooths his grim scowl to courtesy. Thus she contrives to +intenerate[100] the granite and felspar, takes the boar out and puts +the lamb in, and keeps her balance true. + +The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President +has paid dear for his White House.[101] It has commonly cost him all +his peace, and the best of his many attributes. To preserve for a +short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is +content to eat dust[102] before the real masters who stand erect +behind the throne. Or, do men desire the more substantial and +permanent grandeur of genius? Neither has this an immunity. He who by +force of will or of thought, is great, and overlooks[103] thousands, +has the charges of that eminence. With every influx of light comes new +danger. Has he light? he must bear witness to the light, and always +outrun that sympathy which gives him such keen satisfaction, by his +fidelity to new revelations of the incessant soul. He must hate father +and mother, wife and child. Has he all that the world loves and +admires and covets?--he must cast behind him their admiration, and +afflict them by faithfulness to his truth, and become a by-word and a +hissing. + +This law writes the laws of cities and nations. It is in vain to build +or plot or combine against it. Things refuse to be mismanaged long. +_Res nolunt diu male administrari._[104] Though no checks to a new +evil appear, the checks exist, and will appear. If the government is +cruel, the governor's life is not safe. If you tax too high, the +revenue will yield nothing. If you make the criminal code sanguinary, +juries will not convict. If the law is too mild, private vengeance +comes in. If the government is a terrific democracy, the pressure is +resisted by an overcharge of energy in the citizen, and life glows +with a fiercer flame. The true life and satisfactions of man seem to +elude the utmost rigors or felicities of condition, and to establish +themselves with great indifferency under all varieties of +circumstances. Under all governments the influence of character +remains the same,--in Turkey and in New England about alike. Under the +primeval despots of Egypt, history honestly confesses that man must +have been as free as culture could make him. + +These appearances indicate the fact that the universe is represented +in every one of its particles. Everything in nature contains all the +powers of nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff; as the +naturalist sees one type under every metamorphosis, and regards a +horse as a running man, a fish as a swimming man, a bird as a flying +man, a tree as a rooted man. Each new form repeats not only the main +character of the type, but part for part all the details, all the +aims, furtherances, hindrances, energies, and whole system of every +other. Every occupation, trade, art, transaction, is a compend of the +world and a correlative of every other. Each one is an entire emblem +of human life; of its good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its +course and its end. And each one must somehow accommodate the whole +man, and recite all his destiny. + +The world globes itself in a drop of dew.[105] The microscope cannot +find the animalcule which is less perfect for being little.[106] Eyes, +ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of +reproduction that take hold on eternity,--all find room to consist in +the small creature. So do we put our life into every act. The true +doctrine of omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in +every moss and cobweb.[107] The value of the universe contrives to +throw itself into every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; +if the affinity, so the repulsion; if the force, so the limitation. + +Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That soul, which +within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its +inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength. "It +is in the world, and the world was made by it." Justice is not +postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. +[Greek: Hoi kyboi Dios aei eupiptousi],[108]--the dice of God are +always loaded. The world looks like a multiplication table, or a +mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. +Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still +returns to you. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every +virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty. What +we call retribution is the universal necessity by which the whole +appears wherever a part appears. If you see smoke, there must be fire. +If you see a hand or limb, you know that the trunk to which it belongs +is there behind. + +Every act rewards itself, or, in other words, integrates itself, in a +twofold manner; first, in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly, +in the circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance +the retribution. The causal retribution is in the thing, and is seen +by the soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the +understanding; it is inseparable from the thing, but is often spread +over a long time, and so does not become distinct until after many +years. The specific stripes may follow late after the offense, but +they follow because they accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out +of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the +flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and +ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms +in the cause, the end preëxists in the means, the fruit in the seed. + +Whilst thus the world will be whole, and refuses to be disparted, we +seek to act partially, to sunder, to appropriate; for example,--to +gratify the senses, we sever the pleasure of the senses from the needs +of the character. The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to +the solution of one problem,--how to detach the sensual sweet, the +sensual strong, the sensual bright, etc., from the moral sweet, the +moral deep, the moral fair; that is, again, to contrive to cut clean +off this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a +_one end_, without an _other end_. The soul says, Eat; the body would +feast. The soul says, The man and woman shall be one flesh and one +soul; the body would join the flesh only. The soul says, Have dominion +over all things to the ends of virtue; the body would have the power +over things to its own ends. + +The soul strives amain[109] to live and work through all things. It +would be the only fact. All things shall be added unto it,--power, +pleasure, knowledge, beauty. The particular man aims to be somebody; +to set up for himself; to truck and higgle for a private good; and, in +particulars, to ride, that he may ride; to dress, that he may be +dressed; to eat, that he may eat; and to govern, that he may be seen. +Men seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and +fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of +nature,--the sweet, without the other side,--the bitter. + +This dividing and detaching is steadily counteracted. Up to this day, +it must be owned, no projector has had the smallest success. The +parted water reunites behind our hand. Pleasure is taken out of +pleasant things, profit out of profitable things, power out of strong +things, as soon as we seek to separate them from the whole. We can no +more have things and get the sensual good, by itself, than we can get +an inside that shall have no outside, or a light without a shadow. +"Drive out nature with a fork, she comes running back."[110] + +Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the unwise seek +to dodge, which one and another brags that he does not know; that they +do not touch him;--but the brag is on his lips, the conditions are in +his soul. If he escapes them in one part, they attack him in another +more vital part. If he has escaped them in form, and in the +appearance, it is because he has resisted his life, and fled from +himself, and the retribution is so much death. So signal is the +failure of all attempts to make this separation of the good from the +tax, that the experiment would not be tried,--since to try it is to be +mad,--but for the circumstance, that when the disease began in the +will, of rebellion and separation, the intellect is at once infected, +so that the man ceases to see God whole in each object, but is able to +see the sensual allurement of an object, and not see the sensual hurt; +he sees the mermaid's head, but not the dragon's tail; and thinks he +can cut off that which he would have, from that which he would not +have. "How secret art thou who dwellest in the highest heavens in +silence, O thou only great God, sprinkling with an unwearied +Providence certain penal blindnesses upon such as have unbridled +desires!"[111] + +The human soul is true to these facts in the painting of fable, of +history, of law, of proverbs, of conversation. It finds a tongue in +literature unawares. Thus the Greeks called Jupiter,[112] Supreme +Mind; but having traditionally ascribed to him many base actions, they +involuntarily made amends to reason, by tying up the hands[113] of so +bad a god. He is made as helpless as a king of England.[114] +Prometheus[115] knows one secret which Jove must bargain for; +Minerva,[116] another. He cannot get his own thunders; Minerva keeps +the key of them. + + "Of all the gods, I only know the keys + That ope the solid doors within whose vaults + His thunders sleep." + +A plain confession of the in-working of the All, and of its moral aim. +The Indian mythology ends in the same ethics; and it would seem +impossible for any fable to be invented to get any currency which was +not moral. Aurora[117] forgot to ask youth for her lover, and though +Tithonus is immortal, he is old, Achilles[118] is not quite +invulnerable; the sacred waters did not wash the heel by which Thetis +held him. Siegfried,[119] in the Niebelungen, is not quite immortal, +for a leaf fell on his back whilst he was bathing in the dragon's +blood, and that spot which it covered is mortal. And so it must be. +There is a crack in everything God has made. It would seem, there is +always this vindictive circumstance stealing in at unawares, even into +the wild poesy in which the human fancy attempted to make bold +holiday, and to shake itself free of the old laws,--this back-stroke, +this kick of the gun, certifying that the law is fatal; that in nature +nothing can be given, all things are sold. + +This is that ancient doctrine of Nemesis,[120] who keeps watch in the +universe, and lets no offense go unchastised. The Furies,[121] they +said, are attendants on justice, and if the sun in heaven should +transgress his path, they would punish him. The poets related that +stone walls, and iron swords, and leathern thongs had an occult +sympathy with the wrongs of their owners; that the belt which Ajax +gave Hector[122] dragged the Trojan hero over the field at the wheels +of the car of Achilles, and the sword which Hector gave Ajax was that +on whose point Ajax fell. They recorded, that when the Thasians[123] +erected a statue to Theagenes, a victor in the games, one of his +rivals went to it by night, and endeavored to throw it down by +repeated blows, until at last he moved it from its pedestal, and was +crushed to death beneath its fall. + +This voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It came from thought +above the will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer, +which has nothing private in it;[124] that which he does not know, +that which flowed out of his constitution, and not from his too +active invention; that which in the study of a single artist you might +not easily find, but in the study of many, you would abstract as the +spirit of them all. Phidias it is not, but the work of man in that +early Hellenic[125] world, that I would know. The name and +circumstance of Phidias, however convenient for history, embarrass +when we come to the highest criticism. We are to see that which man +was tending to do in a given period, and was hindered, or, if you +will, modified in doing, by the interfering volitions of Phidias, of +Dante, of Shakespeare, the organ whereby man at the moment wrought. + +Still more striking is the expression of this fact in the proverbs of +all nations, which are always the literature of reason, or the +statements of an absolute truth, without qualification. Proverbs, like +the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. +That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow +the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in +proverbs without contradiction. And this law of laws which the pulpit, +the senate, and the college deny, is hourly preached in all markets +and workshops by flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as +omnipresent as that of birds and flies. + +All things are double, one against another.--Tit for tat;[126] an eye +for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure; +love for love.--Give and it shall be given you.--- He that watereth +shall be watered himself.--What will you have? quoth God; pay for it +and take it.--Nothing venture, nothing have.--Thou shalt be paid +exactly for what thou hast done, no more, no less.--Who doth not work +shall not eat.--Harm watch, harm catch.--Curses always recoil on the +head of him who imprecates them.--If you put a chain around the neck +of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.--Bad counsel +confounds the adviser.--The Devil is an ass. + +It is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our action is +overmastered and characterized above our will by the law of nature. We +aim at a petty end quite aside from the public good, but our act +arranges itself by irresistible magnetism in a line with the poles of +the world. + +A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will, or against +his will, he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every +word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a thread-ball +thrown at a mark, but the other end remains in the thrower's bag. Or, +rather, it is a harpoon hurled at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a +coil of cord in the boat, and if the harpoon is not good, or not well +thrown, it will go nigh to cut the steersman in twain, or to sink the +boat. + +You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. "No man had ever a point +of pride that was not injurious to him," said Burke.[127] The +exclusive in fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself +from enjoyment in the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in +religion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself, in +striving to shut out others. Treat men as pawns[128] and ninepins, and +you shall suffer as well as they. If you leave out their heart, you +shall lose your own. The senses would make things of all persons; of +women, of children, of the poor. The vulgar proverb, "I will get it +from his purse or get it from his skin," is sound philosophy. + +All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are +speedily punished. They are punished by fear. Whilst I stand in simple +relations to my fellow-man, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We +meet as water meets water, or as two currents of air mix, with perfect +diffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as there is any +departure from simplicity, and attempt at halfness, or good for me +that is not good for him, my neighbor feels the wrong; he shrinks from +me as far as I have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek mine; +there is war between us; there is hate in him and fear in me. + +All the old abuses in society, universal and particular, all unjust +accumulations of property and power, are avenged in the same manner. +Fear is an instructor of great sagacity, and the herald of all +revolutions. One thing he teaches, that there is rottenness where he +appears. He is a carrion crow, and though you see not well what he +hovers for, there is death somewhere. Our property is timid, our laws +are timid, our cultivated classes are timid. Fear for ages has boded +and mowed and gibbered over government and property. That obscene[129] +bird is not there for nothing. He indicates great wrongs which must be +revised. + +Of the like nature is that expectation of change which instantly +follows the suspension of our voluntary activity. The terror of +cloudless noon, the emerald of Polycrates,[130] the awe of prosperity, +the instinct which leads every generous soul to impose on itself tasks +of a noble asceticism and vicarious virtue, are the tremblings of the +balance of justice through the heart and mind of man. + +Experienced men of the world know very well that it is best to pay +scot and lot[131] as they go along, and that a man often pays dear for +a small frugality. The borrower runs in his own debt. Has a man gained +anything who has received a hundred favors and rendered none? Has he +gained by borrowing, through indolence or cunning, his neighbor's +wares, or horses, or money? There arises on the deed the instant +acknowledgment of benefit on the one part, and of debt on the other; +that is, of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in +the memory of himself and his neighbor; and every new transaction +alters, according to its nature, their relation to each other. He may +soon come to see that he had better have broken his own bones than to +have ridden in his neighbor's coach, and that "the highest price he +can pay for a thing is to ask for it." + +A wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and know that +it is the part of prudence to face every claimant, and pay every just +demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay; for, +first or last, you must pay your entire debt. Persons and events may +stand for a time between you and justice, but it is only a +postponement. You must pay at last your own debt. If you are wise, you +will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more. Benefit is the +end of nature. But for every benefit which you receive, a tax is +levied. He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base--and +that is the one base thing in the universe--to receive favors and +render none. In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those +from whom we receive them, or only seldom.[132] But the benefit we +receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for +cent, to somebody. Beware of too much good staying in your hand. It +will fast corrupt and worm worms.[133] Pay it away quickly in some +sort. + +Labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws. Cheapest, say the +prudent, is the dearest labor. What we buy in a broom, a mat, a wagon, +a knife, is some application of good sense to a common want. It is +best to pay in your land a skillful gardener, or to buy good sense +applied to gardening; in your sailor, good sense applied to +navigation; in the house, good sense applied to cooking, sewing, +serving; in your agent, good sense applied to accounts and affairs. +So do you multiply your presence, or spread yourself throughout your +estate. But because of the dual constitution of things, in labor as in +life there can be no cheating. The thief steals from himself. The +swindler swindles himself. For the real price of labor is knowledge +and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs. These signs, like +paper money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which they +represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or +stolen. These ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions +of the mind, and in obedience to pure motives. The cheat, the +defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the knowledge of material and +moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative. +The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power: but +they who do not the thing have not the power. + +Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to +the construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of +the perfect compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give +and Take, the doctrine that everything has its price,--and if that +price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and +that it is impossible to get anything without its price,--is not less +sublime in the columns of a ledger than in the budgets of states, in +the laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of +nature. I cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees +implicated in those processes with which he is conversant, the stern +ethics which sparkle on his chisel edge, which are measured out by his +plumb and foot rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the +shop bill as in the history of a state,--do recommend to him his +trade, and though seldom named, exalt his business to his imagination. + +The league between virtue and nature engages all things to assume a +hostile front to vice. The beautiful laws and substances of the world +persecute and whip the traitor. He finds that things are arranged for +truth and benefit, but there is no den in the wide world to hide a +rogue. Commit a crime,[134] and the earth is made of glass. Commit a +crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as +reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel +and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word,[135] you cannot wipe out +the foot-track, you cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet +or clew. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and +substances of nature--water, snow, wind, gravitation--become penalties +to the thief. + +On the other hand, the law holds with equal sureness for all right +action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, +as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. The good man has +absolute good, which like fire turns everything to its own nature, so +that you cannot do him any harm; but as the royal armies sent against +Napoleon, when he approached, cast down their colors and from enemies +became friends, so disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offense, +poverty, prove benefactors:-- + + "Winds blow and waters roll + Strength to the brave, and power and deity, + Yet in themselves are nothing." + +The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had +ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had +ever a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in +the fable[136] admired his horns and blamed his feet, but when the +hunter came, his feet saved him, and afterwards, caught in the +thicket, his horns destroyed him. Every man in his lifetime needs to +thank his faults. As no man thoroughly understands a truth until he +has contended against it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with +the hindrances or talents of men, until he has suffered from the one, +and seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the same. Has +he a defect of temper that unfits him to live in society? Thereby he +is driven to entertain himself alone, and acquire habits of self-help; +and thus, like the wounded oyster, he mends his shell with pearl. + +Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms +itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and +stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. +Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he +is punished, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; +he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; +learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got +moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of +his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his +weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead +skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. +Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As +long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain +assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are +spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. +In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As +the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the +enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the +temptation we resist. + +The same guards which protect us from disaster, defect, and enmity, +defend us, if we will, from selfishness and fraud. Bolts and bars are +not the best of our institutions, nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of +wisdom. Men suffer all their life long, under the foolish superstition +that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be +cheated by anyone but himself,[137] as for a thing to be and not to be +at the same time. There is a third silent party to all our bargains. +The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the +fulfillment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to +loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God +in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is +withholden,[138] the better for you; for compound interest on compound +interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer. + +The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, +to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. It makes no +difference whether the actors be many or one, a tyrant or a mob. A +mob[139] is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of +reason, and traversing its work. The mob is man voluntarily descending +to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its +actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a +principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by +inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who +have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines +to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate +spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be +dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a +more illustrious abode; every burned book or house enlightens the +world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the +earth from side to side. Hours of sanity and consideration are always +arriving to communities, as to individuals, when the truth is seen, +and the martyrs are justified. + +Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances. The man +is all. Everything has two sides, a good and an evil. Every advantage +has its tax. I learn to be content. But the doctrine of compensation +is not the doctrine of indifferency. The thoughtless say, on hearing +these representations, What boots it to do well? there is one event to +good and evil; if I gain any good, I must pay for it; if I lose any +good, I gain some other; all actions are indifferent. + +There is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation, to wit, its own +nature. The soul is not a compensation, but a life. The soul _is_. +Under all this running sea of circumstance, whose waters ebb and flow +with perfect balance, lies the aboriginal abyss of real Being. +Essence, or God, is not a relation, or a part, but the whole. Being is +the vast affirmative, excluding negation, self-balanced, and +swallowing up all relations, parts, and times within itself. Nature, +truth, virtue, are the influx from thence. Vice is the absence or +departure of the same. Nothing, Falsehood, may indeed stand as the +great Night or shade, on which, as a background, the living universe +paints itself forth, but no fact is begotten by it; it cannot work, +for it is not. It cannot work any good; it cannot work any harm. It is +harm inasmuch as it is worse not to be than to be. + +We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts, because the +criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy, and does not come to a +crisis or judgment anywhere in visible nature. There is no stunning +confutation of his nonsense before men and angels. Has he therefore +outwitted the law? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie +with him, he so far deceases from nature. In some manner there will be +a demonstration of the wrong to the understanding also; but should we +not see it, this deadly deduction makes square the eternal account. + +Neither can it be said, on the other hand, that the gain of rectitude +must be bought by any loss. There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty +to wisdom; they are proper additions of being. In a virtuous action, I +properly _am_; in a virtuous act, I add to the world; I plant into +deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing, and see the darkness +receding on the limits of the horizon. There can be no excess to love; +none to knowledge; none to beauty, when these attributes are +considered in the purest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always +affirms an Optimism,[140] never a Pessimism. + +Man's life is a progress, and not a station. His instinct is trust. +Our instinct uses "more" and "less" in application to man, of the +_presence of the soul_, and not of its absence; the brave man is +greater than the coward; the true, the benevolent, the wise, is more a +man, and not less, than the fool and knave. There is no tax on the +good of virtue; for that is the incoming of God himself, or absolute +existence without any comparative. Material good has its tax, and if +it came without desert or sweat, has no root in me, and the next wind +will blow it away. But all the good of nature is the soul's, and may +be had, if paid for in nature's lawful coin, that is, by labor which +the heart and the head allow. I no longer wish to meet a good I do not +earn; for example, to find a pot of buried gold, knowing that it +brings with it new burdens. I do not wish more external +goods,--neither possessions, nor honors, nor powers, nor persons. The +gain is apparent; the tax is certain. But there is no tax on the +knowledge that the compensation exists, and that it is not desirable +to dig up treasure. Herein I rejoice with a serene eternal peace. I +contract the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn the wisdom of +St. Bernard,[141]--"Nothing can, work me damage except myself; the +harm, that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real +sufferer but by my own fault." + +In the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequalities of +condition. The radical tragedy of nature seems to be the distinction +of More and Less. How can Less not feel the pain; how not feel +indignation or malevolence towards More? Look at those who have less +faculty, and one feels sad, and knows not well what to make of it. He +almost shuns their eye; he fears they will upbraid God. What should +they do? It seems a great injustice. But see the facts nearly, and +these mountainous inequalities vanish. Love reduces them, as the sun +melts the iceberg in the sea. The heart and soul of all men being one, +this bitterness of _His_ and _Mine_ ceases. His is mine. I am my +brother, and my brother is me. If I feel overshadowed and outdone by +great neighbors, I can yet love; I can still receive; and he that +loveth maketh his own the grandeur he loves. Thereby I make the +discovery that my brother is my guardian, acting for me with the +friendliest designs, and the estate I so admired and envied is my own. +It is the nature of the soul to appropriate all things. Jesus[142] and +Shakespeare are fragments of the soul, and by love I conquer and +incorporate them in my own conscious domain. His[143] virtue,--is not +that mine? His wit,--if it cannot be made mine, it is not wit. + +Such, also, is the natural history of calamity. The changes which +break up at short intervals the prosperity of men are advertisements +of a nature whose law is growth. Every soul is by this intrinsic +necessity quitting its whole system of things, its friends, and home, +and laws, and faith, as the shellfish crawls out of its beautiful but +stony case, because it no longer admits of its growth, and slowly +forms a new house. In proportion to the vigor of the individual, these +revolutions are frequent, until in some happier mind they are +incessant, and all worldly relations hang very loosely about him, +becoming, as it were, a transparent fluid membrane through which the +living form is seen, and not, as in most men, an indurated +heterogeneous fabric of many dates, and of no settled character, in +which the man is imprisoned. Then there can be enlargement, and the +man of to-day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday. And such +should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead +circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment day by day. But to +us, in our lapsed estate, resting, not advancing, resisting, not +coöperating with the divine expansion, this growth comes by shocks. + +We cannot part with our friend. We cannot let our angels go. We do not +see that they only go out, that archangels may come in. We are +idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in +its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any +force in to-day to rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We +linger in the ruins of the old tent, where once we had bread and +shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and +nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so +graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty +saith, "Up and onward forevermore!" We cannot stay amid the ruins. +Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted +eyes, like those monsters who look backwards. + +And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the +understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a +mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of +friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure +years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The +death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but +privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; +for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an +epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up +a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows +the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It +permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the +reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the +next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny +garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for +its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, +is made the banyan[144] of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to +wide neighborhoods of men. + + + + +SELF-RELIANCE + +"Ne te quæsiveris extra."[145] + + "Man is his own star; and the soul that can + Render an honest and a perfect man, + Commands all light, all influence, all fate; + Nothing to him falls early or too late. + Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, + Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."[146] + + * * * * * + + Cast the bantling on the rocks, + Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat; + Wintered with the hawk and fox, + Power and speed be hands and feet.[147] + +I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which +were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an +admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The +sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may +contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for +you in your private heart is true for all men,--that is genius.[148] +Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal +sense;[149] for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,--and our +first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last +Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest +merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato,[150] and Milton[151] is, that they +set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what +they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of +light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster +of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice +his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize +our own rejected thoughts:[152] they come back to us with a certain +alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson +for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression +with good-humored inflexibility then most when[153] the whole cry of +voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with +masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the +time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from +another. + +There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the +conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide;[154] +that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that +though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn +can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground +which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new +in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor +does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one +character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. +This sculpture in the memory is not without preëstablished harmony. +The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of +that particular ray. We but half express ourselves,[155] and are +ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be +safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be +faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by +cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his +work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall +give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the +attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no +hope. + +Trust thyself:[156] every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept +the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your +contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done +so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, +betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated +at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all +their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind +the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a +protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, +redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing +on Chaos[157] and the Dark. + +What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text, in the face and +behavior of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel +mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed +the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these[158] have not. +Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we +look in their faces we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody: +all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five[159] +out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth +and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and +made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it +will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he +cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is +sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his +contemporaries. Bashful or bold, then, he will know how to make us +seniors very unnecessary. + +The nonchalance[160] of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would +disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the +healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit +is in the playhouse;[161] independent, irresponsible, looking out from +his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences +them on their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys, as good, bad, +interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never +about consequences about interests; he gives an independent, genuine +verdict. You must court him: he does not court you. But the man is, as +it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has +once acted or spoken with _éclat_[162] he is a committed person, +watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections +must now enter into his account. There is no Lethe[163] for this. Ah, +that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who[164] can thus avoid +all pledges, and having observed, observe again from the same +unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always +be formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which +being seen to be not private, but necessary, would sink like darts +into the ear of men, and put them in fear. + +These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint +and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in +conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is +a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better +securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty +and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. +Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, +but names and customs. + +Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.[165] He who would gather +immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must +explore if it be goodness.[166] Nothing is at last sacred but the +integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall +have the suffrage[167] of the world. I remember an answer which when +quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont +to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my +saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live +wholly from within? my friend suggested: "But these impulses may be +from below, not from above." I replied: "They do not seem to me to be +such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." +No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but +names very readily transferable to that or this;[168] the only right +is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A +man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if +everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think +how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and +dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and +sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and +speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat +of philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this +bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from +Barbadoes,[169] why should I not say to him: "Go love thy infant; love +thy wood-chopper: be good-natured and modest: have that grace; and +never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible +tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is +spite at home." Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth +is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have +some edge to it,--else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be +preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules +and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my +genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, +_Whim_.[170] I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we +cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I +seek or why I exclude company. Then, again, do not tell me, as a good +man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good +situations. Are they _my_ poor? I tell thee, thou foolish +philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give +to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There +is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought +and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your +miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; +the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now +stand; alms to sots; and the thousand-fold Relief Societies;--though I +confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a +wicked dollar which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold. + +Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the +rule. There is the man _and_ his virtues. Men do what is called a good +action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a +fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are +done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world,--as +invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. +I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not +for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so +it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and +unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and +bleeding.[171] I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse +this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it +makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are +reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I +have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, +and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows +any secondary testimony. + +What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. +This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may +serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is +the harder, because you will always find those who think they know +what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to +live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after +our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps +with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.[172] + +The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, +that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the +impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, +contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for +the government or against it, spread your table like base +housekeepers,--under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the +precise[173] man you are. And, of course, so much force is withdrawn +from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you.[174] Do +your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what +a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I +anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and +topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I +not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous +word? Do I not know that, with[175] all this ostentation of examining +the grounds of the institution, he will do no such thing? Do I not +know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side,--the +permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister? He is a +retained attorney, and these airs of the bench[176] are the emptiest +affectation. Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another +handkerchief,[177] and attached themselves to some one of these +communities of opinion.[178] This conformity makes them not false in a +few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. +Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, +their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, +and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is +not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we +adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by +degrees the gentlest asinine expression. There is a mortifying +experience in particular which does not fail to wreak itself also in +the general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced +smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease in +answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not +spontaneously moved, but moved by a low usurping willfulness, grow +tight about the outline of the face with the most disagreeable +sensation. + +For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.[179] And +therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The bystanders +look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlor. If +this aversation had its origin in contempt and resistance like his +own, he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces +of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are +put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs.[180] Yet is +the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the +senate and the college. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the +world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is +decorous and prudent, for they are timid as being very vulnerable +themselves. But when to their feminine rage the indignation of the +people is added, when the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the +unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made +to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to +treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment. + +The other terror[181] that scares us from self-trust is our +consistency;[182] a reverence for our past act or word, because the +eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit[183] than +our past acts, and we are loth to disappoint them. + +But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about +this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat[184] you have +stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict +yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on +your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring +the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in +a new day. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the +Deity; yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them +heart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color. +Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and +flee.[185] + +A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by +little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a +great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself +with the shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, +and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though +it contradict everything you said to-day.--"Ah, so you shall be sure +to be misunderstood."--Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? +Pythagoras[186] was misunderstood, and Socrates,[187] and Jesus, and +Luther,[188] and Copernicus,[189] and Galileo,[190] and Newton,[191] +and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to +be misunderstood. + +I suppose no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will +are rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of +Andes[192] and Himmaleh[193] are insignificant in the curve of the +sphere. Nor does it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is +like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;[194]--read it forward, +backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing, +contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my +honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it +will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not, and see it not. My +book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The +swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he +carries in his bill into my web also. We pass for what we are. +Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate +their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue +or vice emit a breath every moment. + +There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be +each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions +will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost +sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One +tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line +of a hundred tacks.[195] See the line from a sufficient distance, and +it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action +will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your +conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already +done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If +I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes,[196] I must +have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, +do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. The force +of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their +health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate +and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a +train of great days and victories behind. They shed an united light on +the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of angels. +That is it which throws thunder into Chatham's[197] voice, and dignity +into Washington's port, and America into Adams's[198] eye. Honor is +venerable to us because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient +virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it +and pay it homage, because it is not a trap for our love and homage, +but is self-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an old +immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person. + +I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and +consistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward. +Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the +Spartan[199] fife. Let us never bow and apologize more. A great man is +coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he +should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity, and though I +would make it kind, I would make it true. Let us affront and reprimand +the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl +in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the +upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and +Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no +other time or place, but is the center of things. Where he is, there +is nature. He measures you, and all men, and all events. Ordinarily, +everybody in society reminds us of somewhat else, or of some other +person. Character, reality, reminds you of nothing else; it takes +place of the whole creation. The man must be so much, that he must +make all circumstances indifferent. Every true man is a cause, a +country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time +fully to accomplish his design;--and posterity seem to follow his +steps as a train of clients. A man Cæsar[200] is born, and for ages +after we have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds +so grow and cleave to his genius, that he is confounded with virtue +and the possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of +one man; as Monachism, of the hermit Antony;[201] the Reformation, of +Luther; Quakerism, of Fox;[202] Methodism, of Wesley;[203] Abolition, +of Clarkson.[204] Scipio,[205] Milton called "the height of Rome"; and +all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few +stout and earnest persons. + +Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him +not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, +a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which exists for him. But +the man in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds +to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels +poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, a statue, a costly book, +have an alien and forbidding air, much like a gay equipage, and seem +to say like that, "Who are you, Sir?" Yet they all are his, suitors +for his notice, petitioners to his faculties that they will come out +and take possession. The picture waits for my verdict: it is not to +command me, but I am to settle its claims to praise. That popular +fable of the sot who was picked up dead drunk in the street, carried +to the duke's house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke's bed, +and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the +duke, and assured that he had been insane,[206] owes its popularity to +the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the +world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason, +and finds himself a true prince. + +Our reading is mendicant and sycophantic. In history, our imagination +plays us false. Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier +vocabulary than private John and Edward in a small house and common +day's work; but the things of life are the same to both; the sum total +of both is the same. Why all this deference to Alfred,[207] and +Scanderbeg,[208] and Gustavus?[209] Suppose they were virtuous; did +they wear out virtue? As great a stake depends on your private act +to-day, as followed their public and renowned steps. When private men +shall act with original views, the luster will be transferred from the +actions of kings to those of gentlemen. + +The world has been instructed by its kings, who have so magnetized the +eyes of nations. It has been taught by this colossal symbol the mutual +reverence that is due from man to man. The joyful loyalty with which +men have everywhere suffered the king, the noble, or the great +proprietor to walk among them by a law of his own, make his own scale +of men and things, and reverse theirs, pay for benefits not with money +but with honor, and represent the law in his person, was the +hieroglyphic[210] by which they obscurely signified their +consciousness of their own right and comeliness, the right of every +man. + +The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we +inquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee? What is the +aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What +is the nature and power of that science-baffling star, without +parallax,[211] without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of +beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of +independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the +essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity +or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all +later teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, the last fact behind +which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin. For the +sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the +soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, +from man, but one with them, and proceeds obviously from the same +source whence their life and being also proceed. We first share the +life by which things exist, and afterwards see them as appearances in +nature, and forget that we have shared their cause. Here is the +fountain of action and of thought. Here are the lungs of that +inspiration which giveth man wisdom, and which cannot be denied +without impiety and atheism. We lie in the lap of immense +intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its +activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do +nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask +whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all +philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can +affirm. Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his +mind, and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his +involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the +expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day +and night, not to be disputed. My willful actions and acquisitions are +but roving;--the idlest reverie, the faintest native emotion, command +my curiosity and respect. Thoughtless people contradict as readily the +statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; +for, they do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy +that I choose to see this or that thing. But perception is not +whimsical, it is fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it +after me, and in course of time, all mankind,--although it may chance +that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much +a fact as the sun. + +The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is +profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh +he should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the +world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, +from the center of the present thought; and new date and new create +the whole. Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, +old things pass away,--means, teachers, texts, temples, fall; it lives +now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are +made sacred by relation to it,--one as much as another. All things +are dissolved to their center by their cause, and, in the universal +miracle, petty and particular miracles disappear. If, therefore, a man +claims to know and speak of God, and carries you backward to the +phraseology of some old moldered nation in another country, in another +world, believe him not. Is the acorn better than the oak which is its +fullness and completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom +he has cast his ripened being?[212] Whence, then, this worship of the +past?[213] The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and +authority of the soul. Time and space are but physiological colors +which the eye makes, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where +it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury, if it +be anything more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and +becoming. + +Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say +"I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before +the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window +make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what +they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There +is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. +Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown +flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its +nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. +But man postpones, or remembers; he does not live in the present, but +with a reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that +surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be +happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above +time. + +This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not +yet hear God himself, unless he speak the phraseology of I know not +what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a +price on a few texts, on a few lives.[214] We are like children who +repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they +grow older, of the men and talents and characters they chance to +see,--painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, +when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered +those saying, they understand them, and are willing to let the words +go; for, at any time, they can use words as good when occasion comes. +If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man +to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. When we have new +perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded +treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall +be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn. + +And now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid; +probably cannot be said; for all that we say is the far-off +remembering of the intuition. That thought, by what I can now nearest +approach to say it, is this. When good is near you, when you have +life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall +not discern the footprints of any other; you shall not see the face of +man; you shall not hear any name;--the way, the thought, the good, +shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and +experience. You take the way from man, not to man. All persons that +ever existed are its forgotten ministers. Fear and hope are alike +beneath it. There is somewhat low even in hope. In the hour of vision, +there is nothing that can be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The +soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation, +perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right, and calms itself with +knowing that all things go well. Vast spaces of nature, the Atlantic +Ocean, the South Sea,--long intervals of time, years, centuries,--are +of no account. This which I think and feel underlay every former state +of life and circumstances, as it does underlie my present, and what is +called life, and what is called death. + +Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of +repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new +state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one +fact the world hates, that the soul _becomes_; for that forever +degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to +shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas[215] +equally aside. Why, then, do we prate of self-reliance? Inasmuch as +the soul is present, there will be power not confident but agent.[216] +To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather +of that which relies, because it works and is. Who has more obedience +than I masters me, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I +must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. We fancy it rhetoric, when +we speak of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, +and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable to +principles, by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities, +nations, kings, rich men, poets, who are not. + +This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on +every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE. +Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it +constitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into +all lower forms. All things real are so by so much virtue as they +contain. Commerce, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war eloquence, +personal weight, are somewhat, and engage my respect as examples of +its presence and impure action. I see the same law working in nature +for conservation and growth. Power is in nature the essential measure +of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which +cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise +and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the +vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of +the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul. + +Thus all concentrates: let us not rove; let us sit at home with the +cause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books +and institutions, by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the +invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here +within.[217] Let our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our +own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our +native riches. + +But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his +genius admonished to stay at home to put itself in communication with +the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the +urns of other men. We must go alone. I like the silent church before +the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, +how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or +sanctuary! So let us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of +our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our +hearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood, and +I have all men's.[218] Not for that will I adopt their petulance or +folly, even to the extent of being ashamed of it. But your isolation +must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At +times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with +emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, +charity, all knock at once at thy closet door, and say, "Come out unto +us." But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men +possess to annoy men, I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can +come near me but through my act. "What we love that we have, but by +desire we bereave ourselves of the love." + +If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and faith, +let us at least resist our temptations; let us enter into the state of +war, and wake Thor and Woden,[219] courage and constancy, in our Saxon +breasts. This is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. +Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to +the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we +converse. Say to them, O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O +friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward +I am the truth's. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law +less than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but +proximities.[220] I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support +my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife,--but these relations +I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your +customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, +or you.[221] If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the +happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. +I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is +deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever +inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will +love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by +hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth +with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not +selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, +and all men's however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. +Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by +your nature as well as mine, and, if we follow the truth, it will +bring us out safe at last.[222] But so may you give these friends +pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their +sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when +they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they +justify me, and do the same thing. + +The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a +rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism;[223] and the bold +sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the +law of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one or +the other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfill your round of +duties by clearing yourself in the _direct_, or in the _reflex_ way. +Consider whether you have satisfied your relations to father, mother, +cousin, neighbor, town, cat, and dog; whether any of these can upbraid +you. But I may also neglect this reflex standard, and absolve me to +myself. I have my own stern claims and perfect circle. It denies the +name of duty to many offices that are called duties. But if I can +discharge its debts, it enables me to dispense with the popular code. +If any one imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its +commandment one day. + +And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the +common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a +taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, +that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, +that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to +others! + +If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by +distinction _society_, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew +and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, +desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, +afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and +perfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our +social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot +satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to +their practical force,[224] and do lean and beg day and night +continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, +our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but society has +chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of +fate, where strength is born. + +If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all +heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is _ruined_. If the +finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in +an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of +Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is +right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. +A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the +professions, who _teams it, farms it_,[225] _peddles_, keeps a school, +preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so +forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, +is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his +days, and feels no shame in not "studying a profession," for he does +not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a +hundred chances. Let a Stoic[226] open the resources of man, and tell +men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; +that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a +man is the word made flesh,[227] born to shed healing to the +nations,[228] that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that +the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, +idolatries and customs out of the window, we pity him no more, but +thank and revere him,--and that teacher shall restore the life of man +to splendor, and make his name dear to all history. + +It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution +in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their +education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their +association; in their property; in their speculative views. + +1. In what prayers do men allow themselves![229] That which they call +a holy office is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad +and asks for some foreign addition to come through some foreign +virtue, and loses itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural, +and mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves a particular +commodity,--anything less than all good,--is vicious. Prayer is the +contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It +is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul.[230] It is the +spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to +effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and +not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one +with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action. The +prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of +the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard +throughout nature, though for cheap ends. Caratach,[231] in Fletcher's +Bonduca, when admonished to inquire the mind of the god Audate, +replies,-- + + "His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors; + Our valors are our best gods." + +Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want +of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you +can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and +already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. +We come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for company, +instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric +shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. +The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods +and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him +all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our +love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We +solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he +held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods love him +because men hated him. "To the persevering mortal," said +Zoroaster,[232] "the blessed Immortals are swift." + +As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a +disease of the intellect. They say with those foolish Israelites, "Let +not God speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any man with us, and +we will obey."[233] Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my +brother, because he has shut his own temple doors, and recites fables +merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God. Every new mind +is a new classification. If it prove a mind of uncommon activity and +power, a Locke,[234] a Lavoisier,[235] a Hutton,[236] a Betham,[237] a +Fourier,[238] it imposes its classification on other men, and lo! a new +system. In proportion to the depth of the thought, and so to the number +of the objects it touches and brings within reach of the pupil, is his +complacency. But chiefly is this apparent in creeds and churches, which +are also classifications of some powerful mind acting on the elemental +thought of duty, and man's relation to the Highest. Such is +Calvinism,[239] Quakerism,[240] Swedenborgism.[241] The pupil takes the +same delight in subordinating everything to the new terminology, as a +girl who has just learned botany in seeing a new earth and new seasons +thereby. It will happen for a time, that the pupil will find his +intellectual power has grown by the study of his master's mind. But in +all unbalanced minds, the classification is idolized, passes for the +end, and not for a speedily exhaustible means, so that the walls of the +system blend to their eye in the remote horizon with the walls of the +universe; the luminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their +master built. They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to +see,--how you can see; "It must be somehow that you stole the light from +us." They do not yet perceive that light, unsystematic, indomitable, +will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and +call it their own. If they are honest and do well, presently their neat +new pinfold will be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot +and vanish, and the immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, +million-colored, will beam over the universe as on the first morning. + +2. It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Traveling, +whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all +educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable +in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an +axis of the earth. In manly hours, we feel that duty is our place. The +soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home, and when his +necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or +into foreign lands, he is at home still; and shall make men sensible +by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of +wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not +like an interloper or a valet. + +I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for +the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is +first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding +somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get +somewhat which he does not carry,[242] travels away from himself, and +grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes,[243] in +Palmyra,[244] his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as +they. He carries ruins to ruins. + +Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the +indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can +be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, +embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, +and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, +identical, that I fled from.[245] I seek the Vatican,[246] and the +palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but +I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go. + +3. But the rage of traveling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness +affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, +and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel +when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is +imitation but the traveling of the mind? Our houses are built with +foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our +opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the +Distant. The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It +was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an +application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the +conditions to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric[247] or the +Gothic[248] model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought, and +quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if the American +artist will study with hope and love the precise thing to be done by +him considering the climate, the soil, the length of the day, the +wants of the people, the habit and form of the government, he will +create a house in which all these will find themselves fitted, and +taste and sentiment will be satisfied also. + +Insist on yourself; never imitate.[249] Your own gift you can present +every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; +but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, +half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can +teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has +exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught +Shakespeare?[250] Where is the master who could have instructed +Franklin,[251] or Washington, or Bacon,[252] or Newton?[253] Every great +man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio[254] is precisely that part he +could not borrow. Shakespeare will never be made by the study of +Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too +much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance +brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias,[255] or +trowel of the Egyptians,[256] or the pen of Moses,[257] or Dante,[258] +but different from all these. Not possibly will the soul all rich, all +eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if +you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in +the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue are two organs of +one nature. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy +heart, and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld[259] again. + +4. As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so does our +spirit of society. All men plume themselves on the improvement of +society, and no man improves. + +Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on +the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is +civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this +change is not amelioration. For everything that is given, something is +taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. What a +contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, +with a watch, a pencil, and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the +naked New Zealander,[260] whose property is a club, a spear, a mat, +and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under! But compare the +health of the two men, and you shall see that the white man has lost +his aboriginal strength. If the traveler tell us truly, strike the +savage with a broad ax, and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and +heal as if you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow +shall send the white to his grave. + +The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. +He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He +has a fine Geneva[261] watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the +hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac[262] he has, and so +being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street +does not know a star in the sky. The solstice[263] he does not +observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar +of the year is without a dial in his mind. His notebooks impair his +memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases +the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery +does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some +energy, by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and forms, some +vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom +where is the Christian? + +There is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the standard +of height or bulk. No greater men are now than ever were. A singular +equality may be observed between great men of the first and of the +last ages; nor can all the science, art, religion, and philosophy of +the nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than +Plutarch's[264] heroes, three or four and twenty centuries ago. Not in +time is the race progressive. Phocion,[265] Socrates, Anaxagoras,[266] +Diogenes,[267] are great men, but they leave no class. He who is +really of their class will not be called by their name, but will be +his own man, and, in his turn, the founder of a sect. The arts and +inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate +men. The harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good. +Hudson[268] and Bering[269] accomplished so much in their fishing +boats, as to astonish Parry[270] and Franklin,[271] whose equipment +exhausted the resources of science and art. Galileo, with an +opera-glass, discovered a more splendid series of celestial phenomena +than any one since. Columbus[272] found the New World in an undecked +boat. It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of +means and machinery, which were introduced with loud laudation a few +years or centuries before. The great genius returns to essential man. +We reckoned the improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of +science, and yet Napoleon[273] conquered Europe by the bivouac, which +consisted of falling back on naked valor, and disencumbering it of all +aids. The Emperor held it impossible to make a perfect army, says Las +Casas,[274] "without abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries, and +carriages, until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should +receive his supply of corn, grind it in his handmill, and bake his +bread himself." + +Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is +composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to +the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a +nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them. + +And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments +which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away +from themselves and at things so long, that they have come to esteem +the religious, learned, and civil institutions as guards of property, +and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be +assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what +each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes +ashamed of his property, out of new respect for his nature. Especially +he hates what he has, if he see that it is accidental,--came to him by +inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; +it does not belong to him, has no root in him, and merely lies there, +because no revolution or no robber takes it away. But that which a man +is, does always by necessity acquire, and what the man acquires is +living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or +revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually +renews itself wherever the man breathes. "Thy lot or portion of life," +said the Caliph Ali,[275] "is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest +from seeking after it." Our dependence on these foreign goods leads us +to our slavish respect for numbers. The political parties meet in +numerous conventions; the greater the concourse, and with each new +uproar of announcement, The delegation from Essex![276] The Democrats +from New Hampshire! The Whigs of Maine! the young patriot feels +himself stronger than before by a new thousand of eyes and arms. In +like manner the reformers summon conventions, and vote and resolve in +multitude. Not so, O friends! will the god deign to enter and inhabit +you, but by a method precisely the reverse. It is only as a man puts +off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong +and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a +man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and in the endless +mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of +all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is inborn, that he is +weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so +perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly +rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, +works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than +a man who stands on his head. + +So use all that is called Fortune.[277] Most men gamble with her, and +gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as +unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the +chancelors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained +the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her +rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your +sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable +event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for +you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. +Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. + + + + +FRIENDSHIP.[278] + + +1. We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Barring all +the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human +family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many +persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we +honor, and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in +church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the +language of these wandering eyebeams. The heart knoweth. + +2. The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain +cordial exhilaration. In poetry, and in common speech, the emotions of +benevolence and complacency which are felt toward others, are likened +to the material effects of fire; so swift, or much more swift, more +active, more cheering are these fine inward irradiations. From the +highest degree of passionate love, to the lowest degree of good will, +they make the sweetness of life. + +3. Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The +scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not +furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is +necessary to write a letter to a friend, and, forthwith, troops of +gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen words. +See in any house where virtue and self-respect abide, the palpitation +which the approach of a stranger causes. A commended stranger is +expected and announced, and an uneasiness between pleasure and pain +invades all the hearts of a household. His arrival almost brings fear +to the good hearts that would welcome him. The house is dusted, all +things fly into their places, the old coat is exchanged for the new, +and they must get up a dinner if they can. Of a commended stranger, +only the good report is told by others, only the good and new is heard +by us. He stands to us for humanity. He is, what we wish. Having +imagined and invested him, we ask how we should stand related in +conversation and action with such a man, and are uneasy with fear. The +same idea exalts conversation with him. We talk better than we are +wont. We have the nimblest fancy, a richer memory, and our dumb devil +has taken leave for the time. For long hours we can continue a series +of sincere, graceful, rich communications, drawn from the oldest, +secretest experience, so that they who sit by, of our own kinsfolk and +acquaintance, shall feel a lively surprise at our unusual powers. But +as soon as the stranger begins to intrude his partialities, his +definitions, his defects, into the conversation, it is all over. He +has heard the first, the last and best, he will ever hear from us. He +is no stranger now. Vulgarity, ignorance, misapprehension, are old +acquaintances. Now, when he comes, he may get the order, the dress, +and the dinner, but the throbbing of the heart, and the communications +of the soul, no more. + +4. What is so pleasant as these jets of affection which relume[279] a +young world for me again? What is so delicious as a just and firm +encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling? How beautiful, on their +approach to this beating heart, the steps and forms of the gifted and +the true! The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is +metamorphosed; there is no winter, and no night; all tragedies, all +ennuis vanish; all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity +but the forms all radiant of beloved persons. Let the soul be assured +that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it +would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years. + +5. I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old +and the new. Shall I not call God, the Beautiful, who daily showeth +himself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude, and +yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely, and the +noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate.[280] Who hears me, +who understands me, becomes mine,--a possession for all time. Nor is +nature so poor, but she gives me this joy several times, and thus we +weave social threads of our own, a new web of relations; and, as many +thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by-and-by stand +in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims +is a traditionary globe. My friends have come[281] to me unsought. The +great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of +virtue with itself, I find them, or rather, not I, but the Deity in me +and in them, both deride and cancel the thick walls of individual +character, relation, age, sex and circumstance, at which he usually +connives, and now makes many one. High thanks I owe you, excellent +lovers, who carry out the world for me to new and noble depths, and +enlarge the meaning of all my thoughts. These are new poetry of the +first Bard[282]--poetry without stop--hymn, ode and epic,[283] poetry +still flowing, Apollo[284] and the Muses[285] chanting still. Will these +two separate themselves from me again, or some of them? I know not, but +I fear it not; for my relation to them is so pure, that we hold by +simple affinity, and the Genius[286] of my life being thus social, the +same affinity will exert its energy on whomsoever is as noble as these +men and women, wherever I may be. + +6. I confess to an extreme tenderness of nature on this point. It is +almost dangerous to me to "crush the sweet poison,[287] of misused +wine" of the affections. A new person is to me a great event, and +hinders me from sleep. I have had such fine fancies lately about two +or three persons, as have given me delicious hours, but the joy ends +in the day: it yields no fruit. Thought is not born of it; my action +is very little modified. I must feel pride in my friend's +accomplishments as if they were mine, and a property in his virtues. +I feel as warmly when he is praised, as the lover when he hears +applause of his engaged maiden. We over-estimate the conscience of our +friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature finer, +his temptations less. Everything that is his,--his name, his form, his +dress, books and instruments,--fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds +new and larger from his mouth. + +7. Yet the systole and diastole[288] of the heart are not without +their analogy in the ebb and flow of love. Friendship, like the +immortality[289] of the soul, is too good to be believed. The lover, +beholding his maiden, half knows that she is not verily that which he +worships; and in the golden hour of friendship, we are surprised with +shades of suspicion and unbelief. We doubt that we bestow on our hero +the virtues in which he shines, and afterward worship the form to +which we have ascribed this divine inhabitation. In strictness, the +soul does not respect men as it respects itself. In strict science, +all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness. +Shall we fear to cool our love by mining for the metaphysical +foundation of this Elysian temple?[290] Shall I not be as real as the +things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they +are. Their essence is not less beautiful than their appearance, though +it needs finer organs for its apprehension. The root of the plant is +not unsightly to science, though for chaplets and festoons we cut the +stem short. And I must hazard the production of the bald fact amid +these pleasing reveries, though it should prove an Egyptian skull at +our banquet.[291] A man who stands united with his thought, conceives +magnificently to himself. He is conscious of a universal success,[292] +even though bought by uniform particular failures. No advantages, no +powers, no gold or force can be any match for him. I cannot choose but +rely on my own poverty, more than on your wealth. I cannot make your +consciousness tantamount to mine. Only the star dazzles; the planet +has a faint, moon-like ray. I hear what you say of the admirable parts +and tried temper of the party you praise, but I see well that for all +his purple cloaks I shall not like him, unless he is at least a poor +Greek like me. I cannot deny it, O friend, that the vast shadow of the +Phenomenal includes thee, also, in its pied and painted +immensity,--thee, also, compared with whom all else is shadow. Thou +art not Being, as Truth is, as Justice is,--thou art not my soul, but +a picture and effigy of that. Thou hast come to me lately, and already +thou art seizing thy hat and cloak. It is not that the soul puts forth +friends, as the tree puts forth leaves, and presently, by the +germination of new buds, extrudes the old leaf?[293] The law of nature +is alternation forevermore. Each electrical state superinduces the +opposite. The soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter +into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone, for a +season, that it may exalt its conversation or society. This method +betrays itself along the whole history of our personal relations. The +instinct of affection revives the hope of union with our mates, and +the returning sense of insulation recalls us from the chase. Thus +every man passes his life in the search after friendship, and if he +should record his true sentiment, he might write a letter like this, +to each new candidate for his love:-- + + DEAR FRIEND:-- + + If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match + my mood with thine, I should never think again of trifles, + in relation to thy comings and goings. I am not very wise; + my moods are quite attainable; and I respect thy genius; it + is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a + perfect intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a + delicious torment. Thine ever, or never. + +8. Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity, and +not for life. They are not to be indulged. This is to weave cobweb, +and not cloth. Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, +because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams,[294] instead +of the tough fiber of the human heart. The laws of friendship are +great, austere, and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of +morals. But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a +sudden sweetness. We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden +of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen. We seek our +friend not sacredly but with an adulterate passion which would +appropriate him to ourselves. In vain. We are armed all over with +subtle antagonisms, which, as soon as we meet, begin to play, and +translate all poetry into stale prose. Almost all people descend to +meet. All association must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the +very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures +disappears as they approach each other. What a perpetual +disappointment is actual society, even of the virtuous and gifted! +After interviews have been compassed with long foresight, we must be +tormented presently by baffled blows, by sudden, unseasonable +apathies, by epilepsies of wit and of animal spirits, in the heyday of +friendship and thought. Our faculties do not play us true, and both +parties are relieved by solitude. + +9. I ought to be equal to every relation. It makes no difference how +many friends I have, and what content I can find in conversing with +each, if there be one to whom I am not equal. If I have shrunk unequal +from one contest instantly, the joy I find in all the rest becomes +mean and cowardly. I should hate myself, if then I made my other +friends my asylum. + + "The valiant warrior[295] famoused for fight, + After a hundred victories, once foiled, + Is from the book of honor razed quite, + And all the rest forgot for which he toiled." + +10. Our impatience is thus sharply rebuked. Bashfulness and apathy are +a tough husk in which a delicate organization is protected from +premature ripening. It would be lost if it knew itself before any of +the best souls were yet ripe enough to know and own it. Respect the +_naturlangsamkeit_[296] which hardens the ruby in a million years, +and works in duration, in which Alps and Andes come and go as +rainbows. The good spirit of our life has no heaven which is the price +of rashness. Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but +for the total worth of man. Let us not have this childish luxury in +our regards, but the austerest worth; let us approach our friend with +an audacious trust in the truth of his heart, in the breadth, +impossible to be overturned, of his foundations. + +11. The attractions of this subject are not to be resisted, and I +leave, for the time, all account of subordinate social benefit, to +speak of that select and sacred relation which is a kind of absolute, +and which even leaves the language of love suspicious and common, so +much is this purer, and nothing is so much divine. + +12. I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest +courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, +but the solidest thing we know. For now, after so many ages of +experience, what do we know of nature, or of ourselves? Not one step +has man taken toward the solution of the problem of his destiny. In +one condemnation of folly stand the whole universe of men. But the +sweet sincerity of joy and peace, which I draw from this alliance +with my brother's soul, is the nut itself whereof all nature and all +thought is but the husk and shell. Happy is the house that shelters a +friend! It might well be built, like a festal bower or arch, to +entertain him a single day. Happier, if he know the solemnity of that +relation, and honor its law! He who offers himself a candidate for +that covenant comes up, like an Olympian,[297] to the great games, +where the first-born of the world are the competitors. He proposes +himself for contest where Time, Want, Danger are in the lists, and he +alone is victor who has truth enough in his constitution to preserve +the delicacy of his beauty from the wear and tear of all these. The +gifts of fortune may be present or absent, but all the hap in that +contest depends on intrinsic nobleness, and the contempt of trifles. +There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each +so sovereign, that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason +why either should be first named. One is Truth. A friend is a person +with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud. I am +arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may +drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and +second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with +the simplicity and wholeness, with which one chemical atom meets +another. Sincerity is the luxury allowed, but diadems and authority, +only to the highest rank, _that_ being permitted to speak truth as +having none above it to court or conform unto. Every man alone is +sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We +parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by +gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him +under a hundred folds. I knew a man who,[298] under a certain +religious frenzy, cast off this drapery, and omitting all compliments +and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he +encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first he was +resisted, and all men agreed he was mad. But persisting, as indeed he +could not help doing, for some time in this course, he attained to the +advantage of bringing every man of his acquaintance into true +relations with him. No man would think of speaking falsely with him, +or of putting him off with any chat of markets or reading-rooms. But +every man was constrained by so much sincerity to the like plain +dealing and what love of nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth he +had, he did certainly show him. But to most of us society shows not +its face and eye, but its side and its back. To stand in true +relations with men in a false age, is worth a fit of insanity, is it +not? We can seldom go erect. Almost every man we meet requires some +civility,--requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some +whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be +questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend +is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me. My friend gives +me entertainment without requiring any stipulation on my part. A +friend, therefore, is a sort of paradox[299] in nature. I who alone +am, I who see nothing in nature whose existence I can affirm with +equal evidence to my own, behold now the semblance of my being in all +its height, variety and curiosity, reiterated in a foreign form; so +that a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. + +13. The other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to +men by every sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by +lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and +badge and trifle, but we can scarce believe that so much character can +subsist in another as to draw us by love. Can another be so blessed, +and we so pure, that we can offer him tenderness? When a man becomes +dear to me, I have touched the goal of fortune. I find very little +written directly to the heart of this matter in books. And yet I have +one text which I cannot choose but remember. My author says,[300]--"I +offer myself faintly and bluntly to those whose I effectually am, and +tender myself least to him to whom I am the most devoted." I wish that +friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and eloquence. It must +plant itself on the ground, before it vaults over the moon. I wish it +to be a little of a citizen, before it is quite a cherub.[301] We +chide the citizen because he makes love a commodity. It is an exchange +of gifts, of useful loans; it is good neighborhood; it watches with +the sick; it holds the pall at the funeral; and quite loses sight of +the delicacies and nobility of the relation. But though we cannot find +the god under this disguise of a sutler, yet, on the other hand, we +cannot forgive the poet if he spins his thread too fine, and does not +substantiate his romance by the municipal virtues of justice, +punctuality, fidelity and pity. I hate the prostitution of the name of +friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances. I much prefer the +company of plow-boys and tin-peddlers, to the silken and perfumed +amity which only celebrates its days of encounter by a frivolous +display, by rides in a curricle,[302] and dinners at the best taverns. +The end of friendship is a commerce the most strict and homely that +can be joined; more strict than any of which we have experience. It is +for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and +death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country +rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, +and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the +trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs +and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and +unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but +should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was +drudgery. + +14. Friendship may be said to require natures so rare and costly, each +so well-tempered, and so happily adapted, and withal so +circumstanced, (for even in that particular, a poet says, love demands +that the parties be altogether paired,) that its satisfaction can very +seldom be assured. It cannot subsist in its perfection, say some of +those who are learned in this warm lore of the heart, betwixt more +than two. I am not quite so strict in my terms, perhaps because I have +never known so high a fellowship as others. I please my imagination +more with a circle of godlike men and women variously related to each +other, and between whom subsists a lofty intelligence. But I find this +law of _one to one_,[303] peremptory for conversation, which is the +practice and consummation of friendship. Do not mix waters too much. +The best mix as ill as good and bad. You shall have very useful and +cheering discourse at several times with two several men, but let all +three of you come together, and you shall not have one new and hearty +word. Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take part in a +conversation of the most sincere and searching sort. In good company +there is never such discourse between two, across the table, as takes +place when you leave them alone. In good company, the individuals at +once merge their egotism into a social soul exactly co-extensive with +the several consciousnesses there present. No partialities of friend +to friend, no fondnesses of brother to sister, of wife to husband, are +there pertinent, but quite otherwise. Only he may then speak who can +sail on the common thought of the party, and not poorly limited to +his own. Now this convention, which good sense demands, destroys the +high freedom of great conversation, which requires an absolute running +of two souls into one. + +15. No two men but being left alone with each other, enter into +simpler relations. Yet it is affinity that determines _which_ two +shall converse. Unrelated men give little joy to each other; will +never suspect the latent powers of each. We talk sometimes of a great +talent for conversation, as if it were a permanent property in some +individuals. Conversation is an evanescent relation,--no more. A man +is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say +a word to his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his silence with as +much reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the +shade. In the sun it will mark the hour. Among those who enjoy his +thought, he will regain his tongue. + +16. Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and +unlikeness, that piques each with the presence of power and of consent +in the other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather +than that my friend should overstep by a word or a look his real +sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him +not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being +mine, is that the _not mine_ is _mine_. I hate, where I looked for a +manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of +concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend, than his +echo. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do +without it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There +must be very two before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance +of two large formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, +before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these +disparities unites them. + +17. He only is fit for this society who is magnanimous; who is sure +that greatness and goodness are always economy; who is not swift to +intermeddle with his fortunes. Let him not intermeddle with this. +Leave to the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the +births of the eternal. Friendship demands a religious treatment. We +talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected. Reverence +is a great part of it. Treat your friend as a spectacle. Of course he +has merits that are not yours, and that you cannot honor, if you must +needs hold him close to your person. Stand aside; give those merits +room; let them mount and expand. Are you the friend of your friend's +buttons, or of his thought? To a great heart he will still be a +stranger in a thousand particulars, that he may come near in the +holiest ground. Leave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as +property, and to suck a short and all-confounding pleasure instead of +the noblest benefits. + +18. Let us buy our entrance to this guild by a long probation. Why +should we desecrate noble and beautiful souls by intruding on them? +Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to his +house, or know his mother and brother and sisters? Why be visited by +him at your own? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this +touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, +a sincerity, a glance from him I want, but not news, nor pottage. I +can get politics, and chat, and neighborly conveniences, from cheaper +companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, +universal, and great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is +profane in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the +horizon, or that clump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us +not vilify but raise it to that standard. That great defying eye, that +scornful beauty of his mien and action, do not pique yourself on +reducing, but rather fortify and enhance. Worship his superiorities; +wish him not less by a thought, but hoard and tell them all. Guard him +as thy counterpart. Let him be to thee forever a sort of beautiful +enemy, untamable, devoutly revered, and not a trivial conveniency to +be soon outgrown and cast aside. The hues of the opal, the light of +the diamond, are not to be seen, if the eye is too near. To my friend +I write a letter, and from him I receive a letter. That seems to you a +little. It suffices me. It is a spiritual gift worthy of him to give +and of me to receive. It profanes nobody. In these warm lines the +heart will trust itself, as it will not to the tongue, and pour out +the prophecy of a godlier existence than all the annals of heroism +have yet made good. + +19. Respect so far the holy laws of this fellowship as not to +prejudice its perfect flower by your impatience for its opening. We +must be our own before we can be another's. There is at least this +satisfaction in crime, according to the Latin proverb;--you can speak +to your accomplice on even terms. _Crimen quos[304] inquinat, æquat_. +To those whom we admire and love, at first we cannot. Yet the least +defect of self-possession vitiates, in my judgment, the entire +relation. There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never +mutual respect until, in their dialogue, each stands for the whole +world. + +20. What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what grandeur of +spirit we can. Let us be silent,--so we may hear the whisper of the +gods. Let us not interfere. Who set you to cast about what you should +say to the select souls, or how to say anything to such? No matter how +ingenious, no matter how graceful and bland. There are innumerable +degrees of folly and wisdom, and for you to say aught is to be +frivolous. Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait until the necessary +and everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves +of your lips. The only reward of virtue, is virtue; the only way to +have a friend is to be one. You shall not come nearer a man by getting +into his house. If unlike, his soul only flees the faster from you, +and you shall catch never a true glance of his eye. We see the noble +afar off, and they repel us; why should we intrude? Late,--very +late,--we perceive that no arrangements, no introductions, no +consuetudes or habits of society, would be of any avail to establish +us in such relations with them as we desire,--but solely the uprise of +nature in us to the same degree it is in them; then shall we meet as +water with water; and if we should not meet them then, we shall not +want them, for we are already they. In the last analysis, love is only +the reflection of a man's own worthiness from other men. Men have +sometimes exchanged names with their friends, as if they would signify +that in their friend each loved his own soul. + +21. The higher the style we demand of friendship, of course the less +easy to establish it with flesh and blood. We walk alone in the world. +Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope +cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of +the universal power, souls are now acting, enduring and daring, which +can love us, and which we can love. We may congratulate ourselves that +the period of nonage,[305] of follies, of blunders, and of shame, is +passed in solitude, and when we are finished men, we shall grasp +heroic hands in heroic hands. Only be admonished by what you already +see, not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no +friendship can be. Our impatience betrays us into rash and foolish +alliances which no God attends. By persisting in your path, though +you forfeit the little you gain the great. You demonstrate yourself, +so as to put yourself out of the reach of false relations, and you +draw to you the first-born of the world, those rare pilgrims whereof +only one or two wander in nature at once, and before whom the vulgar +great show as specters and shadows merely. + +22. It is foolish to be afraid of making our ties too spiritual, as if +so we could lose any genuine love. Whatever correction of our popular +views we make from insight, nature will be sure to bear us out in, and +though it seem to rob us of some joy, will repay us with a greater. +Let us feel, if we will, the absolute insulation of man. We are sure +that we have all in us. We go to Europe, or we pursue persons, or we +read books, in the instinctive faith that these will call it out and +reveal us to ourselves. Beggars all. The persons are such as we; the +Europe, an old faded garment of dead persons; the books, their ghosts. +Let us drop this idolatry. Let us give over this mendicancy. Let us +even bid our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, "Who are +you? Unhand me. I will be dependent no more." Ah! seest thou not, O +brother, that thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform, +and only be more each other's, because we are more our own? A friend +is Janus-faced:[306] he looks to the past and the future. He is the +child of all my foregoing hours, the prophet of those to come, and +the harbinger[307] of a greater friend. + +23. I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them +where I can find them, but I seldom use them. We must have society on +our own terms, and admit or exclude it on the slightest cause. I +cannot afford to speak much with my friend. If he is great, he makes +me so great that I cannot descend to converse. In the great days, +presentiments hover before me, far before me in the firmament. I ought +then to dedicate myself to them. I go in that I may seize them, I go +out that I may seize them. I fear only that I may lose them receding +into the sky in which now they are only a patch of brighter light. +Then, though I prize my friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and +study their visions, lest I lose my own. It would indeed give me a +certain household joy to quit this lofty seeking, this spiritual +astronomy, or search of stars, and come down to warm sympathies with +you; but then I know well I shall mourn always the vanishing of my +mighty gods. It is true, next week I shall have languid moods, when I +can well afford to occupy myself with foreign objects; then I shall +regret the lost literature of your mind, and wish you were by my side +again. But if you come, perhaps you will fill my mind only with new +visions, not with yourself but with your lusters, and I shall not be +able any more than now to converse with you. So I will owe to my +friends this evanescent intercourse. I will receive from them, not +what they have, but what they are. They shall give me that which +properly they cannot give, but which emanates from them. But they +shall not hold me by any relations less subtile and pure. We will meet +as though we met not, and part as though we parted not. + +24. It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a +friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the +other. Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is +not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall +wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the +reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold +companion. If he is unequal, he will presently pass away; but thou art +enlarged by thy own shining, and no longer a mate for frogs and worms, +dost soar and burn with the gods of the empyrean.[308] It is thought a +disgrace to love unrequited. But the great will see that true love +cannot be unrequited. True love transcends the unworthy object, and +dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask +crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its +independency the surer. Yet these things may hardly be said without a +sort of treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is +entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or +provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it may +deify both. + + + + +HEROISM[309] + + "Paradise is under the shadow of swords,"[310] + _Mahomet._ + + +1. In the elder English dramatists,[311] and mainly in the plays of +Beaumont and Fletcher,[312] there is a constant recognition of +gentility, as if a noble behavior were as easily marked in the society +of their age, as color is in our American population. When any Rodrigo, +Pedro, or Valerio[313] enters, though he be a stranger, the duke or +governor exclaims, This is a gentleman,--and proffers civilities without +end; but all the rest are slag and refuse. In harmony with this delight +in personal advantages, there is in their plays a certain heroic cast of +character and dialogue,--as in Bonduca, Sophocles, the Mad Lover, the +Double Marriage,[314]--wherein the speaker is so earnest and cordial, +and on such deep grounds of character, that the dialogue, on the +slightest additional incident in the plot, rises naturally into poetry. +Among many texts, take the following. The Roman Martius has conquered +Athens--all but the invincible spirits of Sophocles, the duke of Athens, +and Dorigen, his wife. The beauty of the latter inflames Martius, and he +seeks to save her husband; but Sophocles will not ask his life, although +assured, that a word will save him, and the execution of both proceeds. + +"_Valerius._ Bid thy wife farewell. + +_Soph._ No, I will take no leave. My Dorigen, +Yonder, above, 'bout Ariadne's crown.[315] +My spirit shall hover for thee. Prithee, haste. + +_Dor._ Stay, Sophocles--with this, tie up my sight; +Let not soft nature so transformed be, +And lose her gentler sexed humanity, +To make me see my lord bleed. So, 'tis well; +Never one object underneath the sun +Will I behold before my Sophocles: +Farewell; now teach the Romans how to die. + +_Mar._ Dost know what 'tis to die? + +_Soph._ Thou dost not, Martius, +And therefore, not what 'tis to live; to die +Is to begin to live. It is to end +An old, stale, weary work, and to commence +A newer and a better. 'Tis to leave +Deceitful knaves for the society +Of gods and goodness. Thou, thyself, must part +At last, from all thy garlands, pleasures, triumphs, +And prove thy fortitude what then 'twill do. + +_Val._ But art not grieved nor vexed to leave thy life thus? + +_Soph._ Why should I grieve or vex for being sent +To them I ever loved best? Now, I'll kneel, +But with my back toward thee; 'tis the last duty +This trunk can do the gods. + +_Mar._ Strike, strike, Valerius, +Or Martius' heart will leap out at his mouth: +This is a man, a woman! Kiss thy lord, +And live with all the freedom you were wont. +O love! thou doubly hast afflicted me +With virtue and with beauty. Treacherous heart, +My hand shall cast thee quick into my urn, +Ere thou transgress this knot of piety. + +_Val._ What ails my brother? + +_Soph._ Martius, oh Martius, +Thou now hast found a way to conquer me. + +_Dor._ O star of Rome! what gratitude can speak +Fit words to follow such a deed as this? + +_Mar._ This admirable duke, Valerius, +With his disdain of fortune and of death, +Captived himself, has captived me, +And though my arm hath ta'en his body here, +His soul hath subjugated Martius' soul. +By Romulus,[316] he is all soul, I think; +He hath no flesh, and spirit cannot be gyved; +Then we have vanquished nothing; he is free, +And Martius walks now in captivity." + +2. I do not readily remember any poem, play, sermon, novel, or +oration, that our press vents in the last few years, which goes to the +same tune. We have a great many flutes and flageolets, but not often +the sound of any fife. Yet, Wordsworth's Laodamia, and the ode of +"Dion,"[317] and some sonnets, have a certain noble music; and +Scott[318] will sometimes draw a stroke like the portrait of Lord +Evandale, given by Balfour of Burley.[319] Thomas Carlyle,[320] with +his natural taste for what is manly and daring in character, has +suffered no heroic trait in his favorites to drop from his +biographical and historical pictures. Earlier, Robert Burns[321] has +given us a song or two. In the Harleian Miscellanies,[322] there is an +account of the battle of Lutzen,[323] which deserves to be read. And +Simon Ockley's[324] History of the Saracens recounts the prodigies of +individual valor with admiration, all the more evident on the part of +the narrator, that he seems to think that his place in Christian +Oxford[325] requires of him some proper protestations of abhorrence. +But if we explore the literature of Heroism, we shall quickly come to +Plutarch,[326] who is its Doctor and historian. To him we owe the +Brasidas,[327] the Dion,[328] the Epaminondas,[329] the Scipio[330] of +old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all +the ancient writers. Each of his "Lives" is a refutation to the +despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A +wild courage, a Stoicism[331] not of the schools, but of the blood, +shines in every anecdote, and has given that book its immense fame. + +3. We need books of this tart cathartic virtue, more than books of +political science, or of private economy. Life is a festival only to +the wise. Seen from the nook and chimney-side of prudence, it wears a +ragged and dangerous front. The violations of the laws of nature by +our predecessors and our contemporaries are punished in us also. The +disease and deformity around us certify the infraction of natural, +intellectual, and moral laws, and often violation on violation to +breed such compound misery. A lockjaw that bends a man's head back to +his heels, hydrophobia that makes him bark at his wife and babes, +insanity that makes him eat grass; war, plague, cholera, famine +indicate a certain ferocity in nature, which, as it had its inlet by +human crime, must have its outlet by human suffering. Unhappily, +almost no man exists who has not in his own person become, to some +amount, a stockholder in the sin, and so made himself liable to a +share in the expiation. + +4. Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let +him hear in season that he is born into the state of war, and that the +commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go +dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self-collected, and neither +defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and +life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the +mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his +behavior. + +5. Toward all this external evil, the man within the breast assumes a +warlike attitude, and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with +the infinite army of enemies. To this military attitude of the soul we +give the name of Heroism. Its rudest form is the contempt for safety +and ease, which makes the attractiveness of war. It is a self-trust +which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its +energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind +of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will, but +pleasantly, and, as it were, merrily, he advances to his own music, +alike in frightful alarms, and in the tipsy mirth of universal +dissoluteness. There is somewhat not philosophical in heroism; there +is somewhat not holy in it; it seems not to know that other souls are +of one texture with it; it has pride; it is the extreme of individual +nature. Nevertheless, we must profoundly revere it. There is somewhat +in great actions, which does not allow us to go behind them. Heroism +feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right; and although a +different breeding, different religion, and greater intellectual +activity, would have modified or even reversed the particular action, +yet for the hero, that thing he does is the highest deed, and is not +open to the censure of philosophers or divines. It is the avowal of +the unschooled man, that he finds a quality in him that is negligent +of expense, of health, of life, of danger, of hatred, of reproach, and +knows that his will is higher and more excellent than all actual and +all possible antagonists. + +6. Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind, and in +contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism +is an obedience[332] to a secret impulse of an individual's character. +Now to no other man can its wisdom appear as it does to him, for every +man must be supposed to see a little further on his own proper path +than any one else. Therefore, just and wise men take umbrage at his +act, until after some little time be past: then they see it to be in +unison with their acts. All prudent men see that the action is clean +contrary to a sensual prosperity; for every heroic act measures itself +by its contempt of some external good. But it finds its own success +at last, and then the prudent also extol. + +7. Self-trust is the essence of heroism. It is the state of the soul +at war, and its ultimate objects are the last defiance of falsehood +and wrong, and the power to bear all that can be inflicted by evil +agents. It speaks the truth, and it is just, generous, hospitable, +temperate, scornful of petty calculations, and scornful of being +scorned. It persists; it is of an undaunted boldness, and of a +fortitude not to be wearied out. Its jest is the littleness of common +life. That false prudence which dotes on health and wealth is the butt +and merriment of heroism. Heroism, like Plotinus,[333] is almost +ashamed of its body. What shall it say, then, to the sugar-plums, and +cats'-cradles, to the toilet, compliments, quarrels, cards, and +custard, which rack the wit of all human society. What joys has kind +nature provided for us dear creatures! There seems to be no interval +between greatness and meanness. When the spirit is not master of the +world then it is its dupe. Yet the little man takes the great hoax so +innocently, works in it so headlong and believing, is born red, and +dies gray, arranging his toilet, attending on his own health, laying +traps for sweet food and strong wine, setting his heart on a horse or +a rifle, made happy with a little gossip or a little praise, that the +great soul cannot choose but laugh at such earnest nonsense. "Indeed, +these humble considerations[334] make me out of love with greatness. +What a disgrace is it to me to take note how many pairs of silk +stockings thou hast, namely, these and those that were the +peach-colored ones; or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as one for +superfluity, and one other for use!" + +8. Citizens, thinking after the laws of arithmetic, consider the +inconvenience of receiving strangers at their fireside, reckon +narrowly the loss of time and the unusual display: the soul of a +better quality thrusts back the unreasonable economy into the vaults +of life, and says, I will obey the God, and the sacrifice and the fire +he will provide. Ibn Hankal,[335] the Arabian geographer, describes a +heroic extreme in the hospitality of Sogd, in Bokhar,[336] "When I was +in Sogd I saw a great building, like a palace, the gates of which were +open and fixed back to the wall with large nails. I asked the reason, +and was told that the house had not been shut, night or day, for a +hundred years. Strangers may present themselves at any hour, and in +whatever number; the master has amply provided for the reception of +the men and their animals, and is never happier than when they tarry +for some time. Nothing of the kind have I seen in any other country." +The magnanimous know very well that they who give time, or money, or +shelter, to the stranger--so it be done for love, and not for +ostentation--do, as it were, put God under obligation to them, so +perfect are the compensations of the universe. In some way the time +they seem to lose is redeemed, and the pains they seem to take +remunerate themselves. These men fan the flame of human love, and +raise the standard of civil virtue among mankind. But hospitality must +be for service, and not for show, or it pulls down the host. The brave +soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its +table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it hath, but its +own majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks[337] and fair water +than belong to city feasts. + +9. The temperance of the hero proceeds from the same wish to do no +dishonor to the worthiness he has. But he loves it for its elegancy, +not for its austerity. It seems not worth his while to be solemn, and +denounce with bitterness flesh-eating or wine-drinking, the use of +tobacco, or opium, or tea, or silk, or gold. A great man scarcely +knows how he dines, how he dresses; but without railing or precision, +his living is natural and poetic. John Eliot,[338] the Indian Apostle, +drank water, and said of wine,--"It is a noble, generous liquor, and +we should be humbly thankful for it, but, as I remember, water was +made before it." Better still is the temperance of king David[339] who +poured out on the ground unto the Lord the water which three of his +warriors had brought him to drink, at the peril of their lives. + +10. It is told of Brutus,[340] that when he fell on his sword, after +the battle of Philippi,[341] he quoted a line of Euripides,[342]--"O +virtue! I have followed thee through life, and I find thee at last but +a shade." I doubt not the hero is slandered by this report. The heroic +soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to +dine nicely, and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the +perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not +need plenty, and can very well abide its loss. + +11. But that which takes my fancy most, in the heroic class, is the +good humor and hilarity they exhibit. It is a height to which common +duty can very well attain, to suffer and to dare with solemnity. But +these rare souls set opinion, success, and life, at so cheap a rate, +that they will not soothe their enemies by petitions, or the show of +sorrow, but wear their own habitual greatness. Scipio,[343] charged +with peculation, refuses to do himself so great a disgrace as to wait +for justification, though he had the scroll of his accounts in his +hands, but tears it to pieces before the tribunes. Socrates'[344] +condemnation of himself to be maintained in all honor in the +Prytaneum,[345] during his life, and Sir Thomas More's[346] +playfulness at the scaffold, are of the same strain. In Beaumont and +Fletcher's "Sea Voyage," Juletta tells the stout captain and his +company, + +_Jul._ Why, slaves, 'tis in our power to hang ye. + +_Master._ Very likely, +'Tis in our powers, then, to be hanged, and scorn ye. + +These replies are sound and whole. Sport is the bloom and glow of a +perfect health. The great will not condescend to take anything +seriously; all must be as gay as the song of a canary, though it were +the building of cities, or the eradication of old and foolish +churches and nations, which have cumbered the earth long thousands of +years. Simple hearts put all the history and customs of this world +behind them, and play their own play in innocent defiance of the +Blue-Laws[347] of the world; and such would appear, could we see the +human race assembled in vision, like little children frolicking +together; though, to the eyes of mankind at large, they wear a stately +and solemn garb of works and influences. + +12. The interest these fine stories have for us, the power of a +romance over the boy who grasps the forbidden book under his bench at +school, our delight in the hero, is the main fact to our purpose. All +these great and transcendent properties are ours. If we dilate in +beholding the Greek energy, the Roman pride, it is that we are already +domesticating the same sentiment. Let us find room for this great +guest in our small houses. The first step of worthiness will be to +disabuse us of our superstitious associations with places and times, +with number and size. Why should these words, Athenian, Roman, Asia, +and England, so tingle in the ear? Where the heart is, there the +muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. +Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry +places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But +here we are; and, if we will tarry a little, we may come to learn that +here is best. See to it only that thyself is here;--and art and +nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall +not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest. Epaminondas,[348] +brave and affectionate, does not seem to us to need Olympus[349] to +die upon, nor the Syrian sunshine. He lies very well where he is. The +Jerseys[350] were handsome ground enough for Washington to tread, and +London streets for the feet of Milton.[351] A great man makes his +climate genial in the imagination of men, and its air the beloved +element of all delicate spirits. That country is the fairest, which is +inhabited by the noblest minds. The pictures which fill the +imagination in reading the actions of Pericles,[352] Xenophon,[353] +Columbus,[354] Bayard,[355] Sidney,[356] Hampden,[357] teach us how +needlessly mean our life is, that we, by the depth of our living, +should deck it with more than regal or national splendor, and act on +principles that should interest man and nature in the length of our +days. + +13. We have seen or heard of many extraordinary young men, who never +ripened, or whose performance in actual life was not extraordinary. +When we see their air and mien, when we hear them speak of society, or +books, or religion, we admire their superiority; they seem to throw +contempt on our entire polity and social state; theirs is the tone of +a youthful giant, who is sent to work revolutions. But they enter an +active profession, and the forming Colossus[358] shrinks to the common +size of man. The magic they used was the ideal tendencies, which +always make the Actual ridiculous; but the tough world had its revenge +the moment they put their horses of the sun to plow in its furrow. +They found no example and no companion, and their heart fainted. What +then? The lesson they gave in their first aspirations, is yet true; +and a better valor and a purer truth shall one day organize their +belief. Or why should a woman liken herself to any historical woman, +and think, because Sappho,[359] or Sévigné,[360] or De Staël,[361] or +the cloistered souls who have had genius and cultivation, do not +satisfy the imagination and the serene Themis,[362] none +can,--certainly not she. Why not? She has a new and unattempted +problem to solve, perchance that of the happiest nature that ever +bloomed. Let the maiden, with erect soul, walk serenely on her way, +accept the hint of each new experience, search, in turn, all the +objects that solicit her eye, that she may learn the power and the +charm of her new-born being which is the kindling of a new dawn in the +recesses of space. The fair girl, who repels interference by a decided +and proud choice of influences, so careless of pleasing, so wilful and +lofty, inspires every beholder with somewhat of her own nobleness. The +silent heart encourages her; O friend, never strike sail to a fear! +Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas. Not in vain you +live, for every passing eye is cheered and refined by the vision. + +14. The characteristic of a genuine heroism is its persistency. All +men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when +you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to +reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, +nor the common the heroic. Yet we have the weakness to expect the +sympathy of people in those actions whose excellence is that they +outrun sympathy, and appeal to a tardy justice. If you would serve +your brother, because it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back +your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. +Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done +something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a +decorous age. It was a high counsel[363] that I once heard given to a +young person,--"Always do what you are afraid to do." A simple manly +character need never make an apology, but should regard its past +action with the calmness of Phocion,[364] when he admitted that the +event of the battle was happy, yet did not regret his dissuasion from +the battle. + +15. There is no weakness or exposure for which we cannot find +consolation in the thought,--this is a part of my constitution, part +of my relation and office to my fellow-creature. Has nature covenanted +with me that I should never appear to disadvantage, never make a +ridiculous figure? Let us be generous of our dignity as well as of our +money. Greatness once and forever has done with opinion. We tell our +charities, not because we wish to be praised for them, not because we +think they have great merit, but for our justification. It is a +capital blunder; as you discover, when another man recites his +charities. + +16. To speak the truth, even with some austerity, to live with some +rigor of temperance, or some extremes of generosity, seems to be an +asceticism which common good-nature would appoint to those who are at +ease and in plenty, in sign that they feel a brotherhood with the +great multitude of suffering men. And not only need we breathe and +exercise the soul by assuming the penalties of abstinence, of debt, of +solitude, of unpopularity, but it behooves the wise man to look with a +bold eye into those rarer dangers which sometimes invade men, and to +familiarize himself with disgusting forms of disease, with sounds of +execration, and the vision of violent death. + +17. Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never +shines in which this element may not work. The circumstances of man, +we say, are historically somewhat better in this country, and at this +hour, than perhaps ever before. More freedom exists for culture. It +will not now run against an ax at the first step out of the beaten +track of opinion. But whoso is heroic will always find crises to try +his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the +trial of persecution always proceeds. It is but the other day that the +brave Lovejoy[365] gave his breast to the bullets of a mob, for the +rights of free speech and opinion, and died when it was better not to +live. + +18. I see not any road to perfect peace which a man can walk, but to +take counsel of his own bosom. Let him quit too much association, let +him go home much, and establish himself in those courses he approves. +The unremitting retention of simple and high sentiments in obscure +duties is hardening the character to that temper which will work with +honor, if need be, in the tumult, or on the scaffold. Whatever +outrages have happened to men may befall a man again; and very easily +in a republic, if there appear any signs of a decay of religion. +Coarse slander, fire, tar and feathers, and the gibbet, the youth may +freely bring home to his mind, and with what sweetness of temper he +can, and inquire how fast he can fix his sense of duty, braving such +penalties, whenever it may please the next newspaper and a sufficient +number of his neighbors to pronounce his opinions incendiary. + +19. It may calm the apprehension of calamity in the most susceptible +heart to see how quick a bound nature has set to the utmost infliction +of malice. We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow +us. + + "Let them rave:[366] + Thou art quiet in thy grave." + +In the gloom of our ignorance of what shall be, in the hour when we +are deaf to the higher voices, who does not envy them who have seen +safely to an end their manful endeavor? Who that sees the meanness of +our politics, but inly congratulates Washington that he is long +already wrapped in his shroud, and forever safe; that he was laid +sweet in his grave, the hope of humanity not yet subjugated in him? +Who does not sometimes envy the good and brave, who are no more to +suffer from the tumults of the natural world, and await with curious +complacency the speedy term of his own conversation with finite +nature? And yet the love that will be annihilated sooner than +treacherous has already made death impossible, and affirms itself no +mortal, but a native of the deeps of absolute and inextinguishable +being. + + + + +MANNERS[367] + + +1. Half the world, it is said, knows not how the other half live. Our +Exploring Expedition saw the Feejee Islanders[368] getting their +dinner off human bones; and they are said to eat their own wives and +children. The husbandry of the modern inhabitants of Gournou[369] +(west of old Thebes) is philosophical to a fault. To set up their +housekeeping, nothing is requisite but two or three earthen pots, a +stone to grind meal, and a mat which is the bed. The house, namely, a +tomb, is ready without rent or taxes. No rain can pass through the +roof, and there is no door, for there is no want of one, as there is +nothing to lose. If the house do not please them, they walk out and +enter another, as there are several hundreds at their command. "It is +somewhat singular," adds Berzoni, to whom we owe this account, "to +talk of Happiness among people who live in sepulchers, among corpses +and rags of an ancient nation which they knew nothing of." In the +deserts of Borgoo[370] the rock-Tibboos still dwell in caves, like +cliff-swallows, and the language of these negroes is compared by their +neighbors to the shrieking of bats, and to the whistling of birds. +Again, the Bornoos[371] have no proper names; individuals are called +after their height, thickness, or other accidental quality, and have +nick-names merely. But the salt, the dates, the ivory, and the gold, +for which these horrible regions are visited, find their way into +countries, where the purchaser and consumer can hardly be ranked in +one race with these cannibals and man-stealers; countries where man +serves himself with metals, wood, stone, glass, gum, cotton, silk and +wool; honors himself with architecture;[372] writes laws, and +contrives to execute his will through the hands of many nations; and, +especially, establishes a select society, running through all the +countries of intelligent men, a self-constituted aristocracy, or +fraternity of the best, which, without written law, or exact usage of +any kind, perpetuates itself, colonizes every new-planted island, and +adopts and makes its own whatever personal beauty or extraordinary +native endowment anywhere appears. + +2. What fact more conspicuous in modern history, than the creation of +the gentleman? Chivalry[373] is that, and loyalty is that, and, in +English literature, half the drama, and all the novels, from Sir +Philip Sidney[374] to Sir Walter Scott,[375] paint this figure. The +word _gentleman_, which, like the word Christian, must hereafter +characterize the present and the few preceding centuries, by the +importance attached to it, is a homage to personal and incommunicable +properties. Frivolous and fantastic additions have got associated with +the name, but the steady interest of mankind in it must be attributed +to the valuable properties which it designates. An element which +unites all the most forcible persons of every country; makes them +intelligible and agreeable to each other, and is somewhat so precise, +that it is at once felt if an individual lack the masonic sign,[376] +cannot be any casual product, but must be an average result of the +character and faculties universally found in men. It seems a certain +permanent average; as the atmosphere is a permanent composition, +whilst so many gases are combined only to be decompounded. _Comme il +faut_, is the Frenchman's description of good society, _as we must +be_. It is a spontaneous fruit of talents and feelings of precisely +that class who have most vigor, who take the lead in the world of this +hour, and, though far from pure, far from constituting the gladdest +and highest tone of human feeling, is as good as the whole society +permits it to be. It is made of the spirit, more than of the talent of +men, and is a compound result, into which every great force enters as +an ingredient, namely, virtue, wit, beauty, wealth, and power. + +3. There is something equivocal in all the words in use to express the +excellence of manners and social cultivation, because the qualities +are fluxional, and the last effect is assumed by the senses as the +cause. The word _gentleman_ has not any correlative abstract[377] to +express the quality. _Gentility_ is mean, and _gentilesse_[378] is +obsolete. But we must keep alive in the vernacular the distinction +between _fashion_, a word of narrow and often sinister meaning, and +the heroic character which the gentleman imports. The usual words, +however, must be respected: they will be found to contain the root of +the matter. The point of distinction in all this class of names, as +courtesy, chivalry, fashion, and the like, is, that the flower and +fruit, not the grain of the tree, are contemplated. It is beauty which +is the aim this time, and not worth. The result is now in question, +although our words intimate well enough the popular feeling, that the +appearance supposes a substance. The gentleman is a man of truth, lord +of his own actions, and expressing that lordship in his behavior, not +in any manner dependent and servile either on persons, or opinions, or +possessions. Beyond this fact of truth and real force, the word +denotes good-nature and benevolence: manhood first, and then +gentleness. The popular notion certainly adds a condition of ease and +fortune; but that is a natural result of personal force and love, that +they should possess and dispense the goods of the world. In times of +violence, every eminent person must fall in with many opportunities to +approve his stoutness and worth; therefore every man's name that +emerged at all from the mass in the feudal ages,[379] rattles in our +ear like a flourish of trumpets. But personal force never goes out of +fashion. That is still paramount to-day, and, in the moving crowd of +good society, the men of valor and reality are known, and rise to +their natural place. The competition is transferred from war to +politics and trade, but the personal force appears readily enough in +these new arenas. + +4. Power first, or no leading class. In politics and in trade, +bruisers and pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks. +God knows[380] that all sorts of gentlemen knock at the door; but +whenever used in strictness, and with any emphasis, the name will be +found to point at original energy. It describes a man standing in his +own right, and working after untaught methods. In a good lord, there +must first be a good animal, at least to the extent of yielding the +incomparable advantage of animal spirits.[381] The ruling class must +have more, but they must have these, giving in every company the sense +of power,[382] which makes things easy to be done which daunt the +wise. The society of the energetic class, in their friendly and +festive meetings, is full of courage, and of attempts, which +intimidate the pale scholar. The courage which girls exhibit is like a +battle of Lundy's Lane,[383] or a sea-fight. The intellect relies on +memory to make some supplies to face these extemporaneous squadrons. +But memory is a base mendicant with basket and badge, in the presence +of these sudden masters. The rulers of society must be up to the work +of the world, and equal to their versatile office: men of the right +Cæsarian pattern,[384] who have great range of affinity. I am far from +believing the timid maxim[385] of Lord Falkland,[386] ("That for +ceremony there must go two to it; since a bold fellow will go through +the cunningest forms,") and am of opinion that the gentleman is the +bold fellow whose forms are not to be broken through; and only that +plenteous nature is rightful master, which is the complement of +whatever person it converses with. My gentleman gives the law where he +is; he will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the +field, and outshine all courtesy in the hall. He is good company for +pirates, and good with academicians; so that it is useless to fortify +yourself against him; he has the private entrance to all minds, and I +could as easily exclude myself as him. The famous gentlemen of Asia +and Europe have been of this strong type: Saladin,[387] Sapor,[388] +the Cid,[389] Julius Cæsar,[390] Scipio,[391] Alexander,[392] +Pericles,[393] and the lordliest personages. They sat very carelessly +in their chairs, and were too excellent themselves to value any +condition at a high rate. + +5. A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the popular judgment, +to the completion of this man of the world: and it is a material deputy +which walks through the dance which the first has led. Money is not +essential, but this wide affinity is, which transcends the habits of +clique and caste, and makes itself felt by men of all classes. If the +aristocrat is only valid in fashionable circles, and not with truckmen, +he will never be a leader in fashion; and if the man of the people +cannot speak on equal terms with the gentleman, so that the gentleman +shall perceive that he is already really of his own order, he is not to +be feared. Diogenes,[394] Socrates,[395] and Epaminondas[396] are +gentlemen of the best blood, who have chosen the condition of poverty, +when that of wealth was equally open to them. I use these old names, but +the men I speak of are my contemporaries.[397] Fortune will not supply +to every generation one of these well-appointed knights, but every +collection of men furnishes some example of the class: and the politics +of this country, and the trade of every town, are controlled by these +hardy and irresponsible doers, who have invention to take the lead, and +a broad sympathy which puts them in fellowship with crowds, and makes +their action popular. + +6. The manners of this class are observed and caught with devotion by +men of taste. The association of these masters with each other, and +with men intelligent of their merits, is mutually agreeable and +stimulating. The good forms, the happiest expressions of each, are +repeated and adopted. By swift consent, everything superfluous is +dropped, everything graceful is renewed. Fine manners[398] show +themselves formidable to the uncultivated man. They are a subtler +science of defence to parry and intimidate; but once matched by the +skill of the other party, they drop the point of the sword,--points +and fences disappear, and the youth finds himself in a more +transparent atmosphere, wherein life is a less troublesome game, and +not a misunderstanding rises between the players. Manners aim to +facilitate life, to get rid of impediments, and bring the man pure to +energize. They aid our dealing and conversation, as a railway aids +traveling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the road, +and leaving nothing to be conquered but pure space. These forms very +soon become fixed, and a fine sense of propriety is cultivated with +more heed, that it becomes a badge of social and civil distinctions. +Thus grows up Fashion, an equivocal semblance, the most puissant, the +most fantastic and frivolous, the most feared and followed, and which +morals and violence assault in vain. + +7. There exists a strict relation between the class of power, and the +exclusive and polished circles. The last are always filled or filling +from the first. The strong men usually give some allowance even to the +petulances of fashion, for that affinity they find in it. +Napoleon,[399] child of the revolution, destroyer of the old +noblesse,[400] never ceased to court the Faubourg St. Germain:[401] +doubtless with the feeling, that fashion is a homage to men of his +stamp. Fashion, though in a strange way, represents all manly virtue. +It is a virtue gone to seed: it is a kind of posthumous honor. It does +not often caress the great, but the children of the great: it is a +hall of the Past. It usually sets its face against the great of this +hour. Great men are not commonly in its halls: they are absent in the +field: they are working, not triumphing. Fashion is made up of their +children; of those, who, through the value and virtue of somebody, +have acquired lustre to their name, marks of distinction, means of +cultivation and generosity, and, in their physical organization, a +certain health and excellence, which secures to them, if not the +highest power to work, yet high power to enjoy. The class of power, +the working heroes, the Cortez,[402] the Nelson,[403] the Napoleon, +see that this is the festivity and permanent celebration of such as +they; that fashion is funded talent; is Mexico,[404] Marengo,[405] and +Trafalgar[406][407] beaten out thin; that the brilliant names of +fashion run back to just such busy names as their own, fifty or sixty +years ago. They are the sowers, their sons shall be the reapers, and +_their_ sons, in the ordinary course of things, must yield the +possession of the harvest, to new competitors with keener eyes and +stronger frames. The city is recruited from the country. In the year +1805, it is said, every legitimate monarch in Europe was imbecile. The +city would have died out, rotted, and exploded, long ago, but that it +was reinforced from the fields. It is only country which came to town +day before yesterday, that is city and court to-day. + +8. Aristocracy and fashion are certain inevitable results. These +mutual selections are indestructible. If they provoke anger in the +least favored class, and the excluded majority revenge themselves on +the excluding minority, by the strong hand, and kill them, at once a +new class finds itself at the top, as certainly as cream rises in a +bowl of milk: and if the people should destroy class after class, +until two men only were left, one of these would be the leader, and +would be involuntarily served and copied by the other. You may keep +this minority out of sight and out of mind, but it is tenacious of +life, and is one of the estates of the realm.[408] I am the more +struck with this tenacity, when I see its work. It respects the +administration of such unimportant matters, that we should not look +for any durability in its rule. We sometimes meet men under some +strong moral influence, as a patriotic, a literary, a religious +movement, and feel that the moral sentiment rules man and nature. We +think all other distinctions and ties will be slight and fugitive, +this of caste or fashion, for example; yet come from year to year, and +see how permanent that is, in this Boston or New York life of man, +where, too, it has not the lease countenance from the law of the land. +Not in Egypt or in India a firmer or more impassable line. Here are +associations whose ties go over, and under, and through it, a meeting +of merchants, a military corps, a college-class, a fire-club, a +professional association, a political, a religious convention;--the +persons seem to draw inseparably near; yet that assembly once +dispersed, its members will not in the year meet again. Each returns +to his degree in the scale of good society, porcelain remains +porcelain, and earthen earthen. The objects of fashion may be +frivolous, or fashion may be objectless, but the nature of this union +and selection can be neither frivolous nor accidental. Each man's rank +in that perfect graduation depends on some symmetry in his structure, +or some agreement in his structure to the symmetry of society. Its +doors unbar instantaneously to a natural claim of their own kind. A +natural gentleman finds his way in, and will keep the oldest patrician +out, who has lost his intrinsic rank. Fashion understands itself; +good-breeding and personal superiority of whatever country readily +fraternize with those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have +distinguished themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their +tournure.[409] + +9. To say what good of fashion we can,--it rests on reality, and hates +nothing so much as pretenders;--to exclude and mystify pretenders, and +send them into everlasting "Coventry,"[410] is its delight. We +contemn, in turn, every other gift of men of the world; but the habit, +even in little and the least matters, of not appealing to any but our +own sense of propriety, constitutes the foundation of all chivalry. +There is almost no kind of self-reliance, so it be sane and +proportioned, which fashion does not occasionally adopt, and give it +the freedom of its saloons. A sainted soul is always elegant, and, if +it will, passes unchallenged into the most guarded ring. But so will +Jock the teamster pass, in some crisis that brings him thither, and +find favor, as long as his head is not giddy with the new +circumstance, and the iron shoes do not wish to dance in waltzes and +cotillions. For there is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of +behavior yield to the energy of the individual. The maiden at her +first ball, the countryman at a city dinner, believes that there is a +ritual according to which every act and compliment must be performed, +or the failing party must be cast out of this presence. Later, they +learn that good sense and character make their own forms every moment, +and speak or abstain, to take wine or refuse it, stay or go, sit in a +chair or sprawl with children on the floor, or stand on their head, or +what else soever, in a new and aboriginal way: and that strong will is +always in fashion, let who will be unfashionable. All that fashion +demands is composure, and self-content. A circle of men perfectly +well-bred would be a company of sensible persons, in which every man's +native manners and character appear. If the fashionist have not this +quality, he is nothing. We are such lovers of self-reliance, that we +excuse in man many sins, if he will show us a complete satisfaction in +his position, which asks no leave to be of mine, or any man's good +opinion. But any deference to some eminent man or woman of the world, +forfeits all privilege of nobility. He is an underling: I have nothing +to do with him; I will speak with his master. A man should not go +where he cannot carry his whole sphere or society with him,--not +bodily, the whole circle of his friends, but atmospherically. He +should preserve in a new company the same attitude of mind and reality +of relation, which his daily associates draw him to, else he is shorn +of his best beams, and will be an orphan in the merriest club. "If you +could see Vich Ian Vohr with his tail on![411]--" But Vich Ian Vohr +must always carry his belongings in some fashion, if not added as +honor, then severed as disgrace. + +10. There will always be in society certain persons who are +mercuries[412] of its approbation, and whose glance will at any time +determine for the curious their standing in the world. These are the +chamberlains of the lesser gods. Accept their coldness as an omen of +grace with the loftier deities, and allow them all their privilege. +They are clear in their office, nor could they be thus formidable, +without their own merits. But do not measure the importance of this +class by their pretension, or imagine that a fop can be the dispenser +of honor and shame. They pass also at their just rate; for how can +they otherwise, in circles which exist as a sort of herald's +office[413] for the sifting of character? + +11. As the first thing man requires of man is reality, so that appears +in all the forms of society. We pointedly, and by name, introduce the +parties to each other. Know you before all heaven and earth, that this +is Andrew, and this is Gregory;--they look each other in the eye; they +grasp each other's hand, to identify and signalize each other. It is a +great satisfaction. A gentleman never dodges; his eyes look straight +forward, and he assures the other party, first of all, that he has +been met. For what is it that we seek, in so many visits and +hospitalities? Is it your draperies, pictures, and decorations? Or, do +we not insatiably ask. Was a man in the house? I may easily go into a +great household where there is much substance, excellent provision for +comfort, luxury, and taste, and yet not encounter there any +Amphitryon,[414] who shall subordinate these appendages. I may go into +a cottage, and find a farmer who feels that he is the man I have come +to see, and fronts me accordingly. It was therefore a very natural +point of old feudal etiquette, that a gentleman who received a visit, +though it were of his sovereign, should not leave his roof, but should +wait his arrival at the door of his house. No house, though it were +the Tuileries,[415] or the Escurial,[416] is good for anything without +a master. And yet we are not often gratified by this hospitality. +Everybody we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, +conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to +interpose between himself and his guests. Does it not seem as if man +was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a +full renconter front to front with his fellow? It were unmerciful, I +know, quite to abolish the use of these screens, which are of eminent +convenience, whether the guest is too great, or too little. We call +together many friends who keep each other in play, or by luxuries and +ornaments we amuse the young people, and guard our retirement. Or if, +perchance, a searching realist comes to our gate, before whose eyes we +have no care to stand, then again we run to our curtain, and hide +ourselves as Adam[417] at the voice of the Lord God in the garden. +Cardinal Caprara,[418] the Pope's[419] legate at Paris, defended +himself from the glances of Napoleon, by an immense pair of green +spectacles. Napoleon remarked them, and speedily managed to rally them +off: and yet Napoleon, in his turn, was not great enough, with eight +hundred thousand troops at his back, to face a pair of free-born eyes, +but fenced himself with etiquette, and within triple barriers of +reserve: and, as all the world knows from Madame de Stael,[420] was +wont, when he found himself observed, to discharge his face of all +expression. But emperors and rich men are by no means the most +skillful masters of good manners. No rent roll nor army-list can +dignify skulking and dissimulations: and the first point of courtesy +must always be truth, as really all forms of good-breeding point that +way. + +12. I have just been reading, in Mr. Hazlitt's[421] translation, +Montaigne's[422] account of his journey into Italy, and am struck with +nothing more agreeably than the self-respecting fashions of the time. +His arrival in each place, the arrival of a gentleman of France, is an +event of some consequence. Wherever he goes, he pays a visit to +whatever prince or gentleman of note resides upon his road, as a duty +to himself and to civilization. When he leaves any house in which he +has lodged for a few weeks, he causes his arms to be painted and hung +up as a perpetual sign to the house, as was the custom of gentlemen. + +13. The complement of this graceful self-respect, and that of all the +points of good breeding I most require and insist upon, is deference. +I like that every chair should be a throne, and hold a king. I prefer +a tendency to stateliness, to an excess of fellowship. Let the +incommunicable objects of nature and the metaphysical isolation of man +teach us independence. Let us not be too much acquainted. I would have +a man enter his house through a hall filled with heroic and sacred +sculptures, that he might not want the hint of tranquillity and +self-poise.[423] We should meet each morning, as from foreign +countries, and spending the day together, should depart at night, as +into foreign countries. In all things I would have the island of a man +inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all +round Olympus. No degree of affection need invade this religion. This +is myrrh and rosemary to keep the other sweet. Lovers should guard +their strangeness. If they forgive too much, all slides into confusion +and meanness. It is easy to push this deference to a Chinese +etiquette;[424] but coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate +fine qualities. A gentleman makes no noise: a lady is serene +Proportionate is our disgust at those invaders who fill a studious +house with blast and running, to secure some paltry convenience. Not +less I dislike a low sympathy of each with his neighbors's needs. Must +we have a good understanding with one another's palates? as foolish +people who have lived long together, know when each wants salt or +sugar. I pray my companion, if he wishes for bread, to ask me for +bread, and if he wishes for sassafras or arsenic, to ask me for them, +and not to hold out his plate, as if I knew already. Every natural +function can be dignified by deliberation and privacy. Let us leave +hurry to slaves. The compliments and ceremonies of our breeding should +recall,[425] however remotely, the grandeur of our destiny. + +14. The flower of courtesy does not very well bide handling, but if we +dare to open another leaf, and explore what parts go to its +conformation, we shall find also an intellectual quality. To the +leaders of men, the brain as well as the flesh and the heart must +furnish a proportion. Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine +perceptions. Men are too coarsely made for the delicacy of beautiful +carriage and customs. It is not quite sufficient to good breeding, a +union of kindness and independence. We imperatively require a +perception of, and a homage to, beauty in our companions. Other +virtues are in request in the field and work yard, but a certain +degree of taste is not to be spared in those we sit with. I could +better eat with one who did not respect the truth or the laws, than +with a sloven and unpresentable person. Moral qualities rule the +world, but at short distances the senses are despotic. The same +discrimination of fit and fair runs out, if with less rigor, into all +parts of life. The average spirit of the energetic class is good +sense, acting under certain limitations and to certain ends. It +entertains every natural gift. Social in its nature, it respects +everything which tends to unite men. It delights in measure.[426] The +love of beauty is mainly the love of measure or proportion. The person +who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat, +puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved, love +measure. You must have genius, or a prodigious usefulness, if you will +hide the want of measure. This perception comes in to polish and +perfect the parts of the social instrument. Society will pardon much +to genius and special gifts, but, being in its nature a convention, it +loves what is conventional, or what belongs to coming together. That +makes the good and bad of manners, namely, what helps or hinders +fellowship. For, fashion is not good sense absolute, but relative; not +good sense private, but good sense entertaining company. It hates +corners and sharp points of character, hates quarrelsome, egotistical, +solitary, and gloomy people; hates whatever can interfere with total +blending of parties; whilst it values all peculiarities as in the +highest degree refreshing, which can consist with good fellowship. And +besides the general infusion of wit to heighten civility, the direct +splendor of intellectual power is ever welcome in fine society as the +costliest addition to its rule and its credit. + +15. The dry light must shine in to adorn our festival, but it must be +tempered and shaded, or that will also offend. Accuracy is essential +to beauty, and quick perceptions to politeness, but not too quick +perceptions. One may be too punctual and too precise. He must leave +the omniscience of business at the door, when he comes into the palace +of beauty. Society loves creole natures,[427] and sleepy, languishing +manners, so that they cover sense, grace, and good-will: the air of +drowsy strength, which disarms criticism; perhaps, because such a +person seems to reserve himself for the best of the game, and not +spend himself on surfaces; an ignoring eye, which does not see the +annoyances, shifts, and inconveniences, that cloud the brow and +smother the voice of the sensitive. + +16. Therefore, besides personal force and so much perception as +constitutes unerring taste, society demands in its patrician class, +another element already intimated, which it significantly terms +good-nature, expressing all degrees of generosity, from the lowest +willingness and faculty to oblige, up to the heights of magnanimity +and love. Insight we must have, or we shall run against one another, +and miss the way to our food; but intellect is selfish and barren. The +secret of success in society, is a certain heartiness and sympathy. A +man who is not happy in the company, cannot find any word in his +memory that will fit the occasion. All his information is a little +impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds in every turn of the +conversation equally lucky occasions for the introduction of that +which he has to say. The favorites of society, and what it calls +_whole souls_, are able men, and of more spirit than wit, who have no +uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and the company, +contented and contenting, at a marriage or a funeral, a ball or a +jury, a water-party or a shooting-match. England, which is rich in +gentlemen, furnished, in the beginning of the present century, a good +model of that genius which the world loves, in Mr. Fox,[428] who +added to his great abilities the most social disposition, and real +love of men. Parliamentary history has few better passages than the +debate, in which Burke[429] and Fox separated in the House of Commons; +when Fox urged on his old friend the claims of old friendship with +such tenderness, that the house was moved to tears. Another anecdote +is so close to my matter, that I must hazard the story. A tradesman +who had long dunned him for a note of three hundred guineas, found him +one day counting gold, and demanded payment. "No," said Fox, "I owe +this money to Sheridan[430]: it is a debt of honor: if an accident +should happen to me, he has nothing to show." "Then," said the +creditor, "I change my debt into a debt of honor," and tore the note +in pieces. Fox thanked the man for his confidence, and paid him, +saying, "his debt was of older standing, and Sheridan must wait." +Lover of liberty, friend of the Hindoo, friend of the African slave, +he possessed a great personal popularity; and Napoleon said of him on +the occasion of his visit to Paris, in 1805, "Mr. Fox will always hold +the first place in an assembly at the Tuileries." + +17. We may easily seem ridiculous in our eulogy of courtesy, whenever +we insist on benevolence as its foundation. The painted phantasm +Fashion rises to cast a species of derision on what we say. But I will +neither be driven from some allowance to Fashion as a symbolic +institution, nor from the belief that love is the basis of courtesy. +"We must obtain _that_, if we can; but by all means we must affirm +_this_. Life owes much of its spirit to these sharp contrasts. Fashion +which affects to be honor, is often, in all men's experience, only a +ballroom code. Yet, so long as it is the highest circle, in the +imagination of the best heads on the planet, there is something +necessary and excellent in it; for it is not to be supposed that men +have agreed to be the dupes of anything preposterous; and the respect +which these mysteries inspire in the most rude and sylvan characters, +and the curiosity with which details of high life are read, betray the +universality of the love of cultivated manners. I know that a comic +disparity would be felt, if we should enter the acknowledged 'first +circles,' and apply these terrific standards of justice, beauty, and +benefit, to the individuals actually found there. Monarchs and heroes, +sages and lovers, these gallants are not. Fashion has many classes and +many rules of probation and admission; and not the best alone. There +is not only the right of conquest, which genius pretends,--the +individual, demonstrating his natural aristocracy best of the +best;--but less claims will pass for the time; for Fashion loves +lions, and points, like Circe,[431] to her horned company. This +gentleman is this afternoon arrived from Denmark; and that is my Lord +Ride, who came yesterday from Bagdad; here is Captain Friese, from +Cape Turnagain, and Captain Symmes,[432] from the interior of the +earth; and Monsieur Jovaire, who came down this morning in a balloon; +Mr. Hobnail, the reformer; and Reverend Jul Bat, who has converted +the whole torrid zone in his Sunday school; and Signer Torre del +Greco, who extinguished Vesuvius by pouring into it the Bay of Naples; +Spahr, the Persian ambassador; and Tul Wil Shan, the exiled nabob of +Nepaul, whose saddle is the new moon.--But these are monsters of one +day, and to-morrow will be dismissed to their holes and dens; for, in +these rooms every chair is waited for. The artist, the scholar, and, +in general, the clerisy,[433] wins its way up into these places, and +gets represented here, somewhat on this footing of conquest. Another +mode is to pass through all the degrees, spending a year and a day in +St. Michael's Square,[434] being steeped in Cologne water,[435] and +perfumed, and dined, and introduced, and properly grounded in all the +biography, and politics, and anecdotes of the boudoirs. + +18. Yet these fineries may have grace and wit. Let there be grotesque +sculpture about the gates and offices of temples. Let the creed and +commandments even have the saucy homage of parody. The forms of +politeness universally express benevolence in superlative degrees. +What if they are in the mouths of selfish men, and used as means of +selfishness? What if the false gentleman almost bows the true out of +the world? What if the false gentleman contrives so to address his +companion, as civilly to exclude all others from his discourse, and +also to make them feel excluded? Real service will not lose its +nobleness. All generosity is not merely French and sentimental; nor is +it to be concealed, that living blood and a passion of kindness does +at last distinguish God's gentleman from Fashion's. The epitaph of Sir +Jenkin Grout is not wholly unintelligible to the present age. "Here +lies Sir Jenkin Grout, who loved his friend, and persuaded his enemy: +what his mouth ate, his hand paid for: what his servants robbed, he +restored: if a woman gave him pleasure, he supported her in pain: he +never forgot his children: and whoso touched his finger, drew after it +his whole body." Even the line of heroes is not utterly extinct. There +is still ever some admirable person in plain clothes, standing on the +wharf, who jumps in to rescue a drowning man; there is still some +absurd inventor of charities; some guide and comforter of runaway +slaves; some friend of Poland;[436] some Philhellene;[437] some +fanatic who plants shade-trees for the second and third generation, +and orchards when he is grown old; some well-concealed piety; some +just man happy in an ill-fame; some youth ashamed of the favors of +fortune, and impatiently casting them on other shoulders. And these +are the centers of society, on which it returns for fresh impulses. +These are the creators of Fashion, which is an attempt to organize +beauty of behavior. The beautiful and the generous are in the theory, +the doctors and apostles of this church: Scipio, and the Cid, and Sir +Philip Sidney, and Washington, and every pure and valiant heart, who +worshiped Beauty by word and by deed. The persons who constitute the +natural aristocracy, are not found in the actual aristocracy, or only +on its edge; as the chemical energy of the spectrum is found to be +greatest just outside of the spectrum. Yet that is the infirmity of +the seneschals, who do not know their sovereign, when he appears. The +theory of society supposes the existence and sovereignty of these. It +divines afar off their coming. It says with the elder gods,-- + + "As Heaven and Earth are fairer far[438] + Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs; + And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth, + In form and shape compact and beautiful; + So, on our heels a fresh perfection treads; + A power, more strong in beauty, born of us, + And fated to excel us, as we pass + In glory that old Darkness: + ... for, 'tis the eternal law, + That first in beauty shall be first in might." + +19. Therefore, within the ethnical circle of good society, there is a +narrower and higher circle, concentration of its light, and flower of +courtesy, to which there is always a tacit appeal of pride and +reference, as to its inner and imperial court, the parliament of love +and chivalry. And this is constituted of those persons in whom heroic +dispositions are native, with the love of beauty, the delight in +society, and the power to embellish the passing day. If the +individuals who compose the purest circles of aristocracy in Europe, +the guarded blood of centuries, should pass in review, in such manner +as that we could, leisurely and critically, inspect their behavior, we +might find no gentleman, and no lady; for although excellent specimens +of courtesy and high-breeding would gratify us in the assemblage, in +the particulars, we should detect offense. Because, elegance comes of +no breeding, but of birth. There must be romance of character, or the +most fastidious exclusion of impertinencies will not avail. It must be +genius which takes that direction: it must be not courteous, but +courtesy. High behavior is as rare in fiction as it is in fact. Scott +is praised for the fidelity with which he painted the demeanor and +conversation of the superior classes. Certainly, kings and queens, +nobles and great ladies, had some right to complain of the absurdity +that had been put in their mouths, before the days of Waverley;[439] +but neither does Scott's dialogue bear criticism. His lords brave each +other in smart epigrammatic speeches, but the dialogue is in costume, +and does not please on the second reading; it is not warm with life. +In Shakespeare alone, the speakers do not strut and bridle, the +dialogue is easily great, and he adds to so many titles that of being +the best-bred man in England, and in Christendom. Once or twice in a +lifetime we are permitted to enjoy the charm of noble manners, in the +presence of a man or woman who have no bar in their nature, but whose +character emanates freely in their word and gesture. A beautiful form +is better than a beautiful face: a beautiful behavior is better than a +beautiful form: it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; +it is the finest of the fine arts. A man is but a little thing in the +midst of the objects of nature, yet, by the moral quality radiating +from his countenance, he may abolish all considerations of magnitude, +and in his manners equal the majesty of the world. I have seen an +individual whose manners though wholly within the conventions of +elegant society, were never learned there, but were original and +commanding, and held out protection and prosperity; one who did not +need the aid of a court-suit, but carried the holiday in his eye; who +exhilarated the fancy by flinging wide the doors of new modes of +existence; who shook off the captivity of etiquette, with happy, +spirited bearing, good-natured and free as Robin Hood;[440] yet with +the port of an emperor,--if need be, calm, serious, and fit to stand +the gaze of millions. + +20. The open air and the fields, the street and public chambers, are +the places where Man executes his will; let him yield or divide the +scepter at the door of the house. Woman, with her instinct of +behavior, instantly detects in man a love of trifles, any coldness or +imbecility, or, in short, any want of that large, flowing, and +magnanimous deportment, which is indispensable as an exterior in the +hall. Our American institutions have been friendly to her, and at this +moment I esteem it a chief felicity of this country, that it excels in +women. A certain awkward consciousness of inferiority in the men, may +give rise to the new chivalry in behalf of Woman's Rights. Certainly, +let her be as much better placed in the laws and in social forms, as +the most zealous reformer can ask, but I confide so entirely in her +inspiring and musical nature, that I believe only herself can show us +how she shall be served. The wonderful generosity of her sentiments +raises her at times into heroical and godlike regions, and verifies +the pictures of Minerva,[441] Juno,[442] or Polymnia;[443] and, by the +firmness with which she treads her upward path, she convinces the +coarsest calculators that another road exists than that which their +feet know. But besides those who make good in our imagination the +place of muses and of Delphic Sibyls,[444] are there not women who +fill our vase with wine and roses to the brim, so that the wine runs +over and fills the house with perfume; who inspire us with courtesy; +who unloose our tongues, and we speak; who anoint our eyes, and we +see? We say things we never thought to have said; for once, our walls +of habitual reserve vanished, and left us at large; we were children +playing with children in a wide field of flowers. Steep us, we cried, +in these influences, for days, for weeks, and we shall be sunny poets, +and will write out in many-colored words the romance that you are. Was +it Hafiz[445] or Firdousi[446] that said of his Persian Lilla, "She +was an elemental force, and astonished me by her amount of life, when +I saw her day after day radiating, every instant, redundant joy and +grace on all around her.[447] She was a solvent powerful to reconcile +all heterogeneous persons into one society; like air or water, an +element of such a great range of affinities, that it combines readily +with a thousand substances. Where she is present, all others will be +more than they are wont. She was a unit and whole, so that whatsoever +she did, became her. She had too much sympathy and desire to please, +than that you could say, her manners were marked with dignity, yet no +princess could surpass her clear and erect demeanor on each occasion. +She did not study the Persian grammar, nor the books of the seven +poets, but all the poems of the seven seemed to be written upon her. +For, though the bias of her nature was not to thought, but to +sympathy, yet was she so perfect in her own nature, as to meet +intellectual persons by the fullness of her heart, warming them by her +sentiments; believing, as she did, that by dealing nobly with all, all +would show themselves noble." + +21. I know that this Byzantine[448] pile of chivalry of Fashion, which +seems so fair and picturesque to those who look at the contemporary +facts for science or for entertainment, is not equally pleasant to all +spectators. The constitution of our society makes it a giant's castle +to the ambitious youth who have not found their names enrolled in its +Golden Book,[449] and whom it has excluded from its coveted honors and +privileges. They have yet to learn that its seeming grandeur is +shadowy and relative: it is great by their allowance: its proudest +gates will fly open at the approach of their courage and virtue. For +the present distress, however, of those who are predisposed to suffer +from the tyrannies of this caprice, there are easy remedies. To remove +your residence a couple of miles, or at most four, will commonly +relieve the most extreme susceptibility. For, the advantages which +fashion values are plants which thrive in very confined localities, +in a few streets, namely. Out of this precinct, they go for nothing; +are of no use in the farm, in the forest, in the market, in war, in +the nuptial society, in the literary or scientific circle, at sea, in +friendship, in the heaven of thought or virtue. + +22. But we have lingered long enough in these painted courts. The +worth of the thing signified must vindicate our taste for the emblem. +Everything that is called fashion and courtesy humbles itself before +the cause and fountain of honor, creator of titles and dignities, +namely, the heart of love. This is the royal blood, this the fire, +which, in all countries and contingencies, will work after its kind +and conquer ind expand all that approaches it. This gives new meanings +to every fact. This impoverishes the rich, suffering no grandeur but +its own. What _is_ rich? Are you rich enough to help anybody? to +succor the unfashionable and the eccentric? rich enough to make the +Canadian in his wagon, the itinerant with his consul's paper which +commends him "To the charitable," the swarthy Italian with his few +broken words of English, the lame pauper hunted by overseers from town +to town, even the poor insane or besotted wreck of man or woman, feel +the noble exception of your presence and your house, from the general +bleakness and stoniness; to make such feel that they were greeted with +a voice which made them both remember and hope? What is vulgar, but to +refuse the claim on acute and conclusive reasons? What is gentle, but +to allow it, and give their heart and yours lone holiday from the +national caution? Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar. +The king of Schiraz[450] could not afford to be so bountiful as the +poor Osman[451] who dwelt at his gate. Osman had a humanity so broad +and deep, that although his speech was so bold and free with the +Koran[452] as to disgust all the dervishes, yet was there never a poor +outcast, eccentric, or insane man, some fool who had cut off his +beard, or who had been mutilated under a vow, or had a pet madness in +his brain, but fled at once to him,--that great heart lay there so +sunny and hospitable in the center of the country,--that it seemed as +if the instinct of all sufferers drew them to his side. And the +madness which he harbored, he did not share. Is not this to be rich? +this only to be rightly rich? + +23. But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, +and talk of that which I do not well understand. It is easy to see, +that what is called by distinction society and fashion, has good laws +as well as bad, has much that is necessary, and much that is absurd. +Too good for banning, and too bad for blessing, it reminds us of a +tradition of the pagan mythology, in any attempt to settle its +character. "I overheard Jove,[453] one day," said Silenus,[454] +"talking of destroying the earth; he said, it had failed; they were +all rogues and vixens, who went from bad to worse, as fast as the days +succeeded each other. Minerva said, she hoped not; they were only +ridiculous little creatures, with this odd circumstance, that they had +a blur, or indeterminate aspect, seen far or seen near; if you called +them bad, they would appear so; if you called them good, they would +appear so; and there was no one person or action among them, which +would not puzzle her owl,[455] much more all Olympus, to know whether +it was fundamentally bad or good." + + + + +GIFTS[456] + + Gifts of one who loved me-- + 'Twas high time they came; + When he ceased to love me, + Time they stopped for shame. + + +1. It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the +world owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into +chancery,[457] and be sold. I do not think this general insolvency, +which involves in some sort all the population, to be the reason of +the difficulty experienced at Christmas and New Year, and other times, +in bestowing gifts; since it is always so pleasant to be generous, +though very vexatious to pay debts. But the impediment lies in the +choosing. If, at any time, it comes into my head that a present is due +from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity +is gone. Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because +they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the +utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat +stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of +a work-house. Nature does not cocker us:[458] we are children, not +pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or +favor, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look +like the frolic and interference of love and beauty. Men use to tell +us that we love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, +because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted. +Something like that pleasure, the flowers give us: what am I to whom +these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable gifts,[459] +because they are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic +values being attached to them. If a man should send to me to come a +hundred miles to visit him, and should set before me a basket of fine +summer-fruit, I should think there was some proportion between the +labor and the reward. + +2. For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty every day, +and one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option, since if the +man at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you +could procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a +man eat bread or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is +always a great satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity +does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it +seems heroic to let the petitioner[460] be the judge of his necessity, +and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience. If it be +a fantastic desire, it is better to leave to others the office of +punishing him. I can think of many parts I should prefer playing to +that of the Furies.[461] Next to things of necessity, the rule for a +gift, which one of my friends prescribed, is that we might convey to +some person that which properly belonged to his character, and was +easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment +and love are for the most part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are +not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of +thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; +the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the +sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a +handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it +restores society in so far to its primary basis, when a man's +biography[462] is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an +index of his merit. But it is a cold lifeless business when you go to +the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and +talent, but a goldsmith's. That is fit for kings, and rich men who +represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of +gold and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering,[463] or +payment of blackmail.[464] + +3. The law of benefits is a difficult channel, which requires careful +sailing, or rude boats. It is not the office of a man to receive +gifts. How dare you give them? We wish to be self-sustained. We do not +quite forgive a forgiver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of +being bitten. We can receive anything from love, for that is a way of +receiving it from ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to +bestow. We sometimes hate the meat which we eat, because there seems +something of degrading dependence in living by it. + + "Brother, if Jove[465] to thee a present make, + Take heed that from his hands thou nothing take." + +We ask the whole. Nothing less will content us. We arraign society, if +it do not give us besides earth, and fire, and water, opportunity, +love, reverence, and objects of veneration. + +4. He is a good man, who can receive a gift well. We are either glad +or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. Some violence, I +think, is done, some degradation borne, when I rejoice or grieve at a +gift. I am sorry when my independence is invaded, or when a gift comes +from such as do not know my spirit, and so the act is not supported; +and if the gift pleases me overmuch, then I should be ashamed that the +donor should read my heart, and see that I love his commodity, and not +him. The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, +correspondent to my flowing unto him. When the waters are at level, +then my goods pass to him, and his to me. All his are mine, all mine +his. I say to him, How can you give me this pot of oil, or this flagon +of wine, when all your oil and wine is mine, which belief of mine this +gift seems to deny? Hence the fitness of beautiful, not useful things +for gifts. This giving is flat usurpation, and therefore when the +beneficiary is ungrateful, as all beneficiaries hate all Timons,[466] +not at all considering the value of the gift, but looking back to the +greater store it was taken from, I rather sympathize with the +beneficiary, than with the anger of my lord, Timon. For, the +expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually punished by the +total insensibility of the obliged person. It is a great happiness to +get off without injury and heart-burning, from one who has had the ill +luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business,[467] this of +being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap. A +golden text for these gentlemen is that which I admire in the +Buddhist,[468] who never thanks, and who says, "Do not flatter your +benefactors." + +5. The reason of these discords I conceive to be, that there is no +commensurability between a man and any gift. You cannot give anything +to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts +you in debt by his magnanimity. The service a man renders his friend +is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend +stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve +his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my +friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small. +Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so +incidental and at random, that we can seldom hear the acknowledgments +of any person who would thank us for a benefit, without some shame and +humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct stroke, but must be content +with an oblique one; we seldom have the satisfaction of yielding a +direct benefit, which is directly received. But rectitude scatters +favors on every side without knowing it, and receives with wonder the +thanks of all people. + +6. I fear to breathe any treason against the majesty of love, which is +the genius and god of gifts, and to whom we must not affect to +prescribe. Let him give kingdoms or flower-leaves indifferently. There +are persons from whom we always expect fairy tokens; let us not cease +to expect them. This is prerogative, and not to be limited by our +municipal rules. For the rest, I like to see that we cannot be bought +and sold. The best of hospitality and of generosity is also not in the +will, but in fate. I find that I am not much to you; you do not need +me; you do not feel me; then am I thrust out of doors, though you +proffer me house and lands. No services are of any value, but only +likeness. When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, +it proved an intellectual trick--no more. They eat your service like +apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel for you, and +delight in you all the time. + + + + +NATURE[469] + + The rounded world is fair to see, + Nine times folded in mystery: + Though baffled seers cannot impart + The secret of its laboring heart, + Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast, + And all is clear from east to west. + Spirit that lurks each form within + Beckons to spirit of its kin; + Self-kindled every atom glows, + And hints the future which it owes. + + +1. There are days[470] which occur in this climate, at almost any +season of the year, wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the +air, the heavenly bodies, and the earth, make a harmony, as if nature +would indulge her offspring; when, in these bleak upper sides of the +planet, nothing is to desire that we have heard of the happiest +latitudes, and we bask in the shining hours of Florida and Cuba; when +everything that has life gives sign of satisfaction, and the cattle +that lie on the ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts. These +halcyons[471] may be looked for with a little more assurance in that +pure October weather, which we distinguish by the name of Indian +Summer.[472] The day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills +and warm wide fields. To have lived through all its sunny hours, +seems longevity enough. The solitary places do not seem quite lonely. +At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced +to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish. The +knapsack of custom falls off his back with the first step he makes +into these precincts. Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and +reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be the +circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a +god all men that come to her. We have crept out of our close and +crowded houses into the night and morning, and we see what majestic +beauties daily wrap us in their bosom. How willingly we would escape +the barriers which render them comparatively impotent, escape the +sophistication and second thought, and suffer nature to entrance us. +The tempered light of the woods is like a perpetual morning, and is +stimulating and heroic. The anciently reported spells of these places +creep on us. The stems of pines, hemlocks, and oaks, almost gleam like +iron on the excited eye. The incommunicable trees begin to persuade us +to live with them, and quit our life of solemn trifles. Here no +history, or church, or state, is interpolated on the divine sky and +the immortal year. How easily we might walk onward into opening +landscape, absorbed by new pictures, and by thoughts fast succeeding +each other, until by degrees the recollection of home was crowded out +of the mind, all memory obliterated by the tyranny of the present, +and we were led in triumph by nature. + +2. These enchantments are medicinal, they sober and heal us. These are +plain pleasures, kindly and native to us. We come to our own, and make +friends with matter, which the ambitious chatter of the schools would +persuade us to despise. We never can part with it; the mind loves its +old home: as water to our thirst, so is the rock, the ground, to our +eyes, and hands, and feet. It is firm water: it is cold flame: what +health, what affinity! Ever an old friend, ever like a dear friend and +brother, when we chat affectedly with strangers, comes in this honest +face, and takes a grave liberty with us, and shames us out of our +nonsense. Cities give not the human senses room enough. We go out +daily and nightly to feed the eyes on the horizon, and require so much +scope, just as we need water for our bath. There are all degrees of +natural influence, from these quarantine powers of nature, up to her +dearest and gravest ministrations to the imagination and the soul. +There is the bucket of cold water from the spring, the wood-fire to +which the chilled traveler rushes for safety,--and there is the +sublime moral of autumn and of noon. We nestle in nature, and draw our +living as parasites from her roots and grains, and we receive glances +from the heavenly bodies, which call us to solitude, and foretell the +remotest future. The blue zenith is the point in which romance and +reality meet. I think, if we should be rapt away into all that we +dream of heaven, and should converse with Gabriel[473] and Uriel,[474] +the upper sky would be all that would remain of our furniture. + +3. It seems as if the day was not wholly profane, in which we have +given heed to some natural object. The fall of snowflakes in a still +air, preserving to each crystal its perfect form; the blowing of sleet +over a wide sheet of water, and over plains; the waving rye-fields; +the mimic waving of acres of houstonia, whose innumerable florets +whiten and ripple before the eye; the reflections of trees and flowers +in glassy lakes; the musical steaming odorous south wind, which +converts all trees to wind-harps;[475] the crackling and spurting of +hemlock in the flames; or of pine-logs, which yield glory to the walls +and faces in the sitting-room,--these are the music and pictures of +the most ancient religion. My house stands in low land, with limited +outlook, and on the skirt of the village.[476] But I go with my +friend[477] to the shore of our little river,[478] and with one stroke +of the paddle, I leave the village politics and personalities, yes, +and the world of villages and personalities behind, and pass into a +delicate realm of sunset and moonlight, too bright almost for spotted +man to enter without novitiate and probation.[479] We penetrate bodily +this incredible beauty: we dip our hands in this painted element: our +eyes are bathed in these lights and forms. A holiday, a +villeggiatura,[480] a royal revel, the proudest, most heart-rejoicing +festival that valor and beauty, power and taste, ever decked and +enjoyed, establishes itself on the instant. These sunset clouds, these +delicately emerging stars, with their private and ineffable glances, +signify it and proffer it. I am taught the poorness of our invention, +the ugliness of towns and palaces. Art and luxury have early learned +that they must work as enhancement and sequel to this original beauty. +I am overinstructed for my return. Henceforth I shall be hard to +please. I cannot go back to toys. I am grown expensive and +sophisticated. I can no longer live without elegance: but a countryman +shall be my master of revels. He who knows the most, he who knows what +sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the +heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal +man. Only as far as masters of the world have called in nature to +their aid, can they reach the height of magnificence. This is the +meaning of their hanging-gardens,[481] villas, garden-houses, islands, +parks, and preserves, to back their faulty personality with these +strong accessories. I do not wonder that the landed interest should be +invincible in the state with these dangerous auxiliaries. These bribe +and invite; not kings, not palaces, not men, not women, but these +tender and poetic stars, eloquent of secret promises. We heard what +the rich man said, we knew of his villa, his grove, his wine, and his +company, but the provocation and point of the invitation came out of +these beguiling stars. In their soft glances, I see what men strove to +realize in some Versailles,[482] or Paphos,[483] or Ctesiphon.[484] +Indeed, it is the magical lights of the horizon, and the blue sky for +the background, which save all our works of art, which were otherwise +baubles. When the rich tax the poor with servility and obsequiousness, +they should consider the effect of man reputed to be the possessors of +nature, on imaginative minds. Ah! if the rich were rich as the poor +fancy riches! A boy hears a military band play on the field at night, +and he has kings and queens, and famous chivalry palpably before him. +He hears the echoes of a horn in a hill country, in the Notch +Mountains,[485] for example, which converts the mountains into an +Æolian harp,[486] and this supernatural _tiralira_ restores to him the +Dorian[487] mythology, Apollo,[488] Diana,[489] and all divine hunters +and huntresses. Can a musical note be so lofty, so haughtily +beautiful! To the poor young poet, thus fabulous is his picture of +society; he is loyal; he respects the rich; they are rich for the sake +of his imagination; how poor his fancy would be, if they were not +rich! That they have some high-fenced grove, which they call a park; +that they live in larger and better-garnished saloons than he has +visited, and go in coaches, keeping only the society of the elegant, +to watering-places, and to distant cities, are the groundwork from +which he has delineated estates of romance, compared with which their +actual possessions are shanties and paddocks. The muse herself betrays +her son, and enhances the gift of wealthy and well-born beauty, by a +radiation out of the air, and clouds, and forests that skirt the +road,--a certain haughty favor, as if from patrician genii to +patricians, a kind of aristocracy in nature, a prince of the power of +the air. + +4. The moral sensibility which makes Edens[490] and Tempes[491] so +easily, may not be always found, but the material landscape is never +far off. We can find these enchantments without visiting the Como +Lake,[492] or the Madeira Islands.[493] We exaggerate the praises of +local scenery. In every landscape, the point of astonishment is the +meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the first +hillock as well as from the top of the Alleghanies. The stars at night +stoop down over the brownest, homeliest common,[494] with all the +spiritual magnificence which they shed on the Campagna,[495] or on the +marble deserts of Egypt. The uprolled clouds and the colors of morning +and evening, will transfigure maples and alders. The difference +between landscape and landscape is small, but there is great +difference in the beholders. There is nothing so wonderful in any +particular landscape, as the necessity of being beautiful under which +every landscape lies. Nature cannot be surprised in undress. Beauty +breaks in everywhere. + +5. But it is very easy to outrun the sympathy of readers on this +topic, which school-men called _natura naturata_, or nature passive. +One can hardly speak directly of it without excess. It is as easy to +broach in mixed companies what is called "the subject of religion." A +susceptible person does not like to indulge his tastes in this kind, +without the apology of some trivial necessity: he goes to see a +wood-lot, or to look at the crops, or to fetch a plant or a mineral +from a remote locality, or he carries a fowling-piece, or a +fishing-rod. I suppose this shame must have a good reason. A +dilettantism[496] in nature is barren and unworthy. The fop of fields +is no better than his brother of Broadway. Men are naturally hunters +and inquisitive of woodcraft and I suppose that such a gazetteer as +wood-cutters and Indians should furnish facts for would take place in +the most sumptuous drawing-rooms of all the "Wreaths" and "Flora's +chaplets"[497] of the book-shops; yet ordinarily, whether we are too +clumsy for so subtle a topic, or from whatever cause, as soon as men +begin to write on nature, they fall into euphuism. Frivolity is a most +unfit tribute to Pan,[498] who ought to be represented in the +mythology as the most continent of gods. I would not be frivolous +before the admirable reserve and prudence of time, yet I cannot +renounce the right of returning often to this old topic. The multitude +of false churches[499] accredits the true religion. Literature, +poetry, science, are the homage of man to this unfathomed secret, +concerning which no sane man can affect an indifference or +incuriosity. Nature is loved by what is best in us. It is loved as the +city of God, although, or rather because there is no citizen. The +sunset is unlike anything that is underneath it: it wants men. And the +beauty of nature must always seem unreal and mocking, until the +landscape has human figures, that are as good as itself. If there +were good men, there would never be this rapture in nature. If the +king is in the palace nobody looks at the walls. It is when he is +gone, and the house is filled with grooms and gazers, that we turn +from the people, to find relief in the majestic men that are suggested +by the pictures and architecture. The critics who complain of the +sickly separation of the beauty of nature from the thing to be done, +must consider that our hunting of the picturesque is inseparable from +our protest against false society. Man is fallen; nature is erect, and +serves as a differential thermometer, detecting the presence or +absence of the divine sentiment in man. By fault of our dulness and +selfishness, we are looking up to nature, but when we are +convalescent, nature will look up to us. We see the foaming brook with +compunction; if our own life flowed with the right energy, we should +shame the brook. The stream of zeal sparkles with real fire, and not +with reflex rays of sun and moon. Nature may be as selfishly studied +as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, +mesmerism (with intent to show where our spoons are gone); and anatomy +and physiology become phrenology and palmistry. + +6. But taking timely warning, and leaving many things unsaid on this +topic, but not longer omit our homage to the Efficient Nature, _natura +naturans_, the quick cause, before which all forms flee as the driven +snows, itself secret, its works driven before it in flocks and +multitudes, (as the ancient represented nature by Proteus,[500] a +shepherd), and in undescribable variety. It publishes itself in +creatures, reaching from particles and spicula, through transformation +on transformation to the highest symmetries, arriving at consummate +results without a shock or a leap. A little heat, that is, a little +motion, is all that differences the bald, dazzling white, and deadly +cold poles of the earth from the prolific tropical climates. All changes +pass without violence, by reason of the two cardinal conditions of +boundless space and boundless time. Geology has initiated us into the +secularity of nature, and taught us to disuse our dame-school measures, +and exchange our Mosaic[501] and Ptolemaic schemes[502] for her large +style. We know nothing rightly, for want of perspective. Now we learn +what patient periods must round themselves before the rock is formed, +then before the rock is broken, and the first lichen race has +disintegrated the thinnest external plate into soil, and opened the door +for the remote Flora,[503] Fauna,[504] Ceres,[505] and Pomona,[506] to +come in. How far off yet is the trilobite! how far the quadruped! how +inconceivably remote is man! All duly arrive,[507] and then race after +race of men. It is a long way from granite to the oyster; farther yet to +Plato,[508] and the preaching of the immortality of the soul. Yet all +must come, as surely as the first atom has two sides. + +7. Motion or change, and identity or rest, are the first and second +secrets of nature: Motion and Rest. The whole code of her laws may be +written on the thumb-nail, or the signet of a ring. The whirling +bubble on the surface of a brook, admits us to the secret of the +mechanics of the sky. Every shell on the beach is a key to it. A +little water made to rotate in a cup explains the formation of the +simpler shells; the addition of matter from year to year, arrives at +last at the most complex forms; and yet so poor is nature with all her +craft, that, from the beginning to the end of the universe, she has +but one stuff,--but one stuff with its two ends, to serve up all her +dream-like variety. Compound it how she will, star, sand, fire, water, +tree, man, it is still one stuff, and betrays the same properties. + +8. Nature is always consistent, though she feigns to contravene her +own laws. She keeps her laws, and seems to transcend them. She arms +and equips an animal to find its place and living in the earth, and, +at the same time, she arms and equips another animal to destroy it. +Space exists to divide creatures; but by clothing the sides of a bird +with a few feathers, she gives him a petty omnipresence. The direction +is forever onward, but the artist still goes back for materials, and +begins again with the first elements on the most advanced stage: +otherwise, all goes to ruin. If we look at her work, we seem to catch +a glance of a system in transition. Plants are the young of the world, +vessels of health and vigor; but they grope ever upward toward +consciousness; the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their +imprisonment, rooted in the ground. The animal is the novice and +probationer of a more advanced order. The men, though young, having +tasted the first drop from the cup of thought, are already dissipated: +the maples and ferns are still uncorrupt; yet no doubt, when they come +to consciousness, they too will curse and swear. Flowers so strictly +belong to youth, that we adult men soon come to feel, that their +beautiful generations concern not us: we have had our day; now let the +children have theirs. The flowers jilt us, and we are old bachelors +with our ridiculous tenderness. + +9. Things are so strictly related, that according to the skill of the +eye, from any one object the parts and properties of any other may be +predicted. If we had eyes to see it, a bit of stone from the city wall +would certify us of the necessity that man must exist, as readily as +the city. That identity makes us all one, and reduces to nothing great +intervals on our customary scale. We talk of deviations from natural +life, as if artificial life were not also natural. The smoothest +curled courtier in the boudoirs of a palace has an animal nature, rude +and aboriginal as a white bear, omnipotent to its own ends, and is +directly related, there amid essences and billets-doux, to Himalaya +mountain-chains[509] and the axis of the globe. If we consider how +much we are nature's, we need not be superstitious about towns, as if +that terrific or benefic force did not find us there also, and fashion +cities. Nature, who made the mason, made the house. We may easily hear +too much of rural influences. The cool, disengaged air of natural +objects, makes them enviable to us, chafed and irritable creatures +with red faces, and we think we shall be as grand as they, if we camp +out and eat roots, but let us be men instead of wood-chucks, and the +oak and the elm shall gladly serve us, though we sit in chairs of +ivory on carpets of silk. + +10. This guiding identity runs through all the surprises and contrasts +of the piece, and characterizes every law. Man carries the world in +his head, the whole astronomy and chemistry suspended in a thought. +Because the history of nature is charactered in his brain, therefore +is he the prophet and discoverer of her secrets. Every known fact in +natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it +was actually verified. A man does not tie his shoe without recognizing +laws which bind the farthest regions of nature: moon, plant, gas, +crystal, are concrete geometry and numbers. Common sense knows its +own, and recognizes the fact at first sight in chemical experiment. +The common sense of Franklin,[510] Dalton,[511] Davy[512] and +Black,[513] is the same common sense which made the arrangements which +now it discovers. + +11. If the identity expresses organized rest, the counter action runs +also into organization. The astronomers said,[514] "Give us matter, +and a little motion, and we will construct the universe. It is not +enough that we should have matter, we must also have a single impulse, +one shove to launch the mass, and generate the harmony of the +centrifugal and centripetal[515] forces. Once heave the ball from the +hand, and we can show how all this mighty order grew." "A very +unreasonable postulate," said the metaphysicians, "and a plain begging +of the question. Could you not prevail to know the genesis of +projection, as well as the continuation of it?" Nature, meanwhile, had +not waited for the discussion, but, right or wrong, bestowed the +impulse, and the balls rolled. It was no great affair, a mere push, +but the astronomers were right in making much of it, for there is no +end of the consequences of the act. That famous aboriginal push +propagates itself through all the balls of the system, and through +every atom of every ball, through all the races of creatures, and +through the history and performances of every individual. Exaggeration +is in the course of things. Nature sends no creature, no man into the +world, without adding a small excess of his proper quality. Given the +planet, it is still necessary to add the impulse; so, to every +creature nature added a little violence of direction in its proper +path, a shove to put it on its way; in every instance, a slight +generosity, a drop too much. Without electricity the air would rot, +and without this violence of direction which men and women have, +without a spice of bigot and fanatic, no excitement, no efficiency. We +aim above the mark, to hit the mark. Every act hath some falsehood of +exaggeration in it. And when now and then comes along some sad, +sharp-eyed man, who sees how paltry a game is played, and refuses to +play, but blabs the secret;--how then? is the bird flown? O no, the +wary Nature sends a new troop of fairer forms, of lordlier youths, +with a little more excess of direction to hold them fast to their +several aims; makes them a little wrongheaded in that direction in +which they are rightest, and on goes the game again with new whirl, +for a generation or two more. The child with his sweet pranks, the +fool of his senses, commanded by every sight and sound, without any +power to compare and rank his sensations, abandoned to a whistle or a +painted chip, to a lead dragoon, or a ginger-bread dog, +individualizing everything, generalizing nothing, delighted with every +new thing, lies down at night overpowered by the fatigue, which this +day of continual petty madness has incurred. But Nature has answered +her purpose with the curly, dimpled lunatic. She has tasked every +faculty, and has secured the symmetrical growth of the bodily frame, +by all these attitudes and exertions,--an end of the first importance, +which could not be trusted to any care less perfect than her own. This +glitter, this opaline luster plays round the top of every toy to his +eye, to insure his fidelity, and he is deceived to his good. We are +made alive and kept alive by the same arts. Let the Stoics[516] say +what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because +the meat is savory and the appetite is keen. The vegetable life does +not content itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single +seed, but it fills the air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, +that if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves, that +hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity, that, at least, +one may replace the parent. All things betray the same calculated +profusion. The excess of fear with which the animal frame is hedged +round, shrinking from cold, starting at sight of a snake, or a sudden +noise, protects us, through a multitude of groundless alarms, from +some one real danger at last. The lover seeks in marriage his private +felicity and perfection, with no prospective end; and nature hides in +his happiness her own end, namely, progeny, or the perpetuity of the +race. + +12. But the craft with which the world is made runs also into the mind +and character of men. No man is quite sane; each has a vein of folly in +his composition, a slight determination of blood to the head, to make +sure of holding him hard to some one point which nature had taken to +heart. Great causes are never tried on their merits; but the cause is +reduced to particulars to suit the size of the partisans, and the +contention is ever hottest on minor matters. Not less remarkable is the +overfaith of each man in the importance of what he has to do or say. The +poet, the prophet, has a higher value for what he utters than any +hearer, and therefore it gets spoken. The strong, self-complacent +Luther[517] declares with an emphasis, not to be mistaken, that "God +himself cannot do without wise men." Jacob Behmen[518] and George +Fox[519] betray their egotism in the pertinacity of their controversial +tracts, and James Naylor[520] once suffered himself to be worshiped as +the Christ. Each prophet comes presently to identify himself with his +thought, and to esteem his hat and shoes sacred. However this may +discredit such persons with the judicious, it helps them with the +people, as it gives heat, pungency, and publicity to their words. A +similar experience is not infrequent in private life. Each young and +ardent person writes a diary, in which, when the hours of prayer and +penitence arrive, he inscribes his soul. The pages thus written are, to +him, burning and fragrant: he reads them on his knees by midnight and by +the morning star; he wets them with his tears: they are sacred; too good +for the world, and hardly yet to be shown to the dearest friend. This is +the man-child that is born to the soul, and her life still circulates in +the babe. The umbilical cord has not yet been cut. After some time has +elapsed, he begins to wish to admit his friend to this hallowed +experience, and with hesitation, yet with firmness, exposes the pages to +his eye. Will they not burn his eyes? The friend coldly turns them +over, and passes from the writing to conversation, with easy transition, +which strikes the other party with astonishment and vexation. He cannot +suspect the writing itself. Days and nights of fervid life, of communion +with angels of darkness and of light, have engraved their shadowy +characters on that tear-stained book. He suspects the intelligence or +the heart of his friend. Is there then no friend? He cannot yet credit +that one may have impressive experience, and yet may not know how to put +his private fact into literature; and perhaps the discovery that wisdom +has other tongues and ministers than we, that though we should hold our +peace, the truth would not the less be spoken, might check injuriously +the flames of our zeal. A man can only speak, so long as he does not +feel his speech to be partial and inadequate. It is partial, but he does +not see it to be so, whilst he utters it. As soon as he is released from +the instinctive and particular, and sees its partiality, he shuts his +mouth in disgust. For, no man can write anything, who does not think +that what he writes is for the time the history of the world; or do +anything well, who does not esteem his work to be of importance. My work +may be of none, but I must not think it is of none, or I shall not do it +with impunity. + +13. In like manner, there is throughout nature something mocking, +something that leads us on and on, but arrives nowhere, keeps no faith +with us. All promise outruns the performance. We live in a system of +approximations. Every end is prospective of some other end, which is +also temporary; a round and final success nowhere. We are encamped in +nature, not domesticated. Hunger and thirst lead us on to eat and to +drink; but bread and wine, mix and cook them how you will, leave us +hungry and thirsty, after the stomach is full. It is the same with all +our arts and performances. Our music, our poetry, our language itself +are not satisfactions, but suggestions. The hunger for wealth, which +reduces the planet to a garden, fools the eager pursuer. What is the +end sought? Plainly to secure the ends of good sense and beauty, from +the intrusion of deformity or vulgarity of any kind. But what an +operose[521] method! What a train of means to secure a little +conversation! This palace of brick and stone, these servants, this +kitchen, these stables, horses and equipage, this bank-stock, and file +of mortgages; trade to all the world, country-house and cottage by the +water-side, all for a little conversation, high, clear, and spiritual! +Could it not be had as well by beggars on the highway? No, all these +things came from successive efforts of these beggars to remove +friction from the wheels of life, and give opportunity. Conversation, +character, were the avowed ends; wealth was good as it appeased the +animal cravings, cured the smoky chimney, silenced the creaking door, +brought friends together in a warm and quiet room, and kept the +children and the dinner-table in a different apartment. Thought, +virtue, beauty, were the ends; but it was known that men of thought +and virtue sometimes had the headache, or wet feet, or could lose good +time, whilst the room was getting warm in winter days. Unluckily, in +the exertions necessary to remove these inconveniences, the main +attention has been diverted to this object; the old aims have been +lost sight of, and to remove friction has come to be the end. That is +the ridicule of rich men, and Boston, London, Vienna, and now the +governments generally of the world, are cities and governments of the +rich, and the masses are not men, but _poor men_, that is, men who +would be rich; this is the ridicule of the class, that they arrive +with pains and sweat and fury nowhere; when all is done, it is for +nothing. They are like one who has interrupted the conversation of a +company to make his speech, and now has forgotten what he went to say. +The appearance strikes the eye everywhere of an aimless society, of +aimless nations. Were the ends of nature so great and cogent, as to +exact this immense sacrifice of men? + +14. Quite analogous to the deceits in life, there is, as might be +expected, a similar effect on the eye from the face of external +nature. There is in woods and waters a certain enticement and +flattery, together with a failure to yield a present satisfaction. +This disappointment is felt in every landscape. I have seen the +softness and beauty of the summer clouds floating feathery overhead, +enjoying, as it seemed, their height and privilege of motion, whilst +yet they appeared not so much the drapery of this place and hour, as +fore-looking to such pavilions and gardens of festivity beyond. It is +an odd jealousy; but the poet finds himself not near enough to this +object. The pine tree, the river, the bank of flowers before him, does +not seem to be nature. Nature is still elsewhere. This or this is but +outskirt and far-off reflection[522] and echo of the triumph that has +passed by, and is now at its glancing splendor and heyday, perchance +in the neighboring fields, or, if you stand in the field, then in the +adjacent woods. The present object shall give you this sense of +stillness that follows a pageant which has just gone by. What splendid +distance, what recesses of ineffable pomp and loveliness in the +sunset! But who can go where they are, or lay his hand or plant his +foot thereon? Off they fall from the round world forever and ever. It +is the same among men and women as among the silent trees; always a +referred existence, an absence, never a presence and satisfaction. Is +it, that beauty can never be grasped? in persons and in landscapes is +equally inaccessible? The accepted and betrothed lover has lost the +wildest charm of his maiden in her acceptance of him. She was heaven +whilst he pursued her as a star: she cannot be heaven, if she stoops +to such a one as he. + +15. What shall we say of this omnipresent appearance of that first +projectile impulse, of this flattery and balking of so many +well-meaning creatures? Must we not suppose somewhere in the universe +a slight treachery and derision? Are we not engaged to a serious +resentment of this use that is made of us? Are we tickled trout, and +fools of nature? One looks at the face of heaven and earth lays all +petulance at rest, and soothes us to wiser convictions. To the +intelligent, nature converts itself into a vast promise, and will not +be rashly explained. Her secret is untold. Many and many an +Oedipus[523] arrives: he has the whole mystery teeming in his brain. +Alas! the same sorcery has spoiled his skill; no syllable can he shape +on his lips. Her mighty orbit vaults like the fresh rainbow into the +deep, but no archangel's wing was yet strong enough to follow it, and +report of the return of the curve. But it also appears, that our +actions are seconded and disposed to greater conclusions than we +designed. We are escorted on every hand through life by spiritual +agents, and a beneficent purpose lies in wait for us. We cannot bandy +words with nature, or deal with her as we deal with persons. If we +measure our individual forces against hers, we may easily feel as if +we were the sport of an insuperable destiny. But if, instead of +identifying ourselves with the work, we feel that the soul of the +workman streams through us, we shall find the peace of the morning +dwelling first in our hearts, and the fathomless powers of gravity and +chemistry, and, over them, of life preëxisting within us in their +highest form. + +16. The uneasiness which the thought of our helplessness in the chain +of causes occasions us, results from looking too much at one condition +of nature, namely, Motion. But the drag is never taken from the wheel. +Wherever the impulse exceeds the Rest or Identity insinuates its +compensation. All over the wide fields of earth grows the +prunella[524] or self-heal. After every foolish day we sleep off the +fumes and furies of its hours; and though we are always engaged with +particulars, and often enslaved to them, we bring with us to every +experiment the innate universal laws. These, while they exist in the +mind as ideas, stand around us in nature forever embodied, a present +sanity to expose and cure the insanity of men. Our servitude to +particulars betrays us into a hundred foolish expectations. We +anticipate a new era from the invention of a locomotive, or a balloon; +the new engine brings with it the old checks. They say that by +electro-magnetism, your salad shall be grown from the seed whilst your +fowl is roasting for dinner: it is a symbol of our modern aims and +endeavors,--of our condensation and acceleration of objects: but +nothing is gained: nature cannot be cheated: man's life is but seventy +salads long, grow they swift or grow they slow. In these checks and +impossibilities, however, we find our advantage, not less than in +impulses. Let the victory fall where it will, we are on that side. And +the knowledge that we traverse the whole scale of being, from the +center to the poles of nature, and have some stake in every +possibility, lends that sublime luster to death, which philosophy and +religion have too outwardly and literally striven to express in the +popular doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The reality is more +excellent than the report. Here is no ruin, no discontinuity, no spent +ball. The divine circulations never rest nor linger. Nature is the +incarnation of a thought, and turns to a thought again, as ice becomes +water and gas. The world is mind precipitated, and the volatile +essence is forever escaping again into the state of free thought. +Hence the virtue and pungency of the influence on the mind, of natural +objects, whether inorganic or organized. Man imprisoned, man +crystallized, man vegetative, speaks to man impersonated. That power +which does not respect quantity, which makes the whole and the +particle its equal channel, delegates its smile to the morning, and +distills its essence into every drop of rain. Every moment instructs +and every object: for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been +poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as +pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of +cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence, until after a long +time. + + + + +SHAKSPEARE;[525] OR, THE POET + +[Transcriber's Note: Shakspeare is spelled as "Shakspeare" as well as +"Shakespeare" in this book. The original spellings have been retained.] + + +1. Great men are more distinguished by range and extent, than by +originality. If we require the originality which consists in weaving, +like a spider, their web from their own bowels; in finding clay, and +making bricks, and building the house; no great men are original. Nor +does valuable originality consist in unlikeness to other men. The hero +is in the press of knights, and the thick of events; and, seeing what +men want, and sharing their desire, he adds the needful length of +sight and of arm, to come to the desired point. The greatest genius is +the most indebted man. A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes +uppermost and, because he says everything, saying, at last, something +good; but a heart in unison with his time and country. There is +nothing whimsical and fantastic in his production, but sweet and sad +earnest, freighted with the weightiest convictions, and pointed with +the most determined aim which any man or class knows of in his times. + +2. The Genius[526] of our life is jealous of individuals and will not +have any individual great, except through the general. There is no +choice to genius. A great man does not wake up on some fine morning, +and say, "I am full of life, I will go to sea, and find an Antarctic +continent: to-day I will square the circle: I will ransack botany, and +find a new food for man: I have a new architecture in my mind: I +foresee a new mechanic power:" no, but he finds himself in the river +of the thoughts and events, forced onward by the ideas and necessities +of his contemporaries. He stands where all the eyes of men look one +way, and their hands all point in the direction in which he should go. +The church has reared him amidst rites and pomps, and he carries out +the advice which her music gave him, and builds a cathedral needed by +her chants and processions. He finds a war raging: it educates him, by +trumpet, in barracks, and he betters the instruction. He finds two +counties groping to bring coal, or flour, or fish, from the place of +production to the place of consumption, and he hits on a railroad. +Every master has found his materials collected, and his power lay in +his sympathy with his people, and in his love of the materials he +wrought in. What an economy of power! and what a compensation for the +shortness of life! All is done to his hand. The world has brought him +thus far on his way. The human race has gone out before him, sunk the +hills, filled the hollows, and bridged the rivers. Men, nations, +poets, artisans, women, all have worked for him, and he enters into +their labors. Choose any other thing, out of the line of tendency, out +of the national feeling and history, and he would have all to do for +himself: his powers would be expended in the first preparations. Great +genial power, one would almost say, consists in not being original at +all; in being altogether receptive; in letting the world do all, and +suffering the spirit of the hour to pass unobstructed through the +mind. + +3. Shakspeare's youth[527] fell in a time when the English people were +importunate for dramatic entertainments. The court took offense easily +at political allusions, and attempted to suppress them. The +Puritans,[528] a growing and energetic party and the religious among +the Anglican Church,[529] would suppress them. But the people wanted +them. Inn-yards, houses without roofs, and extemporaneous inclosures +at country fairs, were the ready theaters of strolling players. The +people had tasted this new joy; and, as we could not hope to suppress +newspapers now,--no, not by the strongest party,--neither then could +king, prelate, or puritan,--alone or united, suppress an organ, which +was ballad, epic, newspaper, caucus, lecture, Punch,[530] and library, +at the same time. Probably king, prelate, and puritan, all found their +own account in it. It had become, by all causes, a national +interest,--by no means conspicuous, so that some great scholar would +have thought of treating it in an English history,--but not a whit +less considerable, because it was cheap, and of no account, like a +baker's shop. The best proof of its vitality is the crowd of writers +which suddenly broke into this field; Kyd, Marlow, Greene,[531] +Jonson, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Peele, Ford, +Massinger, Beaumont, and Fletcher. + +4. The secure possession, by the stage, of the public mind, is of the +first importance to the poet who works for it. He loses no time in +idle experiments. Here is audience and expectation prepared. In the +case of Shakspeare there is much more. At the time when[532] he left +Stratford, and went up to London, a great body of stage-plays, of all +dates and writers, existed in manuscript, and were in turn produced on +the boards. Here is the Tale of Troy,[533] which the audience will +bear hearing some part of, every week; the Death of Julius Cæsar,[534] +and other stories out of Plutarch,[535] which they never tire of; a +shelf full of English history, from the chronicles of Brut[536] and +Arthur,[537] down to the royal Henries,[538] which men hear eagerly; +and a string of doleful tragedies, merry Italian tales,[539] and +Spanish voyages,[540] which all the London prentices know. All the +mass has been treated, with more or less skill, by every playwright, +and the prompter has the soiled and tattered manuscripts. It is now no +longer possible to say who wrote them first. They have been the +property of the Theater so long, and so many rising geniuses have +enlarged or altered them, inserting a speech, or a whole scene, or +adding a song, that no man can any longer claim copyright in this work +of numbers. Happily, no man wishes to. They are not yet desired in +that way. We have few readers, many spectators and hearers. They had +best lie where they are. + +5. Shakspeare, in common with his comrades, esteemed the mass of old +plays, waste stock, in which any experiment could be freely tried. +Had the _prestige_[541] which hedges about a modern tragedy existed, +nothing could have been done. The rude warm blood of the living +England circulated in the play, as in street-ballads, and gave body +which he wanted to his airy and majestic fancy. The poet needs a +ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, +may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the +people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so +much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full +strength for the audacities of his imagination. In short, the poet +owes to his legend what sculpture owed to the temple. Sculpture in +Egypt, and in Greece, grew up in subordination to architecture. It was +the ornament of the temple wall: at first, a rude relief carved on +pediments, then the relief became bolder, and a head or arm was +projected from the wall, the groups being still arranged with +reference to the building, which serves also as a frame to hold the +figures; and when, at last, the greatest freedom of style and +treatment was reached, the prevailing genius of architecture still +enforced a certain calmness and continence in the statue. As soon as +the statue was begun for itself, and with no reference to the temple +or palace, the art began to decline: freak, extravagance, and +exhibition, took the place of the old temperance. This balance-wheel, +which the sculptor found in architecture, the perilous irritability of +poetic talent found in the accumulated dramatic materials to which the +people were already wonted, and which had a certain excellence which +no single genius,[542] however extraordinary, could hope to create. + +6. In point of fact, it appears that Shakspeare did owe debts in all +directions, and was able to use whatever he found; and the amount of +indebtedness may be inferred from Malone's[543] laborious computations +in regard to the First, Second, and Third parts of Henry VI., in +which, "out of 6043 lines, 1771 were written by some author preceding +Shakspeare; 2373 by him, on the foundation laid by his predecessors; +and 1899 were entirely his own." And the proceeding investigation +hardly leaves a single drama of his absolute invention. Malone's +sentence is an important piece of external history. In Henry VIII, I +think I see plainly the cropping out of the original rock on which his +own finer stratum was laid. The first play was written by a superior, +thoughtful man, with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, and know +well their cadence. See Wolsey's soliloquy,[544] and the following +scene from Cromwell,[545] where,--instead of the meter of Shakspeare, +whose secret is, that the thought constructs the tune, so that reading +for the sense will best bring out the rhythm,--here the lines are +constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit +eloquence. But the play contains, through all its length, unmistakable +traits of Shakspeare's hand, and some passages, as the account of the +coronation,[546] are like autographs. What is odd, the compliment to +Queen Elizabeth[547] is in bad rhythm.[548] + +7. Shakspeare knew that tradition supplies a better fable than any +invention can. If he lost any credit of design, he augmented his +resources; and, at that day, our petulant demand for originality was +not so much pressed. There was no literature for the million. The +universal reading, the cheap press, were unknown. A great poet, who +appears in illiterate times, absorbs into his sphere all the light +which is anywhere radiating. Every intellectual jewel, every flower of +sentiment, it is his fine office to bring to his people; and he comes +to value his memory[549] equally with his invention. He is therefore +little solicitous whence his thoughts have been derived; whether +through translation, whether through tradition, whether by travel in +distant countries, whether by inspiration; from whatever source, they +are equally welcome to his uncritical audience. Nay, he borrows very +near home. Other men say wise things as well as he; only they say a +good many foolish things, and do not know when they have spoken +wisely. He knows the sparkle of the true stone, and puts it in high +place, wherever he finds it. Such is the happy position of Homer,[550] +perhaps; of Chaucer,[551] of Saadi.[552] They felt that all wit was +their wit. And they are librarians and historiographers, as well as +poets. Each romancer was heir and dispenser of all the hundred tales +of the world,-- + + "Presenting Thebes'[553] and Pelops' line + And the tale of Troy divine." + +The influence of Chaucer is conspicuous in all our early literature; +and, more recently, not only Pope[554] and Dryden[555] have been +beholden to him, but, in the whole society of English writers, a large +unacknowledged debt is easily traced. One is charmed with the opulence +which feeds so many pensioners. But Chaucer is a huge borrower.[556] +Chaucer, it seems, drew continually, through Lydgat[557] and +Caxton,[558] from Guido di Colonna,[559] whose Latin romance of the +Trojan war was in turn a compilation from Dares Phrygius,[560] +Ovid,[561] and Statius.[562] Then Petrarch,[563] Boccaccio,[564] and +the Provençal poets,[565] and his benefactors: the Romaunt of the +Rose[566] is only judicious translation from William of Lorris and +John of Meung: Troilus and Creseide,[567] from Lollius of Urbino: The +Cock and the Fox,[568] from the _Lais_ of Marie: The House of +Fame,[569] from the French or Italian: and poor Gower[570] he uses as +if he were only a brick-kiln or stone-quarry, out of which to build +his house. He steals by this apology,--that what he takes has no worth +where he finds it, and the greatest where he leaves it. It has come to +be practically a sort of rule in literature, that a man, having once +shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to +steal from the writings of others at discretion. Thought is the +property of him who can entertain it; and of him who can adequately +place it. A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; +but, as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our +own. + +8. Thus, all originality is relative. Every thinker is retrospective. +The learned member of the legislature, at Westminister,[571] or at +Washington, speaks and votes for thousands. Show us the constituency, +and the now invisible channels by which the senator is made aware of +their wishes, the crowd of practical and knowing men, who, by +correspondence or conversation, are feeding him with evidence, +anecdotes, and estimates, and it will bereave his fine attitude and +resistance of something of their impressiveness. As Sir Robert +Peel[572] and Mr. Webster[573] vote, so Locke[574] and Rousseau[575] +think for thousands; and so there were foundations all around +Homer,[576] Menu,[577] Saada,[578] or Milton,[579] from which they +drew; friends, lovers, books, traditions, proverbs,--all +perished,--which, if seen, would go to reduce the wonder. Did the bard +speak with authority? Did he feel himself overmatched by any +companion? The appeal is to the consciousness of the writer. Is there +at last in his breast a Delphi[580] whereof to ask concerning any +thought or thing whether it be verily so, yea or nay? and to have +answer, and rely on that? All the debts which such a man could +contract to other wit, would never disturb his consciousness of +originality: for the ministrations of books, and of other minds, are a +whiff of smoke to that most private reality with which he has +conversed. + +9. It is easy to see that what is best written or done by genius, in +the world, was no man's work, but came by wide social labor, when a +thousand wrought like one, sharing the same impulse. Our English +Bible[581] is a wonderful specimen of the strength and music of the +English language. But it was not made by one man, or at one time; but +centuries and churches brought it to perfection. There never was a +time when there was not some translation existing. The Liturgy,[582] +admired for its energy and pathos, is an anthology of the piety of +ages and nations, a translation of the prayers and forms of the +Catholic church,--these collected, too, in long periods, from the +prayers and meditations of every saint and sacred writer all over the +world. Grotius[583] makes the like remark in respect to the Lord's +Prayer, that the single clauses of which it is composed were already +in use, in the time of Christ, in the rabbinical forms.[584] He picked +out the grains of gold. The nervous language of the Common Law,[585] +the impressive forms of our courts, and the precision and substantial +truth of the legal distinctions, are the contribution of all the +sharp-sighted, strong-minded men who have lived in the countries where +these laws govern. The translation of Plutarch gets its excellence by +being translation on translation. There never was a time when there +was none. All the truly idiomatic and national phrases are kept, and +all others successively picked out, and thrown away. Something like +the same process had gone on, long before, with the originals of these +books. The world takes liberties with world-books. Vedas,[586] Æsop's +Fables,[587] Pilpay,[588] Arabian Nights,[589] Cid,[590] Iliad,[591] +Robin Hood,[592] Scottish Minstrelsy,[593] are not the work of single +men. In the composition of such works, the time thinks, the market +thinks, the mason, the carpenter, the merchant, the farmer, the fop, +all think for us. Every book supplies its time with one good word; +every municipal law, every trade, every folly of the day, and the +generic catholic genius who is not afraid or ashamed to owe his +originality to the originality of all, stands with the next age as the +recorder and embodiment of his own. + +10. We have to thank the researches of antiquaries, and the Shakspeare +Society,[594] for ascertaining the steps of the English drama, from +the Mysteries[595] celebrated in churches and by churchmen, and the +final detachment from the church, and the completion of secular plays, +from Ferrex and Porrex,[596] and Gammer Gurton's Needle,[597] down to +the possession of the stage by the very pieces which Shakspeare +altered, remodelled, and finally made his own. Elated with success, +and piqued by the growing interest of the problem, they have left no +book-stall unsearched, no chest in a garret unopened, no file of old +yellow accounts to decompose in damp and worms, so keen was the hope +to discover whether the boy Shakspeare poached[598] or not, whether he +held horses at the theater-door, whether he kept school, and why he +left in his will only his second-best bed to Ann Hathaway, his wife. + +11. There is somewhat touching in the madness with which the passing +age mischooses the object on which all candles shine, and all eyes are +turned; the care with which it registers every trifle touching Queen +Elizabeth,[599] and King James,[600] and the Essexes,[601] +Leicesters,[602] Burleighs,[603] and Buckinghams;[604] and lets pass +without a single valuable note the founder of another dynasty, which +alone will cause the Tudor dynasty[605] to be remembered,--the man who +carries the Saxon race in him by the inspiration which feeds him, and +on whose thoughts the foremost people of the world are now for some +ages to be nourished, and minds to receive this and not another bias. +A popular player,--nobody suspected he was the poet of the human race; +and the secret was kept as faithfully from poets and intellectual men, +as from courtiers and frivolous people. Bacon,[606] who took the +inventory of the human understanding for his times, never mentioned +his name. Ben Jonson,[607] though we have strained his few words of +regard and panegyric, had no suspicion of the elastic fame whose first +vibrations he was attempting. He no doubt thought the praise he has +conceded to him generous, and esteemed himself, out of all question, +the better poet of the two. + +12. If it need wit to know wit, according to the proverb, Shakspeare's +time should be capable of recognizing it. Sir Henry Wotton[608] was +born four years after Shakspeare, and died twenty-three years after +him; and I find, among his correspondents and acquaintances, the +following persons:[609] Theodore Beza, Isaac Casaubon, Sir Philip +Sidney, Earl of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, +Sir Henry Vane, Isaac Walton, Dr. Donne, Abraham Cowley, Berlarmine, +Charles Cotton, John Pym, John Hales, Kepler, Vieta, Albericus +Gentilis, Paul Sarpi, Arminius; with all of whom exists some token of +his having communicated, without enumerating many others, whom +doubtless[610] he saw,--Shakspeare, Spenser, Jonson, Beaumont, +Massinger, two Herberts, Marlow, Chapman and the rest. Since the +constellation of great men who appeared in Greece in the time of +Pericles,[611] there was never any such society;--yet their genius +failed them to find out the best head in the universe. Our poet's mask +was impenetrable. You cannot see the mountain near. It took a century +to make it suspected; and not until two centuries had passed, after +his death, did any criticism which we think adequate begin to appear. +It was not possible to write the history of Shakspeare till now; for +he is the father of German literature: it was on the introduction of +Shakspeare into German, by Lessing,[612] and the translation of his +works by Wieland[613] and Schlegel,[614] that the rapid burst of +German literature was most intimately connected. It was not until the +nineteenth century, whose speculative genius is a sort of living +Hamlet,[615] that the tragedy of Hamlet could find such wondering +readers. Now, literature, philosophy, and thought, are Shakspearized. +His mind is the horizon beyond which, at present, we do not see. Our +ears are educated to music by his rhythm. Coleridge[616] and +Goethe[617] are the only critics who have expressed our convictions +with any adequate fidelity; but there is in all cultivated minds a +silent appreciation of his superlative power and beauty, which, like +Christianity, qualifies the period. + +[Transcriber's Note: Number runs from 12 to 14. Number 13 omitted] + +14. The Shakspeare Society have inquired in all directions, +advertised the missing facts, offered money for any information that +will lead to proof; and with what result? Beside some important +illustration of the history of the English stage, to which I have +adverted, they have gleaned a few facts touching the property, and +dealings in regard to property, of the poet. It appears that, from +year to year, he owned a larger share in the Blackfriars' +Theater:[618] its wardrobe and other appurtenances were his: and he +bought an estate in his native village, with his earnings, as writer +and shareholder; that he lived in the best house in Stratford;[619] +was intrusted by his neighbors with their commissions in London, as of +borrowing money, and the like; and he was a veritable farmer. About +the time when he was writing Macbeth,[620] he sues Philip Rogers, in +the borough-court of Stratford, for thirty-five shillings, ten pence, +for corn delivered to him at different times; and, in all respects, +appears as a good husband with no reputation for eccentricity or +excess. He was a good-natured sort of man, an actor and shareholder in +the theater, not in any striking manner distinguished from other +actors and managers. I admit the importance of this information. It is +well worth the pains that have been taken to procure it. + +15. But whatever scraps of information concerning his condition these +researches may have rescued, they can shed no light upon that infinite +invention which is the concealed magnet of his attraction for us. We +are very clumsy writers of history. We tell the chronicle of +parentage, birth, birth-place, schooling, schoolmates, earning of +money, marriage, publication of books, celebrity, death; and when we +have come to an end of this gossip no ray of relation appears between +it and the goddess-born; and it seems as if, had we dipped at random +into the "Modern Plutarch," and read any other life there, it would +have fitted the poems as well. It is the essence of poetry to spring, +like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish +the past, and refuse all history. Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and +Collier,[621] have wasted their oil. The famed theaters, Covent +Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont,[622] have vainly assisted. +Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready,[623] dedicate their +lives to this genius; him they crown, elucidate, obey, and express. +The genius knows them not. The recitation begins; one golden word +leaps out immortal from all this painted pedantry, and sweetly +torments us with invitations to its own inaccessible homes. I +remember, I went once to see the Hamlet of a famed performer,[624] the +pride of the English stage; and all I then heard, and all I now +remember, of the tragedian, was that in which the tragedian had no +part; simply, Hamlet's question to the ghost,-- + + "What may this mean,[625] + That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel + Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon?" + +That imagination which dilates the closet he writes in to the world's +dimension, crowds it with agents in rank and order, as quickly +reduces the big reality to be the glimpses of the moon. These tricks +of his magic spoil for us the illusions of the green-room. Can any +biography shed light on the localities into which the Midsummer +Night's Dream[626] admits me? Did Shakspeare confide to any notary or +parish recorder, sacristan, or surrogate, in Stratford, the genesis of +that delicate creation? The forest of Arden,[627] the nimble air of +Scone Castle,[628] the moonlight of Portia's villa,[629] "the antres +vast[630] and desarts idle," of Othello's captivity,--where is the +third cousin, or grand-nephew, the chancellor's file of accounts, or +private letter, that has kept one word of those transcendent secrets? +In fine, in this drama, as in all great works of art,--in the +Cyclopean architecture[631] of Egypt and India; in the Phidian +sculpture;[632] the Gothic ministers;[633] the Italian painting;[634] +the Ballads of Spain and Scotland,[635]--the Genius draws up the +ladder after him, when the creative age goes up to heaven, and gives +way to a new, which sees the works, and ask in vain for a history. + +16. Shakspeare is the only biographer of Shakspeare; and even he can +tell nothing, except to the Shakspeare in us; that is, to our most +apprehensive and sympathetic hour. He cannot step from off his +tripod,[636] and give us anecdotes of his inspirations. Read the antique +documents extricated, analyzed, and compared, by the assiduous Dyce and +Collier; and now read one of those skyey sentences,--aerolites,--which +seem to have fallen out of heaven, and which, not your experience, but +the man within the breast, has accepted, as words of fate; and tell me +if they match; if the former account in any manner for the latter; or, +which gives the most historical insight into the man. + +17. Hence, though our external history is so meager, yet, with +Shakspeare for biographer, instead of Aubrey[637] and Rowe,[638] we +have really the information which is material, that which describes +character and fortune, that which, if we were about to meet the man +and deal with him, would most import us to know. We have his recorded +convictions on those questions which knock for answer at every +heart,--on life and death, on love, on wealth and poverty, on the +prizes of life, and the ways whereby we come at them; on the +characters of men, and the influences, occult and open, which affect +their fortunes; and on those mysterious and demoniacal powers which +defy our science, and which yet interweave their malice and their gift +in our brightest hours. Who ever read the volume of the Sonnets, +without finding that the poet had there revealed, under masks that are +no masks to the intelligent, the lore of friendship and of love; the +confusion of sentiments in the most susceptible, and, at the same +time, the most intellectual of men? What trait of his private mind has +he hidden in his dramas? One can discern, in his ample pictures of the +gentleman and the king, what forms and humanities pleased him; his +delight in troops of friends, in large hospitality, in cheerful +giving. Let Timon,[639] let Warwick,[640] let Antonio[641] the +merchant, answer for his great heart. So far from Shakspeare's being +the least known, he is the one person, in all modern history, known to +us. What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of philosophy, of +religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not settled? What +mystery has he not signified his knowledge of? What office, or +function, or district of man's work, has he not remembered? What king +has he not taught state, as Talma[642] taught Napoleon? What maiden +has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not +out-loved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not +instructed in the rudeness of his behavior? + +18. Some able and appreciating critics think no criticism on +Shakspeare valuable, that does not rest purely on the dramatic merit; +that he is falsely judged as poet and philosopher. I think as highly +as these critics of his dramatic merit, who still think it secondary. +He was a full man, who liked to talk; a brain exhaling thoughts and +images, which, seeking vent, found the drama next at hand. Had he been +less, we should have had to consider how well he filled his place, how +good a dramatist he was,--and he is the best in the world. But it +turns out, that what he has to say is of that weight, as to withdraw +some attention from the vehicle; and he is like some saint whose +history is to be rendered into all languages, into verse and prose, +into songs and pictures, and cut up into proverbs; so that the +occasion which gave the saint's meaning the form of a conversation, or +of a prayer, or of a code of laws, is immaterial, compared with the +universality of its application. So it fares with the wise Shakspeare +and his book of life. He wrote the airs for all our modern music: he +wrote the text of modern life; the text of manners: he drew the man of +England and Europe; the father of the man in America: he drew the man, +and described the day, and what is done in it: he read the hearts of +men and women, their probity, and their second thought, and wiles; the +wiles of innocence, and the transitions by which virtues and vices +slide into their contraries: he could divide the mother's part from +the father's part in the face of the child, or draw the fine +demarcations of freedom and of fate: he knew the laws of repression +which make the police of nature: and all the sweets and all the +terrors of human lot lay in his mind as truly but as softly as the +landscape lies on the eye. And the importance of this wisdom of life +sinks the form, as of Drama or Epic, out of notice. 'Tis like making a +question concerning the paper on which a king's message is written. + +19. Shakspeare is as much out of the category of eminent authors, as +he is out of the crowd. He is inconceivably wise; the others, +conceivably. A good reader can, in a sort, nestle into Plato's brain, +and think from thence; but not into Shakspeare's. We are still out of +doors. For executive faculty, for creation, Shakspeare is unique. No +man can imagine it better. He was the farthest reach of subtlety +compatible with an individual self,--the subtilest of authors, and +only just within the possibility of authorship. With this wisdom of +life, is the equal endowment of imaginative and of lyric power. He +clothed the creatures of his legend with form and sentiments, as if +they were people who had lived under his roof; and few real men have +left such distinct characters as these fictions. And they spoke in +language as sweet as it was fit. Yet his talents never seduced him +into an ostentation, nor did he harp on one string. An omnipresent +humanity[643] coördinates all his faculties. Give a man of talents a +story to tell, and his partiality will presently appear. He has +certain observations, opinions, topics, which have some accidental +prominence, and which he disposes all to exhibit. He crams this part, +and starves that other part, consulting not the fitness of the thing, +but his fitness and strength. But Shakspeare has no peculiarity, no +importunate topic; but all is duly given; no veins, no curiosities: no +cow-painter, no bird-fancier, no mannerist is he: he has no +discoverable egotism: the great he tells greatly; the small, +subordinately. He is wise without emphasis or assertion; he is strong, +as nature is strong, who lifts the land into mountain slopes without +effort, and by the same rule as she floats a bubble in the air, and +likes as well to do the one as the other. This makes that equality of +power in farce, tragedy, narrative, and love-songs; a merit so +incessant, that each reader is incredulous of the perception of other +readers. + +20. This power of expression, or of transferring the inmost truth of +things into music and verse, makes him the type of the poet, and has +added a new problem to metaphysics. This is that which throws him into +natural history, as a main production of the globe, and as announcing +new eras and ameliorations. Things were mirrored in his poetry without +loss or blur; he could paint the fine with precision, the great with +compass: the tragic and the comic indifferently, and without any +distortion or favor. He carried his powerful execution into minute +details, to a hair point; finishes an eyelash or a dimple as firmly as +he draws a mountain; and yet these, like nature's, will bear the +scrutiny of the solar microscope. + +21. In short, he is the chief example to prove that more or less of +production, more or fewer pictures, is a thing indifferent. He had the +power to make one picture. Daguerre[644] learned how to let one flower +etch its image on his plate of iodine; and then proceeds at leisure to +etch a million. There are always objects; but there was never +representation. Here is perfect representation, at last; and now let +the world of figures sit for their portraits. No recipe can be given +for the making of a Shakspeare; but the possibility of the translation +of things into song is demonstrated. + +22. His lyric power lies in the genius of the piece. The sonnets, +though their excellence is lost in the splendor of the dramas, are as +inimitable as they: and it is not a merit of lines, but a total merit +of the piece; like the tone of voice of some incomparable person, so +is this a speech of poetic beings, and any clause as unproducible now +as a whole poem. + +23. Though the speeches in the plays, and single lines, have a beauty +which tempts the ear to pause on them for their euphuism,[645] yet the +sentence is so loaded with meaning, and so linked with its foregoers +and followers, that the logician is satisfied. His means are as +admirable as his ends; every subordinate invention, by which he helps +himself to connect some irreconcilable opposites, is a poem too. He is +not reduced to dismount and walk, because his horses are running off +with him in some distant direction; he always rides. + +24. The finest poetry was first experienced: but the thought has +suffered a transformation since it was an experience. Cultivated men +often attain a good degree of skill in writing verses; but it is easy +to read, through their poems, their personal history: any one +acquainted with parties can name every figure: this is Andrew, and +that is Rachael. The sense thus remains prosaic. It is a caterpillar +with wings, and not yet a butterfly. In the poet's mind, the fact has +gone quite over into the new element of thought, and has lost all that +is exuvial. This generosity bides with Shakspeare. We say, from the +truth and closeness of his pictures, that he knows the lesson by +heart. Yet there is not a trace of egotism. + +25. One more royal trait properly belongs to the poet. I mean his +cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,--for beauty is his +aim. He loves virtue, not for its obligation, but for its grace: he +delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that +sparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds +over the universe. Epicurus[646] relates, that poetry hath such charms +that a lover might forsake his mistress to partake of them. And the +true bards have been noted for their firm and cheerful temper. Homer +lies in sunshine; Chaucer is glad and erect; and Saadi says, "It was +rumored abroad that I was penitent; but what had I to do with +repentance?" Not less sovereign and cheerful,--much more sovereign and +cheerful, is the tone of Shakspeare. His name suggests joy and +emancipation to the heart of men. If he should appear in any company +of human souls, who would not march in his troop? He touches nothing +that does not borrow health and longevity from his festal style. + +26. And now, how stands the account of man with this bard and +benefactor, when in solitude, shutting our ears to the reverberations +of his fame, we seek to strike the balance? Solitude has austere +lessons; it can teach us to spare both heroes and poets; and it weighs +Shakspeare also, and finds him to share the halfness and imperfection +of humanity. + +27. Shakspeare, Homer, Dante,[647] Chaucer, saw the splendor of +meaning that plays over the visible world; knew that a tree had +another use than for apples, and corn another than for meal, and the +ball of the earth, than for tillage and roads: that these things bore +a second and finer harvest to the mind, being emblems of its +thoughts, and conveying in all their natural history a certain mute +commentary on human life. Shakspeare employed them as colors to +compose his picture. He rested in their beauty; and never took the +step which seemed inevitable to such genius, namely, to explore the +virtue which resides in these symbols, and imparts this power,--what +is that which they themselves say? He converted the elements, which +waited on his command, into entertainments. He was master of the +revels[648] to mankind. Is it not as if one should have, through +majestic powers of science, the comets given into his hand, or the +planets and their moons, and should draw them from their orbits to +glare with the municipal fireworks on a holiday night, and advertise +in all towns, "very superior pyrotechny this evening!" Are the agents +of nature, and the power to understand them, worth no more than a +street serenade, or the breath of a cigar? One remembers again the +trumpet-text in the Koran,[649]--"The heavens and the earth, and all +that is between them, think ye we have created them in jest?" As long +as the question is of talent and mental power, the world of men has +not his equal to show. But when the question is to life, and its +materials, and its auxiliaries, how does he profit me? What does it +signify? It is but a Twelfth Night,[650] or Midsummer Night's Dream, +or a Winter Evening's Tale: what signifies another picture more or +less? The Egyptian verdict[651] of the Shakspeare Societies comes to +mind, that he was a jovial actor and manager. I cannot marry this +fact to his verse. Other admirable men have led lives in some sort of +keeping with their thought; but this man, in wide contrast. Had he +been less, had he reached only the common measure of great authors, of +Bacon, Milton, Tasso,[652] Cervantes,[653] we might leave the fact in +the twilight of human fate: but, that this man of men, he who gave to +the science of mind a new and larger subject than had ever existed, +and planted the standard of humanity some furlongs forward into +Chaos,--that he should not be wise for himself,--it must even go into +the world's history, that the best poet led an obscure and profane +life, using his genius for the public amusement. + +28. Well, other men, priest and prophet, Israelite,[654] German,[655] +and Swede,[656] beheld the same objects: they also saw through them +that which was contained. And to what purpose? The beauty straightway +vanished; they read commandments, all-excluding mountainous duty; an +obligation, a sadness, as of piled mountains, fell on them, and life +became ghastly, joyless, a pilgrim's progress,[657] a probation, +beleaguered round with doleful histories, of Adam's fall[658] and +curse, behind us; with doomsdays and purgatorial[659] and penal fires +before us; and the heart of the seer and the heart of the listener +sank in them. + +29. It must be conceded that these are half-views of half-men. The +world still wants its poet-priest, a reconciler, who shall not trifle +with Shakspeare the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg +the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act, with equal +inspiration. For knowledge will brighten the sunshine; right is more +beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with +universal wisdom. + + + + +PRUDENCE.[660] + + +What right have I to write on Prudence, whereof I have little, and +that of the negative sort? My prudence consists in avoiding and going +without, not in the inventing of means and methods, not in adroit +steering, not in gentle repairing. I have no skill to make money spend +well, no genius in my economy, and whoever sees my garden discovers +that I must have some other garden. Yet I love facts, and hate +lubricity[661] and people without perception. Then I have the same +title to write on prudence that I have to write on poetry or holiness. +We write from aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. +We paint those qualities which we do not possess. The poet admires the +man of energy and tactics; the merchant breeds his son for the church +or the bar; and where a man is not vain and egotistic you shall find +what he has not by his praise. Moreover it would be hardly honest in +me not to balance these fine lyric words of Love and Friendship[662] +with words of coarser sound, and whilst my debt to my senses is real +and constant, not to own it in passing. + +Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of +appearances. It is the outmost action of the inward life. It is God +taking thought for oxen. It moves matter after the laws of matter. It +is content to seek health of body by complying with physical +conditions, and health of mind by the laws of the intellect. + +The world of the senses is a world of shows; it does not exist for +itself, but has a symbolic character; and a true prudence or law of +shows recognizes the co-presence of other laws and knows that its own +office is subaltern; knows that it is surface and not centre where it +works. Prudence is false when detached. It is legitimate when it is +the Natural History of the soul incarnate, when it unfolds the beauty +of laws within the narrow scope of the senses. + +There are all degrees of proficiency in knowledge of the world. It is +sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three. One class lives +to the utility of the symbol, esteeming health and wealth a final +good. Another class live above this mark of the beauty of the symbol, +as the poet and artist and the naturalist and man of science. A third +class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing +signified; these are wise men. The first class have common sense; the +second, taste; and the third, spiritual perception. Once in a long +time, a man traverses the whole scale, and sees and enjoys the symbol +solidly, then also has a clear eye for its beauty, and lastly, whilst +he pitches his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature, does not +offer to build houses and barns thereon reverencing the splendor of +the God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny. + +The world is filled with the proverbs[663] and acts and winkings of a +base prudence, which is a devotion to matter, as if we possessed no +other faculties than the palate, the nose, the touch, the eye and ear; +a prudence which adores the Rule of Three, which never subscribes, +which gives never, which seldom lends, and asks but one question of +any project,--Will it bake bread? This is a disease like a thickening +of the skin until the vital organs are destroyed. But culture, +revealing the high origin of the apparent world and aiming at the +perfection of the man as the end, degrades everything else, as health +and bodily life, into means. It sees prudence not to be a several +faculty, but a name for wisdom and virtue conversing with the body and +its wants. Cultivated men always feel and speak so as if a great +fortune, the achievement of a civil or social measure, great personal +influence, a graceful and commanding address, had their value as +proofs of the energy of the spirit. If a man lose his balance and +immerse himself in any trades or pleasures for their own sake, he may +be a good wheel or pin,[664] but he is not a cultivated man. + +The spurious prudence, making the senses final, is the god of sots and +cowards, and is the subject of all comedy. It is nature's joke, and +therefore literature's. The true prudence limits this sensualism by +admitting the knowledge of an internal and real world. This +recognition once made,--the order of the world and the distribution +of affairs and times being studied with the co-perception of their +subordinate place, will reward any degree of attention. For, our +existence, thus apparently attached in nature to the sun and the +returning moon and the periods which they mark; so susceptible to +climate and to country, so alive to social good and evil, so fond of +splendor and so tender to hunger and cold and debt,--reads all its +primary lessons out of these books. + +Prudence does not go behind nature and ask whence it is? It takes the +laws of the world whereby man's being is conditioned, as they are, and +keeps these laws that it may enjoy their proper good. It respects +space and time, climate, want, sleep, the law of polarity,[665] growth +and death. There revolve, to give bound and period to his being on all +sides, the sun and moon, the great formalists in the sky: here lies +stubborn matter, and will not swerve from its chemical routine. Here +is a planted globe, pierced and belted with natural laws and fenced +and distributed externally with civil partitions and properties which +impose new restraints on the young inhabitant. + +We eat of the bread which grows in the field. We live by the air which +blows around us and we are poisoned by the air that is too cold or too +hot, too dry or too wet. Time, which shows so vacant, indivisible and +divine in its coming, is slit and peddled into trifles and tatters. A +door is to be painted, a lock to be repaired. I want wood or oil, or +meal, or salt; the house smokes, or I have a headache; then the tax; +and an affair to be transacted with a man without heart or brains, and +the stinging recollection of an injurious or very awkward word,--these +eat up the hours. Do what we can, summer will have its flies.[666] If +we walk in the woods we must feed mosquitoes. If we go a-fishing we +must expect a wet coat. Then climate is a great impediment to idle +persons. We often resolve to give up the care of the weather, but +still we regard the clouds and the rain. + +We are instructed by these petty experiences which usurp the hours and +years. The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitant of the +northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the +fixed smile of the tropics. The islander may ramble all day at will. At +night he may sleep on a mat under the moon, and wherever a wild +date-tree grows, nature has, without a prayer even, spread a table for +his morning meal. The northerner is perforce a householder. He must +brew, bake, salt and preserve his food. He must pile wood and coal. But +as it happens that not one stroke can labor lay to without some new +acquaintance with nature; and as nature is inexhaustibly significant, +the inhabitants of these climates[667] have always excelled the +southerner in force. Such is the value of these matters that a man who +knows other things can never know too much of these. Let him have +accurate perceptions. Let him, if he have hands, handle; if eyes, +measure and discriminate; let him accept and hive every fact of +chemistry, natural history and economics; the more he has, the less is +he willing to spare any one. Time is always bringing the occasions that +disclose their value. Some wisdom comes out of every natural and +innocent action. The domestic man, who loves no music so well as his +kitchen clock and the airs which the logs sing to him as they burn on +the hearth, has solaces which others never dream of. The application of +means to ends ensures victory and the songs of victory not less in a +farm or a shop than in the tactics of party or of war. The good husband +finds method as efficient in the packing of fire-wood in a shed or in +the harvesting of fruits in the cellar, as in Peninsular campaigns[668] +or the files of the Department of State. In the rainy day he builds a +work-bench, or gets his tool-box set in the corner of the barn-chamber, +and stored with nails, gimlet, pincers, screwdriver and chisel. Herein +he tastes an old joy of youth and childhood, the cat-like love of +garrets, presses and corn-chambers, and of the conveniences of long +housekeeping. His garden or his poultry-yard--very paltry places it may +be--tells him many pleasant anecdotes. One might find argument for +optimism in the abundant flow of this saccharine element of pleasure in +every suburb and extremity of the good world. Let a man keep the +law--any law,--and his way will be strown with satisfactions. There is +more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount. + +On the other hand, nature punishes any neglect of prudence. If you +think the senses final, obey their law. If you believe in the soul, do +not clutch at sensual sweetness before it is ripe on the slow tree of +cause and effect. It is vinegar to the eyes to deal with men of loose +and imperfect perception. Dr. Johnson is reported to have +said,[669]--"If the child says he looked out of this window, when he +looked out of that,--whip him." Our American character is marked by a +more than average delight in accurate perception, which is shown by +the currency of the by-word, "No mistake." + +But the discomfort of unpunctuality, of confusion of thought about +facts, inattention to the wants of to-morrow, is of no nation. The +beautiful laws of time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude, +are holes and dens. If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, +instead of honey it will yield us bees. Our words and actions to be +fair must be timely. A gay and pleasant sound is the whetting of the +scythe in the mornings of June; yet what is more lonesome and sad than +the sound of a whetstone or mower's rifle[670] when it is too late in +the season to make hay? Scatter brained and "afternoon men" spoil much +more than their own affairs in spoiling the temper of those who deal +with them. I have seen a criticism on some paintings, of which I am +reminded when I see the shiftless and unhappy men who are not true to +their senses. The last Grand Duke of Weimar,[671] a man of superior +understanding, said: "I have sometimes remarked in the presence of +great works of art, and just now especially in Dresden, how much a +certain property contributes to the effect which gives life to the +figures, and to the life an irresistible truth. This property is the +hitting, in all the figures we draw, the right centre of gravity. I +mean the placing the figures firm upon their feet, making the hands +grasp, and fastening the eyes on the spot where they should look. Even +lifeless figures, as vessels and stools--let them be drawn ever so +correctly--lose all effect so soon as they lack the resting upon their +centre of gravity, and have a certain swimming and oscillating +appearance. The Raphael in the Dresden gallery[672] (the only great +affecting picture which I have seen) is the quietest and most +passionless piece you can imagine; a couple of saints who worship the +Virgin and child. Nevertheless it awakens a deeper impression than the +contortions of ten crucified martyrs. For, beside all the resistless +beauty of form, it possesses in the highest degree the property of the +perpendicularity of all the figures." This perpendicularity we demand +of all the figures in this picture of life. Let them stand on their +feet, and not float and swing. Let us know where to find them. Let +them discriminate between what they remember and what they dreamed. +Let them call a spade a spade.[673] Let them give us facts, and honor +their own senses with trust. + +But what man shall dare task another with imprudence? Who is prudent? +The men we call greatest are least in this kingdom. There is a certain +fatal dislocation in our relation to nature, distorting all our modes +of living and making every law our enemy, which seems at last to have +aroused all the wit and virtue in the world to ponder the question of +Reform. We must call the highest prudence to counsel, and ask why +health and beauty and genius should now be the exception rather than +the rule of human nature? We do not know the properties of plants and +animals and the laws of nature, through our sympathy with the same; +but this remains the dream of poets. Poetry and prudence should be +coincident. Poets should be lawgivers; that is, the boldest lyric +inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead +the civil code and the day's work. But now the two things seem +irreconcilably parted. We have violated law upon law until we stand +amidst ruins, and when by chance we espy a coincidence between reason +and the phenomena, we are surprised. Beauty should be the dowry of +every man and woman, as invariably as sensation; but it is rare. +Health or sound organization should be universal. Genius should be the +child of genius, and every child should be inspired; but now it is not +to be predicted of any child, and nowhere is it pure. We call partial +half lights, by courtesy, genius; talent which converts itself to +money; talent which glitters to-day that it may dine and sleep well +to-morrow; and society is officered by _men of parts_,[674] as they +are properly called, and not by divine men. These use their gifts to +refine luxury, not to abolish it. Genius is always ascetic; and piety, +and love. Appetite shows to the finer souls as a disease, and they +find beauty in rites and bounds that resist it. + +We have found out[675] fine names to cover our sensuality withal, but +no gifts can raise intemperance. The man of talent affects to call his +transgressions of the laws of the senses trivial and to count them +nothing considered with his devotion to his art. His art rebukes him. +That never taught him lewdness, nor the love of wine, nor the wish to +reap where he had not sowed. His art is less for every deduction from +his holiness, and less for every defect of common sense. On him who +scorned the world, as he said, the scorned world wreaks its revenge. +He that despiseth small things will perish by little and little. +Goethe's Tasso[676] is very likely to be a pretty fair historical +portrait, and that is true tragedy. It does not seem to me so genuine +grief when some tyrannous Richard III.[677] oppresses and slays a +score of innocent persons, as when Antonio and Tasso, both apparently +right, wrong each other. One living after the maxims of this world and +consistent and true to them, the other fired with all divine +sentiments, yet grasping also at the pleasures of sense, without +submitting to their law. That is a grief we all feel, a knot we cannot +untie. Tasso's is no infrequent case in modern biography. A man of +genius, of an ardent temperament, reckless of physical laws, +self-indulgent, becomes presently unfortunate, querulous, a +"discomfortable cousin," a thorn to himself and to others. + +The scholar shames us by his bifold[678] life. Whilst something higher +than prudence is active, he is admirable; when common sense is wanted, +he is an encumbrance. Yesterday, Cæsar[679] was not so great; to-day, +Job[680] not so miserable. Yesterday, radiant with the light of an +ideal world in which he lives, the first of men, and now oppressed by +wants and by sickness, for which he must thank himself, none is so +poor to do him reverence. He resembles the opium eaters whom +travellers describe as frequenting the bazaars of Constantinople, who +skulk about all day, the most pitiful drivellers, yellow, emaciated, +ragged, sneaking; then at evening, when the bazaars are open, they +slink to the opium-shop, swallow their morsel and become tranquil, +glorious and great. And who has not seen the tragedy of imprudent +genius struggling for years with paltry pecuniary difficulties, at +last sinking, chilled, exhausted and fruitless, like a giant +slaughtered by pins? + +Is it not better that a man should accept the first pains and +mortifications of this sort, which nature is not slack in sending him, +as hints that he must expect no other good than the just fruit of his +own labor and self-denial? Health, bread, climate, social position, +have their importance, and he will give them their due. Let him esteem +Nature a perpetual counsellor, and her perfections the exact measure +of our deviations. Let him make the night night, and the day day. Let +him control the habit of expense. Let him see that as much wisdom may +be expended on a private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom +may be drawn from it. The laws of the world are written out for him on +every piece of money in his hand. There is nothing he will not be the +better for knowing, were it only the wisdom of Poor Richard,[681] or +the State-street[682] prudence of buying by the acre to sell by the +foot; or the thrift of the agriculturist, to stick[683] in a tree +between whiles, because it will grow whilst he sleeps; or the prudence +which consists in husbanding little strokes of the tool, little +portions of time, particles of stock and small gains. The eye of +prudence may never shut. Iron, if kept at the ironmonger's, will rust; +beer, if not brewed in the right state of the atmosphere, will sour; +timber of ships will rot at sea, or if laid up high and dry, will +strain, warp and dry-rot. Money, if kept by us, yields no rent and is +liable to loss; if invested, is liable to depreciation of the +particular kind of stock. Strike, says the smith, the iron is white. +Keep the rake, says the haymaker, as nigh the scythe as you can, and +the cart as nigh the rake. Our Yankee trade is reputed to be very much +on the extreme of this prudence. It saves itself by its activity. It +takes bank notes,--good, bad, clean, ragged, and saves itself by the +speed with which it passes them off. Iron cannot rust, nor beer sour, +nor timber rot, nor calicoes go out of fashion, nor money stocks +depreciate, in the few swift moments in which the Yankee suffers any +one of them to remain in his possession. In skating over thin ice our +safety is in our speed. + +Let him learn a prudence of a higher strain. Let him learn that +everything in nature, even motes and feathers, go by law and not by +luck, and that what he sows he reaps. By diligence and self-command +let him put the bread he eats at his own disposal, and not at that of +others, that he may not stand in bitter and false relations to other +men; for the best good of wealth is freedom. Let him practise the +minor virtues.[684] How much of human life is lost in waiting! Let him +not make his fellow creatures wait. How many words and promises are +promises of conversation! Let his be words of fate. When he sees a +folded and sealed scrap of paper float around the globe in a pine ship +and come safe to the eye for which it was written, amidst a swarming +population, let him likewise feel the admonition to integrate his +being across all these distracting forces, and keep a slender human +word among the storms, distances and accidents that drive us hither +and thither, and, by persistency, make the paltry force of one man +reappear to redeem its pledge after months and years in the most +distant climates. + +We must not try to write the laws of any one virtue, looking at that +only. Human nature loves no contradictions, but is symmetrical. The +prudence which secures an outward well-being is not to be studied by +one set of men, whilst heroism and holiness are studied by another, +but they are reconcilable. Prudence concerns the present time, +persons, property and existing forms. But as every fact hath its roots +in the soul, and, if the soul were changed, would cease to be, or +would become some other thing, therefore the proper administration of +outward things will always rest on a just apprehension of their cause +and origin; that is, the good man will be the wise man, and the +single-hearted the politic man. Every violation of truth is not only a +sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human +society. On the most profitable lie the course of events presently +lays a destructive tax; whilst frankness proves to be the best +tactics, for it invites frankness, puts the parties on a convenient +footing and makes their business a friendship. Trust men and they will +be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves +great, though they make an exception in your favor to all their rules +of trade. + +So, in regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does not +consist in evasion or in flight, but in courage. He who wishes to walk +in the most peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw +himself up to resolution. Let him front the object of his worst +apprehension, and his stoutness will commonly make his fears +groundless. The Latin proverb says,[685] "in battles the eye is first +overcome." The eye is daunted and greatly exaggerates the perils of +the hour. Entire self-possession may make a battle very little more +dangerous to life than a match at foils or at football. Examples are +cited by soldiers of men who have seen the cannon pointed and the fire +given to it, and who have stepped aside from the path of the ball. The +terrors of the storm are chiefly confined to the parlor and the cabin. +The drover, the sailor, buffets it all day, and his health renews +itself at as vigorous a pulse under the sleet as under the sun of +June. + +In the occurrence of unpleasant things among neighbors, fear comes +readily to heart and magnifies the consequence of the other party; but +it is a bad counsellor. Every man is actually weak and apparently +strong. To himself he seems weak; to others formidable. You are afraid +of Grim; but Grim also is afraid of you. You are solicitous of the +good will of the meanest person, uneasy at his ill will. But the +sturdiest offender of your peace and of the neighborhood, if you rip +up _his_ claims, is as thin and timid as any; and the peace of society +is often kept, because, as children say, one is afraid and the other +dares not. Far off, men swell, bully and threaten: bring them hand to +hand, and they are a feeble folk. + +It is a proverb that "courtesy costs nothing"; but calculation might +come to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be blind, but +kindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an +eye-water. If you meet a sectary or a hostile partisan, never +recognize the dividing lines, but meet on what common ground +remains,--if only that the sun shines and the rain rains for +both,--the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it, the +boundary mountains on which the eye had fastened have melted into air. +If he set out to contend,[686] almost St. Paul will lie, almost St. +John will hate. What low, poor, paltry, hypocritical people an +argument on religion will make of the pure and chosen souls. Shuffle +they will and crow, crook and hide, feign to confess here, only that +they may brag and conquer there, and not a thought has enriched either +party, and not an emotion of bravery, modesty, or hope. So neither +should you put yourself in a false position to your contemporaries by +indulging a vein of hostility and bitterness. Though your views are in +straight antagonism[687] to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, +assume that you are saying precisely that which all think, and in the +flow of wit and love roll out your paradoxes in solid column, with not +the infirmity of a doubt. So at least shall you get an adequate +deliverance. The natural emotions of the soul are so much better than +the voluntary ones that you will never do yourself justice in dispute. +The thought is not then taken hold of by the right handle, does not +show itself proportioned and in its true bearings, but bears extorted, +hoarse, and half witness. But assume a consent and it shall presently +be granted, since really and underneath their all external +diversities, all men are of one heart and mind. + +Wisdom will never let us stand with any man or men on an unfriendly +footing. We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if we waited +for some better sympathy and intimacy to come. But whence and when? +To-morrow will be like to-day. Life wastes itself whilst we are +preparing to live. Our friends and fellow-workers die off from us. +Scarcely can we say we see new men, new women, approaching us. We are +too old to regard fashion, too old to expect patronage of any greater +or more powerful. Let us suck the sweetness of those affections and +consuetudes[688] that grow near us. These old shoes are easy to the +feet. Undoubtedly we can easily pick faults in our company, can easily +whisper names prouder and that tickle the fancy more. Every man's +imagination hath its friends; and pleasant would life be with such +companions. But if you cannot have them on good mutual terms, you +cannot have them. If not the Deity but our ambition hews and shapes +the new relations, their virtue escapes, as strawberries lose their +flavor in garden beds. + +Thus truth, frankness, courage, love, humility, and all the virtues +range themselves on the side of prudence, or the art of securing a +present well-being. I do not know if all matter will be found to be +made of one element, as oxygen or hydrogen, at last, but the world of +manners and actions is wrought of one stuff, and begin where we +will[689] we are pretty sure in a short space to be mumbling our ten +commandments. + + + + +CIRCLES.[690] + + +The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; +and throughout nature this primary picture is repeated without end. It +is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine[691] +described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere +and its circumference nowhere. We are all our lifetime reading the +copious sense of this first of forms. One moral we have already +deduced in considering the circular or compensatory character of every +human action. Another analogy we shall now trace, that every action +admits of being outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth +that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in +nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another +dawn risen on mid-noon,[692] and under every deep a lower deep opens. + +This fact, as far as it symbolizes the moral fact of the Unattainable, +the flying Perfect, around which the hands of man can never meet, at +once the inspirer and the condemner of every success, may conveniently +serve us to connect many illustrations of human power in every +department. + +There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. +Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a +transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and +holds its fluid. Our culture is the predominance of an idea which +draws after it all this train of cities and institutions. Let us rise +into another idea; they will disappear. The Greek sculpture[693] is +all melted away, as if it had been statues of ice: here and there a +solitary figure or fragment remaining, as we see flecks and scraps of +snow left in cold dells and mountain clefts in June and July. For the +genius that created it creates now somewhat else. The Greek +letters[694] last a little longer, but are already passing under the +same sentence and tumbling into the inevitable pit which the creation +of new thought opens for all that is old. The new continents are built +out of the ruins of an old planet; the new races fed out of the +decomposition of the foregoing. New arts destroy the old.[695] See the +investment of capital in aqueducts, made useless by hydraulics; +fortifications, by gunpowder; roads and canals, by railways; sails, by +steam; steam, by electricity. + +You admire this tower of granite, weathering the hurts of so many +ages. Yet a little waving hand built this huge wall, and that which +builds is better than that which is built. The hand that built can +topple it down much faster. Better than the hand and nimbler was the +invisible thought which wrought through it; and thus ever, behind the +coarse effect, is a fine cause, which, being narrowly seen, is itself +the effect of a finer cause. Everything looks permanent until its +secret is known. A rich estate appears to women and children a firm +and lasting fact; to a merchant, one easily created out of any +materials, and easily lost. An orchard, good tillage, good grounds, +seem a fixture, like a gold mine, or a river, to a citizen; but to a +large farmer, not much more fixed than the state of the crop. Nature +looks provokingly stable and secular, but it has a cause like all the +rest; and when once I comprehend that, will these fields stretch so +immovably wide, these leaves hang so individually considerable? +Permanence is a word of degrees. Every thing is medial. Moons are no +more bounds to spiritual power than bat-balls. + +The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, +he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his +facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea +which commands his own. The life of man is a self-evolving circle,[696] +which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to +new and larger circles, and that without end. The extent to which this +generation of circles, wheel without wheel, will go, depends on the +force or truth of the individual soul. For it is the inert effort of +each thought, having formed itself into a circular wave of circumstance, +as for instance an empire, rules of an art, a local usage, a religious +rite, to heap itself on that ridge and to solidify and hem in the life. +But if the soul is quick and strong it bursts over that boundary on all +sides and expands another orbit on the great deep, which also runs up +into a high wave, with attempt again to stop and to bind. But the heart +refuses to be imprisoned;[697] in its first and narrowest pulses it +already tends outward with a vast force and to immense and innumerable +expansions. + +Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series. Every general +law only a particular fact of some more general law presently to +disclose itself. There is no outside, no inclosing wall, no +circumference to us. The man finishes his story,--how good! how final! +how it puts a new face on all things! He fills the sky. Lo, on the +other side rises also a man and draws a circle around the circle we +had just pronounced the outline of the sphere. Then already is our +first speaker not man, but only a first speaker. His only redress is +forthwith to draw a circle outside of his antagonist. And so men do by +themselves. The result of to-day, which haunts the mind and cannot be +escaped will presently be abridged into a word, and the principle that +seemed to explain nature will itself be included as one example of a +bolder generalization. In the thought of to-morrow there is a power to +upheave all thy creed, all the creeds, all the literatures of the +nations, and marshal thee to a heaven which no epic dream has yet +depicted. Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a +suggestion of that he should be. Men walk as prophecies of the next +age. + +Step by step we scale this mysterious ladder; the steps are actions, +the new prospect is power. Every several result is threatened and +judged by that which follows. Every one seems to be contradicted by +the new; it is only limited by the new. The new statement is always +hated by the old, and, to those dwelling in the old, comes like an +abyss of scepticism. But the eye soon gets wonted to it, for the eye +and it are effects of one cause; then its innocency and benefit +appear, and presently, all its energy spent, it pales and dwindles +before the revelation of the new hour. + +Fear not the new generalization. Does the fact look crass[698] and +material, threatening to degrade thy theory of spirit? Resist it not; +it goes to refine and raise thy theory of matter just as much. + +There are no fixtures to men, if we appeal to consciousness. Every man +supposes himself not to be fully understood; and if there is any truth +in him, if he rests at last on the divine soul, I see not how it can +be otherwise. The last chamber, the last closet, he must feel was +never opened; there is always a residuum unknown, unanalyzable. That +is, every man believes that he has a greater possibility. + +Our moods do not believe in each other. To-day I am full of thoughts +and can write what I please. I see no reason why I should not have the +same thought, the same power of expression, to-morrow. What I write, +whilst I write it, seems the most natural thing in the world: but +yesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now I see +so much; and a month hence, I doubt not, I shall wonder who he was +that wrote so many continuous pages. Alas for this infirm faith, this +will not strenuous, this vast ebb of a vast flow! I am God in nature; +I am a weed by the wall. + +The continual effort to raise himself above himself,[699] to work a +pitch above his last height, betrays itself in a man's relations. We +thirst for approbation, yet cannot forgive the approver. The sweet of +nature is love; yet if I have a friend I am tormented by my +imperfections. The love of me accuses the other party. If he were high +enough[700] to slight me, then could I love him, and rise by my +affection to new heights. A man's growth is seen in the successive +choirs of his friends. For every friend whom he loses for truth, he +gains a better. I thought as I walked in the woods and mused on any +friends, why should I play with them this game of idolatry? I know and +see too well, when not voluntarily blind, the speedy limits of persons +called high and worthy. Rich, noble and great they are by the +liberality of our speech, but truth is sad. O blessed Spirit, whom I +forsake for these, they are not thee! Every personal consideration +that we allow costs us heavenly state. We sell the thrones of angels +for a short and turbulent pleasure. + +How often must we learn this lesson? Men cease to interest us when we +find their limitations. The only sin is limitation. As soon as you +once come up with a man's limitations, it is all over with him. Has +he talents? has he enterprises? has he knowledge? It boots not. +Infinitely alluring and attractive was he to you yesterday, a great +hope, a sea to swim in; now, you have found his shores, found it a +pond, and you care not if you never see it again. + +Each new step we take in thought reconciles twenty seemingly +discordant facts, as expressions of one law. Aristotle and Plato[701] +are reckoned the respective heads of two schools. A wise man will see +that Aristotle platonizes. By going one step farther back in thought, +discordant opinions are reconciled by being seen to be two extremes of +one principle, and we can never go so far back as to preclude a still +higher vision. + +Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then +all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out +in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. +There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; +there is not any literary reputation, not the so-called eternal names +of fame, that may not be revised and condemned. The very hopes of man, +the thoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and +morals of mankind are all at the mercy of a new generalization. +Generalization is always a new influx of the divinity into the mind. +Hence the thrill that attends it. + +Valor consists in the power of self-recovery, so that a man cannot +have his flank turned, cannot be out-generalled, but put him where you +will, he stands. This can only be by his preferring truth to his past +apprehension of truth, and his alert acceptance of it from whatever +quarter; the intrepid conviction that his laws, his relations to +society, his Christianity, his world, may at any time be superseded +and decease. + +There are degrees in idealism. We learn first to play with it +academically, as the magnet was once a toy. Then we see in the heyday +of youth and poetry that it may be true, that it is true in gleams and +fragments. Then, its countenance waxes stern and grand, and we see +that it must be true. It now shows itself ethical and practical. We +learn that God is; that he is in me; and that all things are shadows +of him. The idealism of Berkeley[702] is only a crude statement of the +idealism of Jesus, and that again is a crude statement of the fact +that all nature is the rapid efflux of goodness executing and +organizing itself. Much more obviously is history and the state of the +world at any one time directly dependent on the intellectual +classification then existing in the minds of men. The things which are +dear to men at this hour are so on account of the ideas which have +emerged on their mental horizon, and which cause the present order of +things, as a tree bears its apples. A new degree of culture would +instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits. + +Conversation is a game of circles. In conversation we pluck up the +_termini_[703] which bound the common of silence on every side. The +parties are not to be judged by the spirit they partake and even +express under this Pentecost.[704] To-morrow they will have receded +from this high-water mark. To-morrow you shall find them stooping +under the old pack-saddles. Yet let us enjoy the cloven flame whilst +it glows on our walls. When each new speaker strikes a new light, +emancipates us from the oppression of the last speaker to oppress us +with the greatness and exclusiveness of his own thought, then yields +us to another redeemer, we seem to recover our rights, to become men. +O, what truths profound and executable only in ages and orbs, are +supposed in the announcement of every truth! In common hours, society +sits cold and statuesque. We all stand waiting, empty,--knowing, +possibly, that we can be full, surrounded by mighty symbols which are +not symbols to us, but prose and trivial toys. Then cometh the god and +converts the statues into fiery men, and by a flash of his eye burns +up the veil which shrouded all things, and the meaning of the very +furniture, of cup and saucer, of chair and clock and tester, is +manifest. The facts which loomed so large in the fogs of +yesterday,--property, climate, breeding, personal beauty and the like, +have strangely changed their proportions. All that we reckoned settled +shakes and rattles; and literatures, cities, climates, religions, +leave their foundations and dance before our eyes. And yet here again +see the swift circumscription! Good as is discourse, silence is +better, and shames it. The length of the discourse indicates the +distance of thought betwixt the speaker and the hearer. If they were +at a perfect understanding in any part, no words would be necessary +thereon. If at one in all parts, no words would be suffered. + +Literature is a point outside of our hodiernal[705] circle through +which a new one may be described. The use of literature is to afford +us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a +purchase by which we may move it. We fill ourselves with ancient +learning, install ourselves the best we can in Greek, in Punic,[706] +in Roman houses, only that we may wiselier see French, English and +American houses and modes of living. In like manner[707] we see +literature best from the midst of wild nature, or from the din of +affairs, or from a high religion. The field cannot be well seen from +within the field. The astronomer must have his diameter of the earth's +orbit as a base to find the parallax of any star. + +Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is +not in the encyclopædia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body +of Divinity, but in the sonnet or the play. In my daily work I incline +to repeat my old steps, and do not believe in remedial force, in the +power of change and reform. But some Petrarch[708] or Ariosto,[709] +filled with the new wine of his imagination, writes me an ode or a +brisk romance, full of daring thought and action. He smites and +arouses me with his shrill tones, breaks up my whole chain of habits, +and I open my eye on my own possibilities. He claps wings to the sides +of all the solid old lumber of the world, and I am capable once more +of choosing a straight path in theory and practice. + +We have the same need to command a view of the religion of the world. +We can never see Christianity from the catechism:--from the pastures, +from a boat in the pond, from amidst the songs of wood-birds we +possibly may. Cleansed by the elemental light and wind, steeped in the +sea of beautiful forms which the field offers us, we may chance to +cast a right glance back upon biography. Christianity is rightly dear +to the best of mankind; yet was there never a young philosopher whose +breeding had fallen into the Christian church by whom that brave text +of Paul's was not specially prized, "Then shall also the Son be +subject unto Him who put all things under him, that God may be all in +all."[710] Let the claims and virtues of persons be never so great and +welcome, the instinct of man presses eagerly onward to the impersonal +and illimitable, and gladly arms itself against the dogmatism of +bigots with this generous word out of the book itself. + +The natural world may be conceived of as a system of concentric +circles, and we now and then detect in nature slight dislocations +which apprize us that this surface on which we now stand is not fixed, +but sliding. These manifold tenacious qualities,[711] this chemistry +and vegetation, these metals and animals, which seem to stand there +for their own sake, are means and methods only, are words of God, and +as fugitive as other words. Has the naturalist or chemist learned his +craft, who has explored the gravity of atoms and the elective +affinities, who has not yet discerned the deeper law whereof this is +only a partial or approximate statement, namely that like draws to +like, and that the goods which belong to you gravitate to you and need +not be pursued with pains and cost? Yet is that statement approximate +also, and not final. Omnipresence is a higher fact. Not through subtle +subterranean channels need friend and fact be drawn to their +counterpart, but, rightly considered, these things proceed from the +eternal generation of the soul. Cause and effect are two sides of one +fact. + +The same law of eternal procession ranges all that we call the +virtues, and extinguishes each in the light of a better. The great man +will not be prudent in the popular sense; all his prudence will be so +much deduction from his grandeur. But it behooves each to see, when he +sacrifices prudence, to what god he devotes it; if to ease and +pleasure, he had better be prudent still; if to a great trust, he can +well spare his mule and panniers who has a winged chariot instead. +Geoffrey draws on his boots to go through the woods, that his feet may +be safer from the bite of snakes; Aaron never thinks of such a peril. +In many years neither is harmed by such an accident. Yet it seems to +me that with every precaution you take against such an evil you put +yourself into the power of the evil. I suppose that the highest +prudence is the lowest prudence. Is this too sudden a rushing from +the centre to the verge of our orbit? Think how many times we shall +fall back into pitiful calculations before we take up our rest in the +great sentiment, or make the verge of to-day the new centre. Besides, +your bravest sentiment is familiar to the humblest men. The poor and +the low have their way of expressing the last facts of philosophy as +well as you. "Blessed be nothing" and "The worse things are, the +better they are" are proverbs which express the transcendentalism of +common life. + +One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's +ugliness; one man's wisdom another's folly; as one beholds the same +objects from a higher point of view. One man thinks justice consists +in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who +is very remiss in this duty and makes the creditor wait tediously. But +that second man has his own way of looking at things; asks himself +which debt must I pay first, the debt to the rich, or the debt to the +poor? the debt of money, or the debt of thought to mankind, of genius +to nature? For you, O broker, there is no other principle but +arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth +of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I +detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my +forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. Let me live onward; you +shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will +liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a +man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this be +injustice? Owes he no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be +postponed to a landlord's or a banker's? + +There is no virtue which is final; all are initial. The virtues of +society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery +that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed +such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices. + + Forgive his crimes, forgive his virtues too, + Those smaller faults, half converts to the right.[712] + +It is the highest power of divine moments that they abolish our +contritions also. I accuse myself of sloth and unprofitableness day by +day; but when these waves of God flow into me I no longer reckon lost +time. I no longer poorly compute my possible achievement by what +remains to me of the month or the year; for these moments confer a +sort of omnipresence and omnipotence which asks nothing of duration, +but sees that the energy of the mind is commensurate with the work to +be done, without time. + +And thus, O circular philosopher, I hear some reader exclaim, you have +arrived at a fine pyrrhonism,[713] at an equivalence and indifferency +of all actions, and would fain teach us that _if we are true_, +forsooth, our crimes may be lively stones out of which we shall +construct the temple of the true God. + +I am not careful to justify myself. I own I am gladdened[714] by +seeing the predominance of the saccharine principle throughout +vegetable nature, and not less by beholding in morals that +unrestrained inundation of the principle of good into every chink and +hole that selfishness has left open, yea into selfishness and sin +itself; so that no evil is pure, nor hell itself without its extreme +satisfactions. But lest I should mislead any when I have my own head +and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an +experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least +discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as +true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none +are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no Past at my +back. + +Yet this incessant movement and progression which all things partake +could never become sensible to us but by contrast to some principle of +fixture or stability in the soul. Whilst the eternal generation of +circles proceeds, the eternal generator abides. That central life is +somewhat superior to creation, superior to knowledge and thought, and +contains all its circles. For ever it labors to create a life and +thought as large and excellent as itself; but in vain; for that which +is made instructs how to make a better. + +Thus there is no sleep, no pause, no preservation, but all things +renew, germinate and spring. Why should we import rags and relics into +the new hour? Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only +disease: all others run into this one. We call it by many +names,--fever, intemperance, insanity, stupidity and crime: they are +all forms of old age: they are rest, conservatism, appropriation, +inertia; not newness, not the way onward. We grizzle every day. I see +no need of it. Whilst we converse with what is above us, we do not +grow old, but grow young. Infancy, youth, receptive, aspiring, with +religious eye looking upward, counts itself nothing and abandons +itself to the instruction flowing from all sides. But the man and +woman of seventy assume to know all; throw up their hope; renounce +aspiration; accept the actual for the necessary and talk down to the +young. Let them then become organs of the Holy Ghost; let them be +lovers; let them behold truth; and their eyes are uplifted, their +wrinkles smoothed, they are perfumed again with hope and power. This +old age ought not to creep on a human mind. In nature every moment is +new; the past is always swallowed and forgotten; the coming only is +sacred. Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit. +No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher +love. No truth so sublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light +of new thoughts. People wish to be settled: only as far as they are +unsettled is there any hope for them. + +Life is a series of surprises. We do not guess to-day the mood, the +pleasure, the power of to-morrow, when we are building up our being. +Of lower states,--of acts of routine and sense, we can tell somewhat, +but the masterpieces of God, the total growths and universal movements +of the soul, he hideth; they are incalculable. I can know that truth +is divine and helpful; but how it shall help me I can have no guess, +for _so to be_ is the sole inlet of _so to know_. The new position of +the advancing man has all the powers of the old, yet has them all new. +It carries in its bosom all the energies of the past, yet is itself an +exhalation of the morning. I cast away in this new moment all my once +hoarded knowledge, as vacant and vain. Now for the first time seem I +to know any thing rightly. The simplest words,--we do not know what +they mean except when we love and aspire. + +The difference between talents and character is adroitness to keep the +old and trodden round, and power and courage to make a new road to new +and better goals. Character makes an overpowering present, a cheerful, +determined hour, which fortifies all the company by making them see +that much is possible and excellent that was not thought of. Character +dulls the impression of particular events. When we see the conqueror +we do not think much of any one battle or success. We see that we had +exaggerated the difficulty. It was easy to him. The great man is not +convulsible or tormentable. He is so much that events pass over him +without much impression. People say sometimes, "See what I have +overcome; see how cheerful I am; see how completely I have triumphed +over these black events." Not if they still remind me of the black +event,--they have not yet conquered. Is it conquest to be a gay and +decorated sepulchre, or a half-crazed widow, hysterically laughing? +True conquest is the causing the black event to fade and disappear as +an early cloud of insignificant result in a history so large and +advancing. + +The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget +ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our +sempiternal[715] memory and to do something without knowing how or +why; in short to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved +without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful. It is by +abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of +performance through the strength of ideas, as the works of genius and +religion. "A man," said Oliver Cromwell,[716] "never rises so high as +when he knows not whither he is going." Dreams and drunkenness, the +use of opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this +oracular genius, and hence their dangerous attraction for men. For the +like reason they ask the aid of wild passions, as in the gaming and +war, ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart. + + + + +NOTES + +THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR + + +[Footnote 1: Games of strength. The public games of Greece were +athletic and intellectual contests of various kinds. There were four +of importance: the Olympic, held every four years; the Pythian, held +every third Olympic year; and the Nemean and Isthmian, held alternate +years between the Olympic periods. These great national festivals +exercised a strong influence in Greece. They were a secure bond of +union between the numerous independent states and did much to help the +nation to repel its foreign invaders. In Greece the accomplished +athlete was reverenced almost as a god, and cases have been recorded +where altars were erected and sacrifices made in his honor. The +extreme care and cultivation of the body induced by this national +spirit is one of the most significant features of Greek culture, and +one which might wisely be imitated in the modern world.] + +[Footnote 2: Troubadours. In southern France during the eleventh +century, wandering poets went from castle to castle reciting or +singing love-songs, composed in the old Provençal dialect, a sort of +vulgarized Latin. The life in the great feudal chateaux was so dull +that the lords and ladies seized with avidity any amusement which +promised to while away an idle hour. The troubadours were made much of +and became a strong element in the development of the Southern spirit. +So-called Courts of Love were formed where questions of an amorous +nature were discussed in all their bearings; learned opinions were +expressed on the most trivial matters, and offenses were tried. + +Some of the Provençal poetry is of the highest artistic significance, +though the mass of it is worthless high-flown trash.] + +[Footnote 3: At the time this oration was delivered (1837), many of +the authors who have since given America a place in the world's +literature were young men writing their first books. "We were," says +James Russell Lowell, "still socially and intellectually moored to +English thought, till Emerson cut the cable and gave us a chance at +the dangers and glories of blue water."] + +[Footnote 4: Pole-star. Polaris is now the nearest conspicuous star to +the north pole of the celestial equator. Owing to the motion of the +pole of the celestial equator around that of the ecliptic, this star +will in course of time recede from its proud position, and the +brilliant star Vega in the constellation Harp will become the +pole-star.] + +[Footnote 5: It is now a well-recognized fact in the development of +animal life that as any part of the body falls into disuse it in time +disappears. Good examples of this are the disappearance of powerful +fangs from the mouth of man, the loss of power in the wings of +barnyard fowls; and, _vice versa_, as new uses for a member arise, its +structure changes to meet the new needs. An example of this is the +transformation from the hoof of a horse through the cloven hoofs of +the cow to the eventual development of highly expert fingers in the +monkey and man. Emerson assumed the doctrine of evolution to be +sufficiently established by the anatomical evidence of gradual +development. In his own words: "Man is no up-start in the creation. +His limbs are only a more exquisite organization--say rather the +finish--of the rudimental forms that have been already sweeping the +sea and creeping in the mud. The brother of his hand is even now +cleaving the arctic sea in the fin of the whale, and innumerable ages +since was pawing the marsh in the flipper of the saurian." A view +afterwards condensed into his memorable couplet: + + "Striving to be man, the worm + Mounts through all the spires of form." +] + +[Footnote 6: Stint. A prescribed or allotted task, a share of labor.] + +[Footnote 7: Ridden. Here used in the sense of dominated.] + +[Footnote 8: Monitory pictures. Instructive warning pictures.] + +[Footnote 9: The Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus is the author of +this saying, not "the old oracle." It occurs in the Encheiridion, or +manual, a work put together by a pupil of Epictetus. The original +saying of Epictetus is as follows: "Every thing has two handles, the +one by which it may be borne, the other by which it may not. If your +brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold of the act by that handle +wherein he acts unjustly, for this is the handle which cannot be +borne: but lay hold of the other, that he is your brother, that he was +nurtured with you, and you will lay hold of the thing by that handle +by which it can be borne."] + +[Footnote 10: Every day, the sun (shines).] + +[Footnote 11: Beholden. Emerson here uses this past participle with +its original meaning instead of in its present sense of "indebted."] + +[Footnote 12: Here we have a reminder of Emerson's pantheism. He means +the inexplicable continuity "of what I call God, and fools nature," as +Browning expressed it.] + +[Footnote 13: His expanding knowledge will become a creator.] + +[Footnote 14: Know thyself. Plutarch ascribes this saying to Plato. It +is also ascribed to Pythagoras, Chilo, Thales, Cleobulus, Bias, and +Socrates; also to Phemonië, a mythical Greek poetess of the +ante-Homeric period. Juvenal (Satire XI. 27) says that this precept +descended from heaven. "Know thyself" and "Nothing too much" were +inscribed upon the Delphic oracle. + + "Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; + The proper study of mankind is man." + +] + +[Footnote 15: Observe the brisk movement of these sentences. How they +catch and hold the attention, giving a new impulse to the reader's +interest!] + +[Footnote 16: Nature abhors a vacuum.] + +[Footnote 17: Noxious. Harmful.] + +[Footnote 18: John Locke (1632-1704), an English philosopher whose +work was of especial significance in the development of modern +philosophy. The work he is best known by is the exhaustive "Essay on +the Human Understanding," in which he combated the theory of +Descartes, that every man has certain "innate ideas." The innate-idea +theory was first proved by the philosopher Descartes in this way. +Descartes began his speculations from a standpoint of absolute doubt. +Then he said, "I think, therefore I am," and from this formula he +built up a number of ideas innate to the human mind, ideas which we +cannot but hold. Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding" did much +to discredit Descartes' innate ideas, which had been very generally +accepted in Europe before.] + +[Footnote 19: Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount Saint Alban's +(1561-1626), a famous English statesman and philosopher. He occupied +high public offices, but in 1621 was convicted of taking bribes in his +office of Lord Chancellor. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to +imprisonment and a fine of forty thousand pounds. Both these sentences +were remitted, however. In the seventeenth century, judicial +corruption was so common that Bacon's offence was not considered so +gross as it would now be. As a philosopher Bacon's rank has been much +disputed. While some claim that to his improved method of studying +nature are chiefly to be attributed the prodigious strides taken by +modern science, others deny him all merit in this respect. His best +known works are: "The Novum Organum," a philosophical treatise; "The +Advancement of Learning," a remarkable argument in favor of +scholarship; and the short essays on subjects of common interest, +usually printed under the simple title "Bacon's Essays."] + +[Footnote 20: Third Estate. The thirteenth century was the age when +the national assemblies of most European countries were putting on +their definite shape. In most of them the system of _estates_ +prevailed. These in most countries were three--nobles, clergy, and +commons, the commons being the third estate. During the French +Revolution the Third Estate, or Tiers Etat, asserted its rights and +became a powerful factor in French politics, choosing its own leaders +and effecting the downfall of its oppressors.] + +[Footnote 21: Restorers of readings. Men who spend their lives trying +to improve and correct the texts of classical authors, by comparing +the old editions with each other and picking out the version which +seem most in accordance with the authors' original work.] + +[Footnote 22: Emendators. The same as restorers of readings.] + +[Footnote 23: Bibliomaniacs. Men with a mania for collecting rare and +beautiful books. Not a bad sort of mania, though Emerson never had any +sympathy for it.] + +[Footnote 24: To many readers Emerson's own works richly fulfill this +obligation. He himself lived continually in such a lofty mental +atmosphere that no one can come within the circle of his influence +without being stimulated and elevated.] + +[Footnote 25: Genius, the possession of a thoroughly active soul, +ought not to be the special privilege of favorites of fortune, but the +right of every sound man.] + +[Footnote 26: They stunt my mental growth. A man should not accept +another man's conclusions, but merely use them as steps on his upward +path.] + +[Footnote 27: If you do not employ such talent as you have in original +labor, in bearing the mental fruit of which you are capable, then you +do not vindicate your claim to a share in the divine nature.] + +[Footnote 28: Disservice. Injury.] + +[Footnote 29: In original composition of any sort our efforts +naturally flow in the channels worn for us by the first dominating +streams of early genius. The conventional is the continual foe of all +true art.] + +[Footnote 30: Emerson is continually stimulating us to look at things +in new ways. Here, for instance, at once the thought comes: "Is it not +perhaps possible that the transcendent genius of Shakespeare has been +rather noxious than beneficent in its influence on the mind of the +world? Has not the all-pervading Shakespearian influence flooded and +drowned out a great deal of original genius?"] + +[Footnote 31: That is,--when in his clear, seeing moments he can +distil some drops of truth from the world about him, let him not waste +his time in studying other men's records of what they have seen.] + +[Footnote 32: While Emerson's verse is frequently unmusical, in his +prose we often find passages like this instinct with the fairest +poetry.] + +[Footnote 33: Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400). The father of English +poetry. Chaucer's chief work is the "Canterbury Tales," a series of +stories told by pilgrims traveling in company to Canterbury. +Coleridge, the poet, wrote of Chaucer: "I take unceasing delight in +Chaucer; his manly cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my +old age. How exquisitely tender he is, yet how free from the least +touch of sickly melancholy or morbid drooping." Chaucer's poetry is +above all things fresh. It breathes of the morning of literature. Like +Homer he had at his command all the riches of a new language undefiled +by usage from which to choose. + + "Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, + On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled." + +] + +[Footnote 34: Andrew Marvell (1620-1678). An eminent English patriot +and satirist. As a writer he is chiefly known by his "Rehearsal +Transposed," written in answer to a fanatical defender of absolute +power. When a young man he was assistant to the poet Milton, who was +then Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell. Marvell's wit and +distinguished abilities rendered him formidable to the corrupt +administration of Charles II., who attempted without success to buy +his friendship. Emerson's literary perspective is a bit unusual when +he speaks of Marvell as "one of the great English poets." Marvell +hardly ranks with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton.] + +[Footnote 35: John Dryden (1631-1700). A celebrated English poet. +Early in life he wrote almost entirely for the stage and achieved +great success. In the latter part of his life, however, according to +Macaulay, he "turned his powers in a new direction with success the +most splendid and decisive. The first rank in poetry was beyond his +reach, but he secured the most honorable place in the second.... With +him died the secret of the old poetical diction of England,--the art +of producing rich effects by familiar words."] + +[Footnote 36: Plato (429-347 B.C.). One of the most illustrious +philosophers of all time. Probably no other philosopher has +contributed so much as Plato to the moral and intellectual training of +the human race. This pre-eminence is due not solely to his +transcendent intellect, but also in no small measure to his poetic +power and to that unrivaled grace of style which led the ancients to +say that if Jove should speak Greek he would speak like Plato. He was +a remarkable example of that universal culture of body and mind which +characterized the last period of ancient Greece. He was proficient in +every branch of art and learning and was such a brilliant athlete that +he contended in the Isthmian and Pythian games.] + +[Footnote 37: Gowns. The black gown worn occasionally in America and +always in England at the universities; the distinctive academic dress +is a cap and gown.] + +[Footnote 38: Pecuniary foundations. Gifts of money for the support of +institutions of learning.] + +[Footnote 39: Wit is here used in its early sense of intellect, good +understanding.] + +[Footnote 40: Valetudinarian. A person of a weak, sickly +constitution.] + +[Footnote 41: Mincing. Affected.] + +[Footnote 42: Preamble. A preface or introduction.] + +[Footnote 43: Dumb abyss. That vast immensity of the universe about us +which we can never understand.] + +[Footnote 44: I comprehend its laws; I lose my fear of it.] + +[Footnote 45: Silkworms feed on mulberry-leaves. Emerson describes +what science calls "unconscious cerebration."] + +[Footnote 46: Ripe fruit. Emerson's ripe fruit found its way into his +diary, where it lay until he needed it in the preparation of some +lecture or essay.] + +[Footnote 47: I. Corinthians xv. 53.] + +[Footnote 48: Empyrean. The region of pure light and fire; the ninth +heaven of ancient astronomy. + + "The deep-domed empyrean + Rings to the roar of an angel onset." + +] + +[Footnote 49: Ferules. According to the methods of education fifty +years ago, it was quite customary for the teacher to punish a +school-child with his ferule or ruler.] + +[Footnote 50: Oliver Wendell Holmes cites this last sentence as the +most extreme development of the distinctively Emersonian style. Such +things must be read not too literally but rapidly, with alert +attention to what the previous train of thought has been.] + +[Footnote 51: Savoyards. The people of Savoy, south of Lake Geneva in +Switzerland.] + +[Footnote 52: Emerson's style is characterized by the frequent use of +pithy epigrams like this.] + +[Footnote 53: Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). A great English +philosopher and mathematician. He is famous as having discovered the +law of gravitation.] + +[Footnote 54: Unhandselled. Uncultivated, without natural advantages. +A handsel is a gift.] + +[Footnote 55: Druids. The ancient priesthood of the Britons in Cæsar's +time. They had immense power among these primitive peoples. They were +the judges as well as the priests and decided all questions. It is +believed that they made human sacrifices to their gods in the depths +of the primeval forest, but not much is known of their rites.] + +[Footnote 56: Berserkers. Berserker was a redoubtable hero in +Scandinavian mythology, the grandson of the eight-handed Starkodder +and the beautiful Alfhilde. He had twelve sons who inherited the +wild-battle frenzy, or berserker rage. The sagas, the great +Scandinavian epics, are full of stories of heroes who are seized with +this fierce longing for battle, murder, and sudden death. The name +means bear-shirt and has been connected with the old _were-wolf_ +tradition, the myth that certain people were able to change into +man-devouring wolves with a wolfish mad desire to rend and kill.] + +[Footnote 57: Alfred, surnamed the Great (848-901), king of the West +Saxons in England. When he ascended the throne his country was in a +deplorable condition from the repeated inroads of northern invaders. +He eventually drove them out and established a secure government. +England owes much to the efforts of Alfred. He not only fought his +country's battles, but also founded schools, translated Latin books +into his native tongue, and did much for the intellectual improvement +of his people.] + +[Footnote 58: The hoe and the spade. "In spite of Emerson's habit of +introducing the names of agricultural objects into his writing ('Hay, +corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool, and wood' is a line from one of +his poems), his familiarity therewith is evidently not so great as he +would lead one to imagine. 'Take care, papa,' cried his little son, +seeing him at work with a spade, 'you will dig your leg.'"] + +[Footnote 59: John Flamsteed (1646-1719). An eminent English +astronomer. He appears to have been the first to understand the theory +of the equation of time. He passed his life in patient observation and +determined the position of 2884 stars.] + +[Footnote 60: Sir William Herschel (1738-1822). One of the greatest +astronomers that any age or nation has produced. Brought up to the +profession of music, it was not until he was thirty years old that he +turned his attention to astronomy. By rigid economy he obtained a +telescope, and in 1781 discovered the planet Uranus. This great +discovery gave him great fame and other substantial advantages. He was +made private astronomer to the king and received a pension. His +discoveries were so far in advance of his time, they had so little +relation with those of his predecessors, that he may almost be said +to have created a new science by revealing the immensity of the scale +on which the universe is constructed.] + +[Footnote 61: Nebulous. In astronomy a nebula is a luminous patch in +the heavens far beyond the solar system, composed of a mass of stars +or condensed gases.] + +[Footnote 62: Fetich. The word seems to have been applied by +Portuguese sailors and traders on the west coast of Africa to objects +worshiped by the natives, which were regarded as charms or talismans. +Of course the word here means an object of blind admiration and +devotion.] + +[Footnote 63: Cry up, to praise, extol.] + +[Footnote 64: Ancient and honorable. Isaiah ix. 15.] + +[Footnote 65: Complement. What is needed to complete or fill up some +quantity or thing.] + +[Footnote 66: Signet. Seal. Emerson is not always felicitous in his +choice of metaphors.] + +[Footnote 67: Macdonald. In Cervantes' "Don Quixote," Sancho Panza, +the squire to the "knight of the metaphysical countenance," tells a +story of a gentleman who had asked a countryman to dine with him. The +farmer was pressed to take his seat at the head of the table, and when +he refused out of politeness to his host, the latter became impatient +and cried: "Sit there, clod-pate, for let me sit wherever I will, that +will still be the upper end, and the place of worship to thee." This +saying is commonly attributed to Rob Roy, but Emerson with his usual +inaccuracy in such matters places it in the mouth of Macdonald,--which +Macdonald is uncertain.] + +[Footnote 68: Carolus Linnæus (1707-1778). A great Swedish botanist. +He did much to make botany the orderly science it now is.] + +[Footnote 69: Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829). The most famous of English +chemists. The most important to mankind of his many discoveries was +the safety-lamp to be used in mines where there is danger of explosion +from fire-damp.] + +[Footnote 70: Baron George Cuvier (1769-1832). An illustrious French +philosopher, statesman, and writer who made many discoveries in the +realm of natural history, geology and philosophy.] + +[Footnote 71: The moon. The tides are caused by the attraction of the +moon and the sun. The attraction of the moon for the water nearest the +moon is somewhat greater than the attraction of the earth's center. +This causes a slight bulging of the water toward the moon and a +consequent high tide.] + +[Footnote 72: Emerson frequently omits the principal verb of his +sentences as here: "In a century _there may exist_ one or two men."] + +[Footnote 73: This obscurely constructed sentence means: "For their +acquiescence in a political and social inferiority the poor and low +find some compensation in the immense moral capacity thereby gained."] + +[Footnote 74: "They" refers to the hero or poet mentioned some twenty +lines back.] + +[Footnote 75: Comprehendeth. Here used in the original sense _to +include_. The perfect man should be so thoroughly developed at every +point that he will possess a share in the nature of every man.] + +[Footnote 76: By the Classic age is generally meant the age of Greece +and Rome; and by the Romantic is meant the middle ages.] + +[Footnote 77: Introversion. Introspection is the more usual word to +express the analytic self-searching so common in these days.] + +[Footnote 78: Second thoughts. Emerson uses the word here in the same +sense as the French _arrière-pensée_, a mental reservation.] + +[Footnote 79: + + "And thus the native hue of resolution + Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." + _Hamlet_, Act III, Sc. 1. + +] + +[Footnote 80: Movement. The French Revolution.] + +[Footnote 81: Let every common object be credited with the diviner +attributes which will class it among others of the same importance.] + +[Footnote 82: Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774). An eminent English poet +and writer. He is best known by the comedy "She Stoops to Conquer," +the poem "The Deserted Village," and the "Vicar of Wakefield." "Of all +romances in miniature," says Schlegel, the great German critic, "the +'Vicar of Wakefield' is the most exquisite." It is probably the most +popular English work of fiction in Germany.] + +[Footnote 83: Robert Burns (1759-1796). A celebrated Scottish poet. +The most striking characteristics of Burns' poetry are simplicity and +intensity, in which he is scarcely, if at all, inferior to any of the +greatest poets that have ever lived.] + +[Footnote 84: William Cowper (1731-1800). One of the most popular of +English poets. His poem "The Task" was probably more read in his day +than any poem of equal length in the language. Cowper also made an +excellent translation of Homer.] + +[Footnote 85: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). The most +illustrious name in German literature; a great poet, dramatist, +novelist, philosopher, and critic. The Germans regard Goethe with the +same veneration we accord to Shakespeare. The colossal drama "Faust" +is the most splendid product of his genius, though he wrote a large +number of other plays and poems.] + +[Footnote 86: William Wordsworth (1770-1850). By many considered the +greatest of modern English poets. His descriptions of the ever-varying +moods of nature are the most exquisite in the language. Matthew Arnold +in his essay on Emerson says: "As Wordsworth's poetry is, in my +judgment, the most important work done in verse in our language during +the present century, so Emerson's 'Essays' are, I think, the most +important work done in prose."] + +[Footnote 87: Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). A famous English essayist, +historian, and speculative philosopher. It is scarcely too much to say +that no other author of this century has exerted a greater influence +not merely upon the literature but upon the mind of the English nation +than Carlyle. Emerson was an intimate friend of Carlyle, and during +the greater part of his life maintained a correspondence with the +great Englishman. An interesting description of their meeting will be +found among the "Critical Opinions" at the beginning of the work.] + +[Footnote 88: Alexander Pope (1688-1744). The author of the "Essay on +Criticism," "Rape of the Lock," the "Essay on Man," and other famous +poems. Pope possessed little originality or creative imagination, but +he had a vivid sense of the beautiful and an exquisite taste. He owed +much of his popularity to the easy harmony of his verse and the +keenness of his satire.] + +[Footnote 89: Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). One of the eminent writers +of the eighteenth century. He wrote "Lives of the Poets," poems, and +probably the most remarkable work of the kind ever produced by a +single person, an English dictionary.] + +[Footnote 90: Edward Gibbon (1737-1794). One of the most distinguished +of English historians. His great work is the "Decline and Fall of the +Roman Empire." Carlyle called Gibbon, "the splendid bridge from the +old world to the new."] + +[Footnote 91: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). A great Swedish +theologian, naturalist, and mathematician, and the founder of a +religious sect which has since his death become prominent among the +philosophical schools of Christianity.] + +[Footnote 92: Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827). A Swiss teacher +and educational reformer of great influence in his time.] + + +COMPENSATION + +[Footnote 93: These lines are printed under the title of +_Compensation_ in Emerson's collected poems. He has also another poem +of eight lines with the same title.] + +[Footnote 94: Documents, data, facts.] + +[Footnote 95: This doctrine, which a little observation would confute, +is still taught by some.] + +[Footnote 96: Doubloons, Spanish and South American gold coins of the +value of about $15.60 each.] + +[Footnote 97: Polarity, that quality or condition of a body by virtue +of which it exhibits opposite or contrasted properties in opposite or +contrasted directions.] + +[Footnote 98: Systole and diastole, the contraction and dilation of +the heart and arteries.] + +[Footnote 99: They are increased and consequently want more.] + +[Footnote 100: Intenerate, soften.] + +[Footnote 101: White House, the popular name of the presidential +mansion at Washington.] + +[Footnote 102: Explain the phrase _eat dust_.] + +[Footnote 103: Overlook, oversee, superintend.] + +[Footnote 104: Res nolunt, etc. Translated in the previous sentence.] + +[Footnote 105: The world ... dew. Explain the thought. What gives the +earth its shape?] + +[Footnote 106: The microscope ... little. This statement is not in +accordance with the facts, if we are to understand _perfect_ in the +sense which the next sentence would suggest.] + +[Footnote 107: Emerson has been considered a pantheist.] + +[Footnote 108: _[Greek: Hoi kyboi]_, etc. The translation follows in +the text. This old proverb is quoted by Sophocles, (Fragm. LXXIV.2) in +the form: + + [Greek: Aei gar eu piptousin oi Dios kyboi], + +Emerson uses it in _Nature_ in the form "Nature's dice are always +loaded."] + +[Footnote 109: Amain, with full force, vigorously.] + +[Footnote 110: The proverb is quoted by Horace, Epistles, I, X.24: + + "Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret." + +A similar thought is expressed by Juvenal, Seneca, Cicero, and +Aristophanes.] + +[Footnote 111: Augustine, Confessions, B. I.] + +[Footnote 112: Jupiter, the supreme god of the Romans, the Zeus of the +Greeks.] + +[Footnote 113: Tying up the hands. The expression is used +figuratively, of course.] + +[Footnote 114: The supreme power in England is vested in Parliament.] + +[Footnote 115: Prometheus stole fire from heaven to benefit the race +of men. In punishment for this Jupiter chained him to a rock and set +an eagle to prey upon his liver. Some unknown and terrible danger +threatened Jupiter, the secret of averting which only Prometheus knew. +For this secret Jupiter offered him his freedom.] + +[Footnote 116: Minerva, goddess of wisdom, who sprang full-armed from +the brain of Jupiter. The secret which she held is told in the +following lines.] + +[Footnote 117: Aurora, goddess of the dawn. Enamored of Tithonus, she +persuaded Jupiter to grant him immortality, but forgot to ask for him +immortal youth. Read Tennyson's poem on _Tithonus_.] + +[Footnote 118: Achilles, the hero of Homer's _Iliad_. His mother +Thetis, to render him invulnerable, plunged him into the waters of the +Styx. The heel by which she held him was not washed by the waters and +remained vulnerable. Here he received a mortal wound.] + +[Footnote 119: Siegfried, hero of the Nibelungenlied, the old German +epic poem. Having slain a dragon, he bathed in its blood and became +covered with an invulnerable horny hide, only one small spot between +his shoulders which was covered by a leaf remaining vulnerable. Into +this spot the treacherous Hagen plunged his lance.] + +[Footnote 120: Nemesis, a Greek female deity, goddess of retribution, +who visited the righteous anger of the gods upon mortals.] + +[Footnote 121: The Furies or Eumenides, stern and inexorable ministers +of the vengeance of the gods.] + +[Footnote 122: Ajax and Hector, Greek and Trojan heroes in the Trojan +War. See Homer's _Iliad_. Achilles slew Hector and, lashing him to his +chariot with the belt which Ajax had given Hector, dragged him round +the walls of Troy. Ajax committed suicide with the sword which Hector +had presented to him.] + +[Footnote 123: Thasians, inhabitants of the island of Thasus. The +story here told of the rival of the athlete Theagenes is found in +Pausanias' _Description of Greece_, Book VI. chap. XI.] + +[Footnote 124: Shakespeare, the greatest of English writers, seems to +have succeeded entirely or almost entirely in removing the personal +element from his writings.] + +[Footnote 125: Hellenic, Greek.] + +[Footnote 126: Tit for tat, etc. This paragraph is composed of a +series of proverbs.] + +[Footnote 127: Edmund Burke (1729?-1797), illustrious Irish statesman, +orator, and author.] + +[Footnote 128: Pawns, the pieces of lowest rank in chess.] + +[Footnote 129: What is the meaning of _obscene_ here? Compare the +Latin.] + +[Footnote 130: Polycrates, a tyrant of Samos, who was visited with +such remarkable prosperity that he was advised by a friend to break +the course of it by depriving himself of some valued possession. In +accordance with this advice he cast into the sea an emerald ring which +he considered his rarest treasure. A few days later a fisherman +presented the monarch with a large fish inside of which the ring was +found. Soon after this Polycrates fell into the power of an enemy and +was nailed to a cross.] + +[Footnote 131: Scot and lot, "formerly, a parish assessment laid on +subjects according to their ability. Now, a phrase for obligations of +every kind regarded collectively." (Webster.)] + +[Footnote 132: Read Emerson's essay on _Gifts_.] + +[Footnote 133: Worm worms, breed worms.] + +[Footnote 134: Compare the old proverb "Murder will out." See Chaucer, +_N.P.T._, 232 and 237, and _Pr. T._, 124.] + +[Footnote 135: + +"Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum." + HORACE, _EPIST._, I. XVIII. 65. + +] + +[Footnote 136: Stag in the fable. See _Æsop_, LXVI. 184, _Cerva et +Leo_; Phædrus I. 12. _Cervus ad fontem_; La Fontaine, vi. 9, _Le Cerf +se Voyant dans l'eau_.] + +[Footnote 137: See the quotation from St. Bernard farther on.] + +[Footnote 138: Withholden, old participle of _withhold_, now +_withheld_.] + +[Footnote 139: What is the etymology of the word _mob_?] + +[Footnote 140: Optimism and Pessimism. The meanings of these two +opposites are readily made out from the Latin words from which they +come.] + +[Footnote 141: St. Bernard de Clairvaux (1091-1153), French +ecclesiastic.] + +[Footnote 142: Jesus. Holmes writes of Emerson: "Jesus was for him a +divine manifestation, but only as other great human souls have been in +all ages and are to-day. He was willing to be called a Christian just +as he was willing to be called a Platonist.... If he did not worship +the 'man Christ Jesus' as the churches of Christendom have done, he +followed his footsteps so nearly that our good Methodist, Father +Taylor, spoke of him as more like Christ than any man he had known."] + +[Footnote 143: The first _his_ refers to Jesus, the second to +Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 144: Banyan. What is the characteristic of this tree that +makes it appropriate for this figure?] + + +SELF-RELIANCE + +[Footnote 145: Ne te, etc. "Do not seek for anything outside of +thyself." From Persius, _Sat._ I. 7. Compare Macrobius, _Com. in Somn. +Scip._, I. ix. 3, and Boethius, _De Consol. Phil._, IV. 4.] + +[Footnote 146: _Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's +Fortune_.] + +[Footnote 147: These lines appear in Emerson's _Quatrains_ under the +title _Power_.] + +[Footnote 148: Genius. See the paragraph on genius in Emerson's +lecture on _The Method of Nature_, one sentence of which runs: "Genius +is its own end, and draws its means and the style of its architecture +from within, going abroad only for audience, and spectator."] + +[Footnote 149: "The man that stands by himself, the universe stands by +him also."--EMERSON, _Behavior_.] + +[Footnote 150: Plato (429-347 B.C.), (See note 36.)] + +[Footnote 151: Milton (1608-1674), the great English epic poet, author +of _Paradise Lost._ + + "O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies, + O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity, + God-gifted organ-voice of England, + Milton, a name to resound for ages."--TENNYSON. + +] + +[Footnote 152: "The great poet makes feel our own wealth."--EMERSON, +_The Over-Soul_.] + +[Footnote 153: Then most when, most at the time when.] + +[Footnote 154: "The imitator dooms himself to hopeless +mediocrity."--EMERSON, _Address to the Senior Class in Divinity +College, Cambridge_.] + +[Footnote 155: + + "For words, like Nature, half reveal + And half conceal the soul within." + TENNYSON, _In Memoriam_, V. I. + +] + +[Footnote 156: Trust thyself. This is the theme of the present essay, +and is a lesson which Emerson is never tired of teaching. In _The +American Scholar_ he says: + +"In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended." In the essay on +_Greatness_: + +"Self-respect is the early form in which greatness appears.... Stick +to your own.... Follow the path your genius traces like the galaxy of +heaven for you to walk in." + +Carlyle says: + + "The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself." + +] + +[Footnote 157: Chaos ([Greek: Chaos]), the confused, unorganized +condition in which the world was supposed to have existed before it +was reduced to harmony and order; hence, utter confusion and +disorder.] + +[Footnote 158: These, _i.e._, children, babes, and brutes.] + +[Footnote 159: Four or five. Supply the noun.] + +[Footnote 160: Nonchalance, a French word meaning _indifference_, +_coolness_.] + +[Footnote 161: Pit in the playhouse, formerly, the seats on the floor +below the level of the stage. These cheap seats were occupied by a +class who did not hesitate to express their opinions of the +performances.] + +[Footnote 162: Eclat, a French word meaning _brilliancy of success_, +_striking effect_.] + +[Footnote 163: "Lethe, the river of oblivion."--_Paradise Lost_. +Oblivion, forgetfulness.] + +[Footnote 164: Who. What is the construction?] + +[Footnote 165: Nonconformist, one who does not conform to established +usages or opinions. Emerson considers conformity and consistency as +the two terrors that scare us from self-trust. (See note 182.)] + +[Footnote 166: Explore if it be goodness, investigate for himself and +see if it be really goodness. + + "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." + PAUL, _I. Thes._ v. 21. + +] + +[Footnote 167: Suffrage, approval. + + "What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted? + Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just; + And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, + Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted." + SHAKESPEARE, _II. Henry VI._, III. 2. + +] + +[Footnote 168: "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking +makes it so." _Hamlet_, II. 2.] + +[Footnote 169: Barbadoes, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, one of the +Lesser Antilles. The negroes, composing by far the larger part of the +population, were formerly slaves.] + +[Footnote 170: He had rather have his actions ascribed to whim and +caprice than to spend the day in explaining them.] + +[Footnote 171: Diet and bleeding, special diet and medical care, used +figuratively, of course.] + +[Footnote 172: Read Emerson's essay on _Greatness_.] + +[Footnote 173: The precise man, precisely what kind of man.] + +[Footnote 174: "By their fruits ye shall know them."--_Matthew_, vii. +16 and 20.] + +[Footnote 175: With, notwithstanding, in spite of.] + +[Footnote 176: Of the bench, of an impartial judge.] + +[Footnote 177: Bound their eyes with ... handkerchief, in this game of +blindman's-buff.] + +[Footnote 178: "Pin thy faith to no man's sleeve; hast thou not two +eyes of thy own?"--CARLYLE.] + +[Footnote 179: Give examples of men who have been made to feel the +displeasure of the world for their nonconformity.] + +[Footnote 180: "Nihil tam incertum nec tam inæstimabile est quam animi +multitudinis."--LIVY, xxxi. 34. + + "Mobile mutatur semper cum principe vulgus." + CLAUDIANUS, _De IV. Consul. Honorii_, 302. + +] + +[Footnote 181: _The other terror._ The first, conformity, has just +been treated.] + +[Footnote 182: Consistency. Compare, on the other hand, the well-known +saying, "Consistency, thou art a jewel."] + +[Footnote 183: Orbit, course in life.] + +[Footnote 184: Somewhat, something.] + +[Footnote 185: See _Genesis_, xxxix. 12.] + +[Footnote 186: Pythagoras (fl. about 520 B.C.), a Greek philosopher. +His society was scattered and persecuted by the fury of the populace.] + +[Footnote 187: Socrates (470?-399 B.C.), the great Athenian +philosopher, whose teachings are the subject of most of Plato's +writings, was accused of corrupting the youth, and condemned to drink +hemlock.] + +[Footnote 188: Martin Luther (1483-1546) preached against certain +abuses of the Roman Catholic Church and was excommunicated by the +Pope. He became the leader of the Protestant Reformation.] + +[Footnote 189: Copernicus (1473-1543) discovered the error of the old +Ptolemaic system of astronomy and showed that the sun is the centre of +our planetary system. Fearing the persecution of the church, he +hesitated long to publish his discovery, and it was many years after +his death before the world accepted his theory.] + +[Footnote 190: Galileo (1564-1642), the famous Italian astronomer and +physicist, discoverer of the satellites of Jupiter and the rings of +Saturn, was thrown into prison by the Inquisition.] + +[Footnote 191: Sir Isaac Newton. (See note 53.)] + +[Footnote 192: Andes, the great mountain system of South America.] + +[Footnote 193: Himmaleh, Himalaya, the great mountain system of Asia.] + +[Footnote 194: Alexandrian stanza. The Alexandrian line consists of +twelve syllables (iambic hexameter). Neither the acrostic nor the +Alexandrine has the property assigned to it here. A palindrame reads +the same forward as backward, as: + + "Madam, I'm Adam"; + "Signa te signa; temere me tangis et angis"; + +or the inscription on the church of St. Sophia, Constantinople: + + [Greek: "Nipson anomêmata mê monan opsin,"] + +] + +[Footnote 195: The reference is to sailing vessels, of course.] + +[Footnote 196: Scorn eyes, scorn observers.] + +[Footnote 197: Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), +this distinguished statesman and orator. He became very popular as a +statesman and was known as "The Great Commoner."] + +[Footnote 198: Adams. The reference is presumably to Samuel Adams +(1722-1803), a popular leader and orator in the cause of American +freedom. He was a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of +the Declaration of Independence. Emerson may have in mind, however, +John Adams (1735-1826), second president of the United States.] + +[Footnote 199: Spartan. The ancient Spartans were noted for their +courage and fortitude.] + +[Footnote 200: Julius Cæsar (100-44 B.C.), the great Roman general, +statesman, orator, and author.] + +[Footnote 201: St. Anthony (251-356), Egyptian founder of monachism, +the system of monastic seclusion.] + +[Footnote 202: George Fox (1624-1691), English founder of the Society +of Friends or Quakers.] + +[Footnote 203: John Wesley (1703-1791), English founder of the +religious sect known as Methodists.] + +[Footnote 204: Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846), English philanthropist and +abolitionist.] + +[Footnote 205: Scipio (235-184 B.C.), the great Roman general who +defeated Hannibal and decided the fate of Carthage. The quotation is +from _Paradise Lost_, Book IX., line 610.] + +[Footnote 206: In the story of _Abou Hassan_ or _The Sleeper Awakened_ +in the _Arabian Nights_ Abou Hassan awakes and finds himself treated +in every respect as the Caliph Haroun Al-raschid. Shakespeare has made +use of a similar trick in _Taming of the Shrew_, where Christopher Sly +is put to bed drunk in the lord's room and on awaking is treated as a +lord.] + +[Footnote 207: Alfred the Great (849-901), King of the West Saxons. He +was a wise king, a great scholar, and a patron of learning.] + +[Footnote 208: Scanderbeg, George Castriota (1404-1467), an Albanian +chief who embraced Christianity and carried on a successful war +against the Turks.] + +[Footnote 209: Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632), King of Sweden, the hero +of Protestantism in the Thirty Years' War.] + +[Footnote 210: Hieroglyphic, a character in the picture-writing of the +ancient Egyptian priests; hence, hidden sign.] + +[Footnote 211: Parallax, an angle used in astronomy in calculating the +distance of a heavenly body. The parallax decreases as the distance of +the body increases.] + +[Footnote 212: The child has the advantage of the experience of all +his ancestors. Compare Tennyson's line in _Locksley Hall_: + + "I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time." + +] + +[Footnote 213: "Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, +or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded +wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also."--EMERSON, _Introd. to Nature, +Addresses, etc._] + +[Footnote 214: Explain the thought in this sentence.] + +[Footnote 215: Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.] + +[Footnote 216: Agent, active, acting.] + +[Footnote 217: An allusion to the Mohammedan custom of removing the +shoes before entering a mosque.] + +[Footnote 218: Of a truth, men are mystically united; a mystic bond of +brotherhood makes all men one.] + +[Footnote 219: Thor and Woden. Woden or Odin was the chief god of +Scandinavian mythology. Thor, his elder son, was the god of thunder. +From these names come the names of the days Wednesday and Thursday.] + +[Footnote 220: Explain the meaning of this sentence.] + +[Footnote 221: You, or you, addressing different persons.] + +[Footnote 222: "The truth shall make you free."--_John_, viii. 32.] + +[Footnote 223: Antinomianism, the doctrine that the moral law is not +binding under the gospel dispensation, faith alone being necessary to +salvation.] + +[Footnote 224: "There is no sorrow I have thought more about than +that--to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail." + GEORGE ELIOT, _Middlemarch_, lxxvi.] + +[Footnote 225: Explain the use of _it_ in these expressions.] + +[Footnote 226: Stoic, a disciple of the Greek philosopher Zeno, who +taught that men should be free from passion, unmoved by joy and grief, +and should submit without complaint to the inevitable.] + +[Footnote 227: Word made flesh, see _John_, i. 14.] + +[Footnote 228: Healing to the nations, see _Revelation_, xxii. 2.] + +[Footnote 229: In what prayers do men allow themselves to indulge?] + +[Footnote 230: + + "Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, + Uttered or unexpressed, + The motion of a hidden fire + That trembles in the breast." + MONTGOMERY, _What is Prayer?_ +] + +[Footnote 231: Caratach (Caractacus) is a historical character in +Fletcher's (1576-1625) tragedy of _Bonduca_(Boadicea).] + +[Footnote 232: Zoroaster, a Persian philosopher, founder of the +ancient Persian religion. He flourished long before the Christian +era.] + +[Footnote 233: "Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God +speak with us, lest we die."--_Exodus_, xx. 19. Compare also the +parallel passage in _Deuteronomy_, v. 25-27.] + +[Footnote 234: John Locke. (See note 18.)] + +[Footnote 235: Lavoisier (1743-1794), celebrated French chemical +philosopher, discoverer of the composition of water.] + +[Footnote 236: James Hutton (1726-1797), great Scotch geologist, +author of the _Theory of the Earth_.] + +[Footnote 237: Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), English philosopher, +jurist, and legislative reformer.] + +[Footnote 238: Fourier (1772-1837), French socialist, founder of the +system of Fourierism.] + +[Footnote 239: Calvinism, the doctrines of John Calvin (1509-1564). +French theologian and Protestant reformer. A cardinal doctrine of +Calvinism is predestination.] + +[Footnote 240: Quakerism, the doctrines of the Quakers or Friends, a +society founded by George Fox (1624-1691).] + +[Footnote 241: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), Swedish theosophist, +founder of the New Jerusalem Church. He is taken by Emerson in his +_Representative Men_ as the type of the mystic, and is often mentioned +in his other works.] + +[Footnote 242: "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, +we must carry it with us, or we find it not."--EMERSON, _Art_.] + +[Footnote 243: Thebes, a celebrated ruined city of Upper Egypt.] + +[Footnote 244: Palmyra, a ruined city of Asia situated in an oasis of +the Syrian desert, supposed to be the Tadmor built by Solomon in the +wilderness (_II. Chr._, viii. 4).] + +[Footnote 245: + + "Vain, very vain, my weary search to find + That bliss which only centers in the mind.... + Still to ourselves in every place consign'd, + Our own felicity we make or find." + GOLDSMITH (and JOHNSON), + _The Traveler_, 423-32. + + "He that has light within his own clear breast + May sit i' th' center, and enjoy bright day; + But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, + Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; + Himself in his own dungeon." + MILTON, _Comus_, 381-5. + +Compare also _Paradise Lost_, I, 255-7.] + +[Footnote 246: Vatican, the palace of the pope in Rome, with its +celebrated library, museum, and art gallery.] + +[Footnote 247: Doric, the oldest, strongest, and simplest of the three +styles of Grecian architecture.] + +[Footnote 248: Gothic, a pointed style of architecture, prevalent in +western Europe in the latter part of the middle ages.] + +[Footnote 249: Never imitate. Emerson insists on this doctrine.] + +[Footnote 250: Shakespeare (1564-1616), the great English poet and +dramatist. He is mentioned in Emerson's writings more than any other +character in history, and is taken as the type of the poet in his +_Representative Men_. + +"O mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and +merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, +like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,--like frost and +snow, rain and dew, hailstorm and thunder, which are to be studied +with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith +that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless +or inert,--but that, the further we press in our discoveries, the more +we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where +the careless eye had seen nothing but accident!"--DE QUINCY.] + +[Footnote 251: Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), American philosopher, +statesman, diplomatist, and author. He discovered the identity of +lightning with electricity, invented the lightning-rod, went on +several diplomatic missions to Europe, was one of the committee that +drew up the Declaration of Independence, signed the treaty of Paris, +and compiled _Poor Richard's Almanac_.] + +[Footnote 252: Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a famous English philosopher +and statesman. He became Lord Chancellor under Elizabeth. He is best +known by his _Essays_; he wrote also the _Novum Organum_ and the +_Advancement of Learning_.] + +[Footnote 253: Sir Isaac Newton. (See note 53.)] + +[Footnote 254: Scipio. (See note 205.)] + +[Footnote 255: Phidias (500?-432? B.C.), famous Greek sculptor.] + +[Footnote 256: Egyptians. He has in mind the pyramids.] + +[Footnote 257: The Pentateuch is attributed to Moses.] + +[Footnote 258: Dante (1265-1321), the greatest of Italian poets, +author of the _Divina Commedia_.] + +[Footnote 259: Foreworld, a former ideal state of the world.] + +[Footnote 260: New Zealander, inhabitant of New Zealand, a group of +two islands lying southeast of Australia.] + +[Footnote 261: Geneva, a city of Switzerland, situated at the +southwestern extremity of Lake Geneva.] + +[Footnote 262: Greenwich nautical almanac. The meridian of the Royal +Observatory at Greenwich, near London, is the prime meridian for +reckoning the longitude of the world. The nautical almanac is a +publication containing astronomical data for the use of navigators and +astronomers. What is the name of the corresponding publication of the +U.S. Observatory at Washington?] + +[Footnote 263: Get the meaning of these astronomical terms.] + +[Footnote 264: Plutarch. (50?-120? A.D.), Greek philosopher and +biographer, author of _Parallel Lives_, a series of Greek and Roman +biographies. Next after Shakespeare and Plato he is the author most +frequently mentioned by Emerson. Read the essay of Emerson on +Plutarch.] + +[Footnote 265: Phocion (402-317 B.C.), Athenian statesman and general. +(See note 364.)] + +[Footnote 266: Anaxagoras (500-426 B.C.), Greek philosopher of +distinction.] + +[Footnote 267: Diogenes (400?-323?), Greek cynic philosopher who +affected great contempt for riches and honors and the comforts of +civilized life, and is said to have taken up his residence in a tub.] + + +[Footnote 268: Henry Hudson (---- - 1611), English navigator and +explorer, discoverer of the bay and river which bear his name.] + +[Footnote 269: Bering or Behring (1680-1741), Danish navigator, +discoverer of Behring Strait.] + +[Footnote 270: Sir William Edward Parry (1790-1855), English navigator +and Arctic explorer.] + +[Footnote 271: Sir John Franklin (1786-1846?), celebrated English +navigator and Arctic explorer, lost in the Arctic seas.] + +[Footnote 272: Christopher Columbus (1445?-1506), Genoese navigator +and discoverer of America. His ship, the Santa Maria, appears small +and insignificant in comparison with the modern ocean ship.] + +[Footnote 273: Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), Emperor of France, one +of the greatest military geniuses the world has ever seen. He was +defeated in the battle of Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington, and died +in exile on the isle of St. Helena. Emerson takes him as a type of the +man of the world in his _Representative Men_: "I call Napoleon the +agent or attorney of the middle class of modern society.... He was the +agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the internal improver, the +liberal, the radical, the inventor of means, the opener of doors and +markets, the subverter of monopoly and abuse.... He had the virtues of +the masses of his constituents: he had also their vices. I am sorry +that the brilliant picture has its reverse."] + +[Footnote 274: Comte de las Cases (not Casas) (1766-1842), author of +_Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène_.] + +[Footnote 275: Ali, Arabian caliph, surnamed the "Lion of God," cousin +and son-in-law of Mohammed. He was assassinated about 661.] + +[Footnote 276: The county of Essex in England has several namesakes in +America.] + +[Footnote 277: Fortune. In Roman mythology Fortune, the goddess of +fortune or chance, is represented as standing on a ball or wheel. + + "Nec metuis dubio Fortunæ stantis in orbe + Numen, et exosæ verba superba deæ?" + OVID, _Tristia_, v., 8, 8. + +] + + +FRIENDSHIP + +[Footnote 278: Most of Emerson's _Essays_ were first delivered as +lectures, in practically the form in which they afterwards appeared in +print. The form and style, it is true, were always carefully revised +before publication; this Emerson called 'giving his thoughts a Greek +dress.' His essay on _Friendship_, published in the First Series of +_Essays_ in 1841 was not, so far as we know, delivered as a lecture; +parts of it, however, were taken from lectures which Emerson delivered +on _Society_, _The Heart_, and _Private Life_. + +In connection with his essay on _Friendship_, the student should read +the two other notable addresses on the same subject, one the speech by +Cicero, the famous Roman orator, and the other the essay by Lord +Bacon, the great English author.] + +[Footnote 279: Relume. Is this a common word? Define it.] + +[Footnote 280: Pass my gate. The walk opposite Emerson's house on the +'Great Road' to Boston was a favorite winter walk for Concord people. +Along it passed the philosophic Alcott and the imaginative Hawthorne, +as well as famous townsmen, and school children.] + +[Footnote 281: My friends have come to me, etc.: Compare with +Emerson's views here expressed the noble passage in his essay on _The +Over-Soul_: "Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great +and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And +this because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a +wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood +rolls uninterruptedly in endless circulation through all men, as the +water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one."] + +[Footnote 282: Bard. Poet: originally one who composed and sang to the +music of a harp verses in honor of heroes and heroic deeds.] + +[Footnote 283: Hymn, ode, and epic. Define each of these three kinds +of poetry.] + +[Footnote 284: Apollo. In classic mythology, the sun god who presided +over music, poetry, and art; he was the guardian and leader of the +Muses.] + +[Footnote 285: Muses. In classic mythology, the nine sisters who +presided over music, poetry, art, and science. They were Clio the muse +of history, Euterpe of music, especially the flute, Thalia of comedy, +Melpomene of tragedy, Terpsichore of dancing, Erato of erotic poetry, +mistress of the lyre, Polyhymnia of sacred poetry, Urania of +astronomy, Calliope of eloquence and epic poetry.] + +[Footnote 286: Genius. According to an old belief, a spirit that +watched over a person to control, guide and aid him.] + +[Footnote 287: "Crush the sweet poison," etc. This is a quotation from +_Comus_, a poem by Milton.] + +[Footnote 288: Systole and diastole. (See note 98.)] + +[Footnote 289: Friendship, like the immortality, etc. See on what a +high plane Emerson places this relation of friendship. In 1840 he +wrote in a letter: "I am a worshiper of friendship, and cannot find +any other good equal to it. As soon as any man pronounces the words +which approve him fit for that great office, I make no haste; he is +holy; let me be holy also; our relations are eternal; why should we +count days and weeks?"] + +[Footnote 290: Elysian temple. Temple of bliss. In Greek mythology, +Elysium was the abode of the blessed after death.] + +[Footnote 291: An Egyptian skull. Plutarch says that at an Egyptian +feast a skull was displayed, either as a hint to make the most of the +pleasure which can be enjoyed but for a brief space, or as a warning +not to set one's heart upon transitory things.] + +[Footnote 292: Conscious of a universal success, etc. Emerson wrote in +his journal: "My entire success, such as it is, is composed wholly of +particular failures."] + +[Footnote 293: Extends the old leaf. Compare Emerson's lines: + + "When half-gods go + The gods arrive." + +] + +[Footnote 294: A texture of wine and dreams. What does Emerson mean by +this phrase? Explain the whole sentence.] + +[Footnote 295: "The valiant warrior," etc. The quotation is from +Shakespeare's _Sonnet_, XXV.] + +[Footnote 296: Naturlangsamkeit. A German word meaning slowness. The +slowness of natural development.] + +[Footnote 297: Olympian. One who took part in the great Greek games +held every four years on the plain of Olympia. The racing, wrestling +and other contests of strength and skill were accompanied by +sacrifices to the gods, processions, and banquets. There was a sense +of dignity and almost of worship about the games. The Olympic games +have been recently revived, and athletes from all countries of the +world contest for the prizes--simple garlands of wild olive.] + +[Footnote 298: I knew a man who, etc. The allusion is to Jonas Very, a +mystic and poet, who lived at Salem, Massachusetts.] + +[Footnote 299: Paradox. Define this word. Explain its application to a +friend.] + +[Footnote 300: My author says, etc. The quotation is from _A +Consideration upon Cicero_, by the French author, Montaigne. Montaigne +was one of Emerson's favorite authors from his boyhood: of the essays +he says, "I felt as if I myself, had written this book in some former +life, so sincerely it spoke my thoughts."] + +[Footnote 301: Cherub. What is the difference between a cherub and a +seraph?] + +[Footnote 302: Curricle. A two-wheeled carriage, especially popular in +the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 303: This law of one to one. Emerson felt that this same law +applied to nature. He wrote in his journal: "Nature says to man, 'one +to one, my dear.'"] + +[Footnote 304: Crimen quos, etc. The Latin saying is translated in +the preceding sentence.] + +[Footnote 305: Nonage. We use more commonly the word, "minority."] + +[Footnote 306: Janus-faced. The word here means simply two-faced, +without the idea of deceit usually attached to it. In Roman mythology, +Janus, the doorkeeper of heaven was the protector of doors and +gateways and the patron of the beginning and end of undertakings. He +was the god of the rising and setting of the sun, and was represented +with two faces, one looking to the east and the other to the west. His +temple at Rome was kept open in time of war and closed in time of +peace.] + +[Footnote 307: Harbinger. A forerunner; originally an officer who rode +in advance of a royal person to secure proper lodgings and +accommodations.] + +[Footnote 308: Empyrean. Highest and purest heaven; according to the +ancients, the region of pure light and fire.] + + +HEROISM + +[Footnote 309: Title. Probably this essay is, essentially at least, +the lecture on _Heroism_ delivered in Boston in the winter of 1837, in +the course of lectures on _Human Culture_.] + +[Footnote 310: Motto. This saying of Mahomet's was the only motto +prefixed to the essay in the first edition. In later editions, Emerson +prefixed, according to his custom, some original lines; + + "Ruby wine is drunk by knaves, + Sugar spends to fatten slaves, + Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons, + Thunder clouds are Jove's festoons, + Drooping oft in wreaths of dread + Lightning-knotted round his head: + The hero is not fed on sweets, + Daily his own heart he eats; + Chambers of the great are jails, + And head-winds right for royal sails." + +] + +[Footnote 311: Elder English dramatists. The dramatists who preceded +Shakespeare. In his essay on _Shakespeare; or, the Poet_, Emerson +enumerates the foremost of these,--"Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, Jonson, +Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Peele, Ford, Massinger, +Beaumont and Fletcher."] + +[Footnote 312: Beaumont and Fletcher. Francis Beaumont and John +Fletcher were two dramatists of the Elizabethan age. They wrote +together and their styles were so similar that critics are unable to +identify the share of each in their numerous plays.] + +[Footnote 313: Rodrigo, Pedro, or Valerio. Favorite names for heroes +among the dramatists. Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, known usually by the +title of the Cid, was the national hero of Spain, famous for his +exploits against the Moors. Don Pedro was the Prince of Arragon in +Shakespeare's play, _Much Ado About Nothing_.] + +[Footnote 314: Bonduca, Sophocles, the Mad Lover, and Double Marriage. +The first, third and fourth are names of plays by Beaumont and +Fletcher. In the case of the second, Emerson, by a lapse of memory, +gives the name of one of the chief characters instead of the name of +the play--_The Triumph of Honor_ in a piece called _Four Plays in +One_. It is from this play by Beaumont and Fletcher that the passage +in the essay is quoted.] + +[Footnote 315: Adriadne's crown. According to Greek mythology, the +crown of Adriadne was, for her beauty and her sufferings, put among +the stars. She was the daughter of Minos, King of Crete; she gave +Theseus the clue by means of which he escaped from the labyrinth and +she was afterwards abandoned by him.] + +[Footnote 316: Romulus. The reputed founder of the city of Rome.] + +[Footnote 317: Laodamia, Dion. Read these two poems by Wordsworth, the +great English poet, and tell why you think Emerson mentioned them +here.] + +[Footnote 318: Scott. Sir Walter Scott, a famous Scotch author.] + +[Footnote 319: Lord Evandale, Balfour of Burley. These are characters +in Scott's novel, _Old Mortality_. The passage referred to by Emerson +is in the forty-second chapter.] + +[Footnote 320: Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle was a great admirer of heroes, +asserting that history is the biography of great men. One of his most +popular books is _Heroes and Hero-Worship_, on a plan similar to that +of Emerson's _Representative Men_.] + +[Footnote 321: Robert Burns. A Scotch lyric poet. Emerson was probably +thinking of the patriotic song, _Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled_.] + +[Footnote 322: Harleian Miscellanies. A collection of manuscripts +published in the eighteenth century, and named for Robert Harley, the +English statesman who collected them.] + +[Footnote 323: Lutzen. A small town in Prussia. The battle referred to +was fought in 1632 and in it the Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus gained +a great victory over vastly superior numbers. Nearly two hundred years +later another battle was fought at Lutzen, in which Napoleon gained a +victory over the allied Russians and Prussians.] + +[Footnote 324: Simon Ockley. An English scholar of the seventeenth +century whose chief work was a _History of the Saracens_.] + +[Footnote 325: Oxford. One of the two great English universities.] + +[Footnote 326: Plutarch. (See note 264.)] + +[Footnote 327: Brasidas. This hero, described by Plutarch, was a +Spartan general who lived about four hundred years before Christ.] + +[Footnote 328: Dion. A Greek philosopher who ruled the city of +Syracuse in the fourth century before Christ.] + +[Footnote 329: Epaminondas. A Greek general and statesman of the +fourth century before Christ.] + +[Footnote 330: Scipio. (See note 205.)] + +[Footnote 331: Stoicism. The stern and severe philosophy taught by the +Greek philosopher Zeno; he taught that men should always seek virtue +and be indifferent to pleasure and happiness. This belief, carried to +the extreme of severity, exercised a great influence on many noble +Greeks and Romans.] + +[Footnote 332: Heroism is an obedience, etc. In one of his poems +Emerson says: + + "So nigh is grandeur to our dust, + So near is God to man, + When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' + The youth replies, 'I can.'" + +] + +[Footnote 333: Plotinus. An Egyptian philosopher who taught in Rome +during the third century. It was said that he so exalted the mind that +he was ashamed of his body.] + +[Footnote 334: Indeed these humble considerations, etc. The passage, +like many which Emerson quotes, is rendered inexactly. The Prince says +to Poins: "Indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with +my greatness. What a disgrace it is to me to remember thy name! or to +know thy face to-morrow! or to take note how many pairs of silk +stockings thou hast, that is, these and those that were thy +peach-colored ones! or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as, one +for superfluity and another for use!" Shakespeare's _Henry IV._, Part +II. 2, 2.] + +[Footnote 335: Ibn Hankal. Ibn Hankul, an Arabian geographer and +traveler of the tenth century. He wrote an account of his twenty +years' travels in Mohammedan countries; in 1800 this was translated +into English by Sir William Jones under the title of _The Oriental +Geography of Ibn Hankal_. In that volume this anecdote is told in +slightly different words.] + +[Footnote 336: Bokhara. Where is Bokhara? It corresponds to the +ancient Sogdiana.] + +[Footnote 337: Bannocks. Thick cakes, made usually of oatmeal. What +does Emerson mean by this sentence? Probably no person ever met his +visitors, many of whom were "exacting and wearisome," and must have +been unwelcome, with more perfect courtesy and graciousness than +Emerson.] + +[Footnote 338: John Eliot. Give as full an account as you can of the +life and works of this noble Apostle to the Indians of the seventeenth +century.] + +[Footnote 339: King David, etc. See First Chronicles, 11, 15-19.] + +[Footnote 340: Brutus. Marcus Junius Brutus, a Roman patriot of the +first century before Christ, who took part in the assassination of +Julius Cæsar.] + +[Footnote 341: Philippi. A city of Macedonia near which in the year 42 +B.C. were fought two battles in which the republican army under Brutus +and Cassius was defeated by Octavius and Antony, friends of Cæsar.] + +[Footnote 342: Euripides. A Greek tragic poet of the fifth century +before Christ.] + +[Footnote 343: Scipio. (See note 205.) Plutarch in his _Morals_ gives +another version of the story: "When Paetilius and Quintus accused him +of many crimes before the people; 'on this very day,' he said, 'I +conquered Hannibal and Carthage. I for my part am going with my crown +on to the Capitol to sacrifice; and let him that pleaseth stay and +pass his vote upon me.' Having thus said, he went his way; and the +people followed him, leaving his accusers declaiming to themselves."] + +[Footnote 344: Socrates. (See note 187.)] + +[Footnote 345: Prytaneum. A public hall at Athens.] + +[Footnote 346: Sir Thomas More. An English statesman and author who +was beheaded in 1535 on a charge of high treason. The incident to +which Emerson refers is one which showed his "pleasant wit" +undisturbed by the prospect of death. As the executioner was about to +strike, More moved his head carefully out of reach of the ax. "Pity +that should be cut," he said, "that has never committed treason."] + +[Footnote 347: Blue Laws. Any rigid Sunday laws or religious +regulations. The term is usually applied to the early laws of New +Haven and Connecticut which regulated personal and religious conduct.] + +[Footnote 348: Epaminondas. (See note 329.)] + +[Footnote 349: Olympus. A mountain of Greece, the summit of which, +according to Greek mythology, was the home of the gods.] + +[Footnote 350: Jerseys. Consult a history of the United States for a +full account of Washington's campaign in New Jersey.] + +[Footnote 351: Milton. (See note 151.)] + +[Footnote 352: Pericles. A famous Greek statesman of the fifth century +before Christ, in whose age Athens was preëminent in naval and +military affairs and in letters and art.] + +[Footnote 353: Xenophon. A Greek historian of the fourth century +before Christ.] + +[Footnote 354: Columbus. Give an account of his life.] + +[Footnote 355: Bayard. Chevalier de Bayard was a French gentleman of +the fifteenth century. He is the French national hero, and is called +"The Knight without fear and without reproach."] + +[Footnote 356: Sidney. Probably Sir Philip Sidney, an English +gentleman and scholar of the sixteenth century who is the English +national hero as Bayard is the French; another brave Englishman was +Algernon Sidney, a politician and patriot of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 357: Hampden. John Hampden was an English statesman and +patriot who was killed in the civil war of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 358: Colossus. The Colossus of Rhodes was a gigantic +statue--over a hundred feet in height--of the Rhodian sun god. It was +one of the seven wonders of the world; it was destroyed by an +earthquake about two hundred years before Christ.] + +[Footnote 359: Sappho. A Greek poet of the seventh century before +Christ. Her fame remains, though most of her poems have been lost.] + +[Footnote 360: Sevigné. Marquise de Sevigné was a French author of the +seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 361: De Staël. Madame de Staël was a French writer whose +books and political opinions were condemned by Napoleon.] + +[Footnote 362: Themis. A Greek goddess. The personification of law, +order, and justice.] + +[Footnote 363: A high counsel, etc. Such was the advice given to the +Emerson boys by their aunt, Miss. Mary Moody Emerson: "Scorn trifles, +lift your aims; do what you are afraid to do; sublimity of character +must come from sublimity of motive." Upon her monument are inscribed +Emerson's words about her: "She gave high counsels. It was the +privilege of certain boys to have this immeasurably high standard +indicated to their childhood, a blessing which nothing else in +education could supply."] + +[Footnote 364: Phocion. A Greek general and statesman of the fourth +century before Christ who advised the Athenians to make peace with +Philip of Macedon. He was put to death on a charge of treason.] + +[Footnote 365: Lovejoy. Rev. Elijah Lovejoy, a Presbyterian clergyman +of Maine who published a periodical against slavery. In 1837 an +Illinois mob demanded his printing press, which he refused to give up. +The building containing it was set on fire and when Lovejoy came out +he was shot.] + +[Footnote 366: Let them rave, etc. These lines are misquoted, being +evidently given from memory, from Tennyson's _Dirge_. In the poem +occur these lines: + + "Let them rave. + Thou wilt never raise thine head + From the green that folds thy grave-- + Let them rave." + +] + + +MANNERS + +[Footnote 367: The essay on _Manners_ is from the Second Series of +_Essays_, published in 1844, three years after the First Series. The +essays in this volume, like those in the first, were, for the most +part, made up of Emerson's lectures, rearranged and corrected. The +lecture on _Manners_ had been delivered in the winter of 1841. He had +given another lecture on the same subject about four years before, and +several years later he treated of the same subject in his essay on +_Behavior_ in _The Conduct of Life_. You will find it interesting to +read _Behavior_ in connection with this essay.] + +[Footnote 368: Feejee islanders. Since this essay was written, the +people of the Feejee, or Fiji, Islands have become Christianized, and, +to a large extent, civilized.] + +[Footnote 369: Gournou. This description is found in _A Narrative of +the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids_, by +Belzoni, an Italian traveler and explorer.] + +[Footnote 370: Borgoo. A province of Africa.] + +[Footnote 371: Tibboos, Bornoos. Tribes of Central Africa, mentioned +in Heeren's _Historical Researches_.] + +[Footnote 372: Honors himself with architecture. Architecture was a +subject in which Emerson was deeply interested. Read his poem, _The +Problem_.] + +[Footnote 373: Chivalry. Chivalry may be considered "as embodying the +Middle Age conception of the ideal life of ... the Knights"; the word +is often used to express "the ideal qualifications of a knight, as +courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms." Fully to +understand the order of Knighthood and the ideals of chivalry, you +must read the history of Europe in the Middle Ages.] + +[Footnote 374: Sir Philip Sidney. (See note 356.)] + +[Footnote 375: Sir Walter Scott. (1771-1832). His historical novels +dealing with the Middle Ages have some fine pictures of the chivalrous +characters in which he delighted.] + +[Footnote 376: Masonic sign. A sign of secret brotherhood, like the +sign given by one Mason to another.] + +[Footnote 377: Correlative abstract. Corresponding abstract name. Sir +Philip Sidney, himself the ideal gentleman, used the word +"gentlemanliness." He said: "Gentlemanliness is high-erected thoughts +seated in a heart of courtesy."] + +[Footnote 378: Gentilesse. Gentle birth and breeding. Emerson was very +fond of the passage on "gentilesse" in Chaucer's _Wife of Bath's +Tale_.] + +[Footnote 379: Feudal Ages. The Middle Ages in Europe during which the +feudal system prevailed. According to this, land was held by its +owners on condition of certain duties, especially military service, +performed for a superior lord.] + +[Footnote 380: God knows, etc. Why is this particularly true of a +republic such as the United States?] + +[Footnote 381: The incomparable advantage of animal spirits. Why does +Emerson regard this as of such importance? In his journals he +frequently comments on his own lack of animal spirits, and says that +it unfits him for general society and for action.] + +[Footnote 382: The sense of power. "I like people who can do things," +wrote Emerson in his journal.] + +[Footnote 383: Lundy's Lane. Give a full account of this battle in the +War of 1812.] + +[Footnote 384: Men of the right Cæsarian pattern. Men versatile as was +Julius Cæsar, the Roman, famous as a general, statesman, orator, and +writer.] + +[Footnote 385: Timid maxim. Why does Emerson term this saying +"timid"?] + +[Footnote 386: Lord Falkland. Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland, was an +English politician who espoused the royalist side; he was killed in +battle in the Civil War.] + +[Footnote 387: Saladin. A famous sultan of Egypt and Syria who lived +in the twelfth century. Scott describes him as possessing an ideal +knightly character and introduces him, disguised as a physician and +also as a wandering soldier in his historical romance, _The +Talisman_.] + +[Footnote 388: Sapor. A Persian monarch of the fourth century who +defeated the Romans in battle.] + +[Footnote 389: The Cid. See "Rodrigo," in _Heroism_, 313.] + +[Footnote 390: Julius Cæsar. See note on "Cæsarian," 384.] + +[Footnote 391: Scipio. (See note 205.)] + +[Footnote 392: Alexander. Alexander, King of Macedon, surnamed the +Great. In the fourth century before Christ he made himself master of +the known world.] + +[Footnote 393: Pericles. See note on _Heroism_, 352.] + +[Footnote 394: Diogenes. (See note 267.)] + +[Footnote 395: Socrates. (See note 187.)] + +[Footnote 396: Epaminondas. (See note 329.)] + +[Footnote 397: My contemporaries. Emerson probably had in mind, among +others, his friend, the gentle philosopher, Thoreau.] + +[Footnote 398: Fine manners. "I think there is as much merit in +beautiful manners as in hard work," said Emerson in his journal.] + +[Footnote 399: Napoleon. (See note 273.)] + +[Footnote 400: Noblesse. Nobility. Why does Emerson use here the +French word?] + +[Footnote 401: Faubourg St. Germain. A once fashionable quarter of +Paris, on the south bank of the Seine; it was long the headquarters of +the French royalists.] + +[Footnote 402: Cortez. Consult a history of the United States for an +account of this Spanish soldier, the conqueror of Mexico.] + +[Footnote 403: Nelson. Horatio Nelson, an English admiral, who won +many great naval victories and was killed in the battle of Trafalgar +in 1805.] + +[Footnote 404: Mexico. The scene of Cortez's victories.] + +[Footnote 405: Marengo. The scene of a battle in Italy in 1800, in +which Napoleon defeated the Austrians with a larger army and made +himself master of northern Italy.] + +[Footnote 406: Trafalgar. A cape on the southern coast of Spain, the +scene of Nelson's last great victory, in which the allied French and +Spanish fleets were defeated.] + +[Footnote 407: Mexico, Marengo, and Trafalgar. Is this the order in +which you would expect these words to occur? Why not?] + +[Footnote 408: Estates of the realm. Orders or classes of people with +regard to political rights and powers. In modern times, the nobility, +the clergy, and the people are called "the three estates."] + +[Footnote 409: Tournure. Figure; turn of dress,--and so of mind.] + +[Footnote 410: Coventry. It is said that the people of Coventry, a +city in England, at one time so disliked soldiers that to send a +military man there meant to exclude him from social intercourse; hence +the expression "to send to Coventry" means to exclude from society.] + +[Footnote 411: "If you could see Vich Ian Vohr with his tail on." Vich +Ian Vohr is a Scotch chieftain in Scott's novel, _Waverley_. One of +his dependents says to Waverley, the young English officer: "If you +Saxon duinhé-wassal [English gentleman] saw but the Chief with his +tail on." "With his tail on?" echoed Edward in some surprise. +"Yes--that is, with all his usual followers when he visits those of +the same rank." See _Waverley_, chapter 16.] + +[Footnote 412: Mercuries. The word here means simply messengers. +According to Greek mythology, Mercury was the messenger of the gods.] + +[Footnote 413: Herald's office. In England the Herald's College, or +College of Arms, is a royal corporation the chief business of which is +to grant armorial bearings, or coats of arms, and to trace and +preserve genealogies. What does Emerson mean by comparing certain +circles of society to this corporation?] + +[Footnote 414: Amphitryon. Host; it came to have this meaning from an +incident in the story of Amphitryon, a character in Greek legend. At +one time Jupiter assumed the form of Amphitryon and gave a banquet. +The real Amphitryon came in and asserted that he was master of the +house. In the French play, founded on this story, the question is +settled by the assertion of the servants and guests that "he who gives +the feast is the host."] + +[Footnote 415: Tuileries. An old royal residence in Paris which was +burned in 1871.] + +[Footnote 416: Escurial, or escorial. A celebrated royal edifice near +Madrid in Spain.] + +[Footnote 417: Hide ourselves as Adam, etc. See Genesis iii. 8.] + +[Footnote 418: Cardinal Caprara. An Italian cardinal, Bishop of Milan, +who negotiated the famous concordat of 1801, an agreement between the +Church and State regulating the relations between civil and +ecclesiastical powers.] + +[Footnote 419: The pope. Pope Pius VII.] + +[Footnote 420: Madame de Staël. (See note 361.)] + +[Footnote 421: Mr. Hazlitt. William Hazlitt, an English writer.] + +[Footnote 422: Montaigne. A French essayist of the sixteenth century.] + +[Footnote 423: The hint of tranquillity and self-poise. It is +suggested that Emerson had here in mind a favorite passage of the +German author, Richter, in which Richter says of the Greek statues: +"The repose not of weariness but of perfection looks from their eyes +and rests upon their lips."] + +[Footnote 424: A Chinese etiquette. What does Emerson mean by this +expression?] + +[Footnote 425: Recall. In the first edition, Emerson had here the word +"signify." Which is the better word and why?] + +[Footnote 426: Measure. What meaning has this word here? Is this the +sense in which we generally use it?] + +[Footnote 427: Creole natures. What is a creole? What does Emerson +mean by "Creole natures"?] + +[Footnote 428: Mr. Fox. Charles James Fox, an English statesman and +orator of the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 429: Burke. Both Fox and Burke opposed the taxation of the +American colonies and sympathized with their resistance; it was on the +subject of the French Revolution that the two friends clashed.] + +[Footnote 430: Sheridan. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, an Irish +dramatist, member of the famous Literary Club to which both Fox and +Burke belonged.] + +[Footnote 431: Circe. According to Greek legend, Circe was a beautiful +enchantress. Men who partook of the draught she offered, were turned +to swine.] + +[Footnote 432: Captain Symmes. The only real personage of this group. +He asserted that there was an opening to the interior of the earth +which was stocked with plants and animals.] + +[Footnote 433: Clerisy. What word would we be more apt to use here?] + +[Footnote 434: St. Michael's (Square). St. Michael's was an order +instituted by Louis XI. of France.] + +[Footnote 435: Cologne water. A perfumed water first made at the city +of Cologne in Germany, from which it took its name.] + +[Footnote 436: Poland. This kingdom of Europe was, in the eighteenth +century, taken possession of and divided among its powerful neighbors, +Russia, Prussia, and Austria.] + +[Footnote 437: Philhellene. Friend of Greece.] + +[Footnote 438: As Heaven and Earth are fairer far, etc. This passage +is quoted from Book II. of Keats' _Hyperion_.] + +[Footnote 439: Waverley. The Waverley novels, a name applied to all of +Scott's novels from _Waverley_, the title of the first one.] + +[Footnote 440: Robin Hood. An English outlaw and popular hero, the +subject of many ballads.] + +[Footnote 441: Minerva. In Roman mythology, the goddess of wisdom +corresponding to the Greek Pallas-Athene.] + +[Footnote 442: Juno. In Roman mythology, the wife of the supreme god +Jupiter.] + +[Footnote 443: Polymnia. In Greek mythology, one of the nine muses who +presided over sacred poetry; the name is more usually written +Polyhymia.] + +[Footnote 444: Delphic Sibyl. In ancient mythology, the Sibyls were +certain women who possessed the power of prophecy. One of these who +made her abode at Delphi in Greece was called the Delphian, or +Delphic, sibyl.] + +[Footnote 445: Hafiz. A Persian poet of the fourteenth century.] + +[Footnote 446: Firdousi. A Persian poet of the tenth century.] + +[Footnote 447: She was an elemental force, etc. Of this passage Oliver +Wendell Holmes said that Emerson "speaks of woman in language that +seems to pant for rhythm and rhyme."] + +[Footnote 448: Byzantine. An ornate style of architecture developed in +the fourth and fifth centuries, marked especially by its use of gold +and color.] + +[Footnote 449: Golden Book. In a book, called "the Golden Book," were +recorded the names of all the children of Venetian noblemen.] + +[Footnote 450: Schiraz. A province of Persia famous especially for its +roses, wine, and nightingales, and described by the poets as a place +of ideal beauty.] + +[Footnote 451: Osman. The name given by Emerson in his journal and +essays to his ideal man, one subject to the same conditions as +himself.] + +[Footnote 452: Koran. The sacred book of the Mohammedans.] + +[Footnote 453: Jove. Jupiter, the supreme god of Roman mythology.] + +[Footnote 454: Silenus. In Greek mythology, the leader of the satyrs. +This fable, which Emerson credits to tradition, was original.] + +[Footnote 455: Her owl. The owl was the bird sacred to Minerva, the +goddess of wisdom.] + + +GIFTS + +[Footnote 456: This essay was first printed in the periodical called +_The Dial_. + +It was a part of Emerson's philosophic faith that there is no such +thing as giving,--everything that belongs to a man or that he ought to +have, will come to him. But in the ordinarily accepted sense of the +word, Emerson was a gracious giver and receiver. In his family the old +New England custom of New Year's presents was kept up to his last +days. His presents were accompanied with verses to be read before the +gift was opened.] + +[Footnote 457: Into chancery. The phrase "in chancery," means in +litigation, as an estate, in a court of equity.] + +[Footnote 458: Cocker. Spoil, indulge,--a word now little used.] + +[Footnote 459: Fruits are acceptable gifts. Emerson took especial +pleasure in the beauty of fruits and the thought of how they had been +evolved from useless, insipid seed cases.] + +[Footnote 460: To let the petitioner, etc. We can hardly imagine +Emerson's asking a gift or favor. He often quoted the words of Landor, +an English writer: "The highest price you can pay for a thing is to +ask for it."] + +[Footnote 461: Furies. In Roman mythology, three goddesses who sought +out and punished evil-doers.] + +[Footnote 462: A man's biography, etc. Emerson wrote in his journal: +"Long ago I wrote of _gifts_ and neglected a capital example. John +Thoreau, Jr. [who, like his brother Henry, was a lover of nature] one +day put a bluebird's box on my barn,--fifteen years ago it must +be,--and there it still is, with every summer a melodious family in it +adorning the place and singing its praises. There's a gift for you +which cost the giver no money, but nothing which he bought could have +been as good."] + +[Footnote 463: Sin offering. Under the Hebrew law, a sacrifice or +offering for sin. See Leviticus xxiii. 19. Explain what Emerson means +here by the word.] + +[Footnote 464: Blackmail. What is "blackmail"? How may Christmas +gifts, for instance, become a species of blackmail?] + +[Footnote 465: Brother, if Jove, etc. In the Greek legend, Epimetheus +gives this advice to his brother Prometheus. The lines are taken from +a translation of _Works and Days_, by the Greek poet, Hesiod.] + +[Footnote 466: Timons. Here used in the sense of wealthy givers. +Timon, the hero of Shakespeare's play, _Timon of Athens_, wasted his +fortune in lavish gifts and entertainments, and in his poverty was +exposed to the ingratitude of those whom he had served. He became +morose and died in miserable retirement.] + +[Footnote 467: It is a very onerous business, etc. One of Emerson's +favorite passages in the essays of Montaigne, a French writer, was +this: "Oh, how am I obliged to Almighty God, who has been pleased that +I should immediately receive all I have from his bounty, and +particularly reserved all my obligation to himself! How instantly do I +beg of his holy compassion that I may never owe a real thanks to +anyone. O happy liberty in which I have thus far lived! May it +continue with me to the last. I endeavor to have no need of any one." + +When Emerson, in his old age, had his house injured by fire, his +friends contributed funds to repair it and to send him to England. The +gift was proffered graciously and accepted gratefully.] + +[Footnote 468: Buddhist. A follower of Buddha, a Hindoo religious +teacher of the fifth century before Christ.] + + +NATURE + +[Footnote 469: Nature. Emerson's first published volume was a little +book of essays, entitled _Nature_, which appeared in 1836. In the +years which followed, he thought more deeply on the subject and, +according to his custom, made notes about it and entries in his +journals. In the winter of 1843 he delivered a lecture on _Relation to +Nature_, and it is probable that this essay is built up from that. The +plan of it, however, had been long in his mind: In 1840 he wrote in +his journal: "I think I must do these eyes of mine the justice to +write a new chapter on Nature. This delight we all take in every show +of night or day or field or forest or sea or city, down to the lowest +particulars, is not without sequel, though we be as yet only wishers +and gazers, not at all knowing what we want. We are predominated here +as elsewhere by an upper wisdom, and resemble those great discoverers +who are haunted for years, sometimes from infancy, with a passion for +the fact, or class of facts in which the secret lies which they are +destined to unlock, and they let it not go until the blessing is won. +So these sunsets and starlights, these swamps and rocks, these bird +notes and animal forms off which we cannot get our eyes and ears, but +hover still, as moths round a lamp, are no doubt a Sanscrit cipher +covering the whole religious history of the universe, and presently we +shall read it off into action and character. The pastures are full of +ghosts for me, the morning woods full of angels."] + +[Footnote 470: There are days, etc. The passage in Emerson's journal +is hardly less beautiful. Under date of October 30, 1841, he wrote: +"On this wonderful day when heaven and earth seem to glow with +magnificence, and all the wealth of all the elements is put under +contribution to make the world fine, as if Nature would indulge her +offspring, it seemed ungrateful to hide in the house. Are there not +dull days enough in the year for you to write and read in, that you +should waste this glittering season when Florida and Cuba seem to have +left their glittering seats and come to visit us with all their +shining hours, and almost we expect to see the jasmine and cactus +burst from the ground instead of these last gentians and asters which +have loitered to attend this latter glory of the year? All insects are +out, all birds come forth, the very cattle that lie on the ground seem +to have great thoughts, and Egypt and India look from their eyes."] + +[Footnote 471: Halcyons. Halcyon days, ones of peace and tranquillity; +anciently, days of calm weather in mid-winter, when the halcyon, or +kingfisher, was supposed to brood. It was fabled that this bird laid +its eggs in a nest that floated on the sea, and that it charmed the +winds and waves to make them calm while it brooded.] + +[Footnote 472: Indian Summer. Calm, dry, hazy weather which comes in +the autumn in America. The Century Dictionary says it was called +Indian Summer because the season was most marked in the sections of +the upper eastern Mississippi valley inhabited by Indians about the +time the term became current.] + +[Footnote 473: Gabriel. One of the seven archangels. The Hebrew name +means "God is my strong one."] + +[Footnote 474: Uriel. Another of the seven archangels; the name means +"Light of God."] + +[Footnote 475: Converts all trees to wind-harps. Compare with this +passage the lines in Emerson's poem, _Woodnotes_: + + "And the countless leaves of the pines are strings + Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings." + +] + +[Footnote 476: The village. Concord, Massachusetts. Emerson's home the +greater part of the time from 1832 till his death.] + +[Footnote 477: I go with my friend, etc. With Henry Thoreau, the lover +of Nature.] + +[Footnote 478: Our little river. The Concord river.] + +[Footnote 479: Novitiate and probation. Explain the meaning of these +words, in the Roman Catholic Church. What does Emerson mean by them +here?] + +[Footnote 480: Villegiatura. The Italian name for a season spent in +country pleasures.] + +[Footnote 481: Hanging gardens. The hanging gardens of Babylon were +one of the seven wonders of the world.] + +[Footnote 482: Versailles. A royal residence near Paris, with +beautiful formal gardens.] + +[Footnote 483: Paphos. A beautiful city on the island of Cyprus, where +was situated a temple of Astarte, or Venus.] + +[Footnote 484: Ctesiphon. One of the chief cities of ancient Persia, +the site of a magnificent royal palace.] + +[Footnote 485: Notch Mountains. Probably the White Mountains near +Crawford Notch, a deep, narrow valley which is often called "The +Notch."] + +[Footnote 486: Æolian harp. A stringed instrument from which sound is +drawn by the passing of the wind over its strings. It was named for +Æolus, the god of the winds, in Greek mythology.] + +[Footnote 487: Dorian. Dorus was one of the four divisions of Greece: +the word is here used in a general sense for Grecian.] + +[Footnote 488: Apollo. In Greek and Roman mythology, the sun god, who +presided over music, poetry, and healing.] + +[Footnote 489: Diana. In Roman mythology, the goddess of the moon +devoted to the chase.] + +[Footnote 490: Edens. Beautiful, sinless places,--like the garden of +Eden.] + +[Footnote 491: Tempes. Places like the lovely valley of Tempe in +Thessaly, Greece.] + +[Footnote 492: Como Lake. A lake of northern Italy, celebrated for its +beauty.] + +[Footnote 493: Madeira Islands. Where are these islands, famous for +picturesque beauty and balmy atmosphere?] + +[Footnote 494: Common. What is a common?] + +[Footnote 495: Campagna. The plain near Rome.] + +[Footnote 496: Dilettantism. Define this word and explain its use +here.] + +[Footnote 497: "Wreaths" and "Flora's Chaplets." About the time that +Emerson was writing his essays, volumes of formal, artificial verses +were very fashionable, more as parlor ornaments than as literature. +Two such volumes were _A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England_ and +_The Floral Offering_ by Mrs. Frances Osgood, a New England writer.] + +[Footnote 498: Pan. In Greek mythology, the god of woods, fields, +flocks, and shepherds.] + +[Footnote 499: The multitude of false cherubs, etc. Explain the +meaning of this sentence. If true money were valueless, would people +make false money?] + +[Footnote 500: Proteus. In Greek mythology, a sea god who had the +power of assuming different shapes. If caught and held fast, however, +he was forced to assume his own shape and answer the questions put to +him.] + +[Footnote 501: Mosaic ... Schemes. The conception of the world as +given in Genesis on which the law of Moses, the great Hebrew lawgiver, +was founded.] + +[Footnote 502: Ptolemaic schemes. The system of geography and +astronomy taught in the second century by Ptolemy of Alexandria; it +was accepted till the sixteenth century, when the Copernican system +was established. Ptolemy believed that the sun, planets, and stars +revolve around the earth; Copernicus taught that the planets revolve +around the sun.] + +[Footnote 503: Flora. In Roman mythology, the goddess of the spring +and of flowers.] + +[Footnote 504: Fauna. In Roman mythology, the goddess of fields and +shepherds; she represents the fruitfulness of the earth.] + +[Footnote 505: Ceres. The Roman goddess of grain and harvest, +corresponding to the Greek goddess, Demeter.] + +[Footnote 506: Pomona. The Roman goddess of fruit trees and gardens.] + +[Footnote 507: All duly arrive. Emerson deducts from nature the +doctrine of evolution. What is its teaching?] + +[Footnote 508: Plato. (See note 36.)] + +[Footnote 509: Himalaya Mountain chains. (See note 193.)] + +[Footnote 510: Franklin. Give an account of Benjamin Franklin, the +famous American scientist and patriot. What did he prove about +lightening?] + +[Footnote 511: Dalton. John Dalton was an English chemist who, about +the beginning of the nineteenth century, perfected the atomic theory, +that is, the theory that all chemical combinations take place in +certain ways between the atoms, or ultimate particles, of bodies.] + +[Footnote 512: Davy. (See note 69.)] + +[Footnote 513: Black. Joseph Black, a Scotch chemist who made valuable +discoveries about latent heat and carbon dioxide, or carbonic acid +gas.] + +[Footnote 514: The astronomers said, etc. Beginning with this passage, +several pages of this essay was published in 1844, under the title of +_Tantalus_, in the next to the last number of _The Dial_, which +Emerson edited.] + +[Footnote 515: Centrifugal, centripetal. Define these words.] + +[Footnote 516: Stoics. See "Stoicism," 331.] + +[Footnote 517: Luther. (See note 188.)] + +[Footnote 518: Jacob Behmen. A German mystic of the sixteenth century; +his name is usually written Boehme.] + +[Footnote 519: George Fox. (See note 202.)] + +[Footnote 520: James Naylor. An English religious enthusiast of the +seventeenth century; he was first a Puritan and later a Quaker.] + +[Footnote 521: Operose. Laborious.] + +[Footnote 522: Outskirt and far-off reflection, etc. Compare with this +passage Emerson's poem, _The Forerunners_.] + +[Footnote 523: Oedipus. In Greek mythology, the King of Thebes who +solved the riddle of the Sphinx, a fabled monster.] + +[Footnote 524: Prunella. A widely scattered plant, called self-heal, +because a decoction of its leaves and stems was, and to some extent +is, valued as an application to wounds. An editor comments on the fact +that during the last years of Emerson's life "the little blue +self-heal crept into the grass before his study window."] + + +SHAKESPEARE; OR, THE POET + +[Footnote 525: Shakespeare; or the Poet is one of seven essays on +great men in various walks of life, published in 1850 under the title +of _Representative Men_. These essays were first delivered as lectures +in Boston in the winter of 1845, and were repeated two years later +before English audiences. They must have been especially interesting +to those Englishmen who had, seven years before, heard Emerson's +friend, Carlyle, deliver his six lectures on great men whom he +selected as representative ones. These lectures were published under +the title of _Heroes and Hero-Worship_. You should read the latter +part of Carlyle's lecture on _The Hero as Poet_ and compare what he +says about Shakespeare with Emerson's words. Both Emerson and Carlyle +reverenced the great English poet as "the master of mankind." Even in +serious New England, the plays of Shakespeare were found upon the +bookshelf beside religious tracts and doctrinal treatises. There the +boy Emerson found them and learned to love them, and the man Emerson +loved them but the more. It was as a record of personal experiences +that he wrote in his journal: "Shakespeare fills us with wonder the +first time we approach him. We go away, and work and think, for years, +and come again,--he astonishes us anew. Then, having drank deeply and +saturated us with his genius, we lose sight of him for another period +of years. By and by we return, and there he stands immeasurable as at +first. We have grown wiser, but only that we should see him wiser than +ever. He resembles a high mountain which the traveler sees in the +morning and thinks he shall quickly near it and pass it and leave it +behind. But he journeys all day till noon, till night. There still is +the dim mountain close by him, having scarce altered its bearings +since the morning light."] + +[Footnote 526: Genius. Here instead of speaking as in _Friendship_, +see note 286, of the genius or spirit supposed to preside over each +man's life, Emerson mentions the guardian spirit of human kind.] + +[Footnote 527: Shakespeare's youth, etc. It is impossible to +appreciate or enjoy this essay without having some clear general +information about the condition of the English people and English +literature in the glorious Elizabethan age in which Shakespeare lived. +Consult, for this information, some brief history of England and a +comprehensive English literature.] + +[Footnote 528: Puritans. Strict Protestants who became so powerful in +England that in the time of the Commonwealth they controlled the +political and religious affairs of the country.] + +[Footnote 529: Anglican Church. The Established Church of England; the +Episcopal church.] + +[Footnote 530: Punch. The chief character in a puppet show, hence the +puppet show itself.] + +[Footnote 531: Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, etc. For an account of these +dramatists consult a text book on English literature. The English +drama seems to have begun in the Middle Ages with what were called +Miracle plays, which were scenes from Bible history; about the same +time were performed the Mystery plays, which dramatized the lives of +saints. These were followed by the Moralities, plays in which were +personified abstract virtues and vices. The first step in the creation +of the regular drama was taken by Heywood, who composed some farcical +plays called Interludes. The people of the sixteenth century were fond +of pageants, shows in which classical personages were introduced, and +Masques, which gradually developed from pageants into dramas +accompanied with music. About the middle of the sixteenth century, +rose the English drama,--comedy, tragedy, and historical plays. The +chief among the group of dramatists who attained fame before +Shakespeare began to write were Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, and Peele. Ben +Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher rank next to Shakespeare among his +contemporaries, and among the other dramatists of the period were +Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Ford, and Massinger.] + +[Footnote 532: At the time when, etc. Probably about 1585.] + +[Footnote 533: Tale of Troy. Drama founded on the Trojan war. The +subject of famous poems by Latin and Greek poets.] + +[Footnote 534: Death of Julius Cæsar. An account of the plots which +ended in the assassination of the great Roman general.] + +[Footnote 535: Plutarch. See note on _Heroism_(264). Shakespeare, like +the earlier dramatists, drew freely on Plutarch's _Lives_ for +material.] + +[Footnote 536: Brut. A poetical version of the legendary history of +Britain, by Layamon. Its hero is Brutus, a mythical King of Britain.] + +[Footnote 537: Arthur. A British King of the sixth century, around +whose life and deeds so many legends have grown up that some +historians say he, too, was a myth. He is the center of the great +cycle of romances told in prose in Mallory's _Morte d'Arthur_ and in +poetry in Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_.] + +[Footnote 538: The royal Henries. Among the dramas popular in +Shakespeare's day which he retouched or rewrote are the historical +plays. Henry IV., First and Second Parts; Henry V; Henry VI., First, +Second, and Third Parts; and Henry VIII.] + +[Footnote 539: Italian tales. Italian literature was very popular in +Shakespeare's day, and authors drew freely from it for material, +especially from the _Decameron_, a famous collection of a hundred +tales, by Boccaccio, a poet of the fourteenth century.] + +[Footnote 540: Spanish voyages. In the sixteenth century, Spain was +still a power upon the high seas, and the tales of her conquests and +treasures in the New World were like tales of romance.] + +[Footnote 541: Prestige. Can you give an English equivalent for this +French word?] + +[Footnote 542: Which no single genius, etc. In the same way, some +critics assure us, the poems credited to the Greek poet, Homer, were +built up by a number of poets.] + +[Footnote 543: Malone. An Irish critic and scholar of the eighteenth +century, best known by his edition of Shakespeare's plays.] + +[Footnote 544: Wolsey's Soliloquy. See Shakespeare's _Henry VIII._ +III, 2. Cardinal Wolsey was prime minister of England in the reign of +Henry VIII.] + +[Footnote 545: Scene with Cromwell. See _Henry VIII._ III, 2. Thomas +Cromwell was the son of an English blacksmith; he rose to be lord high +chamberlain of England in the reign of Henry VIII., but, incurring the +King's displeasure, was executed on a charge of treason.] + +[Footnote 546: Account of the coronation. See _Henry VIII._ IV, 1.] + +[Footnote 547: Compliment to Queen Elizabeth. See _Henry VIII._ V, 5.] + +[Footnote 548: Bad rhythm. Too much importance must not be attached to +these matters in deciding authorship, as critics disagree about them.] + +[Footnote 549: Value his memory, etc. The Greeks, in appreciation of +the value of memory to the poet, represented the Muses as the +daughters of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory.] + +[Footnote 550: Homer. A Greek poet to whom is assigned the authorship +of the two greatest Greek poems, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_; he is +said to have lived about a thousand years before Christ.] + +[Footnote 551: Chaucer. (See note 33.)] + +[Footnote 552: Saadi. A Persian poet, supposed to have lived in the +thirteenth century. His best known poems are his odes.] + +[Footnote 553: Presenting Thebes, etc. This quotation is from Milton's +poem, _Il Penseroso_. Milton here names the three most popular +subjects of Greek tragedy,--the story of Oedipus, the ill-fated King +of Thebes who slew his father; the tale of the descendants of Pelops, +King of Pisa, who seemed born to woe--Agamemnon was one of his +grandsons; the third subject was the tale of Troy and the heroes of +the Trojan war,--called "divine" because the Greeks represented even +the gods as taking part in the contest.] + +[Footnote 554: Pope. (See note 88.)] + +[Footnote 555: Dryden. (See note 35.)] + +[Footnote 556: Chaucer is a huge borrower. Taine, the French critic, +says on this subject: "Chaucer was capable of seeking out in the old +common forest of the Middle Ages, stories and legends, to replant them +in his own soil and make them send out new shoots.... He has the right +and power of copying and translating because by dint of retouching he +impresses ... his original work. He recreates what he imitates."] + +[Footnote 557: Lydgate. John Lydgate was an English poet who lived a +generation later than Chaucer; in his _Troy Book_ and other poems he +probably borrowed from the sources used by Chaucer; he called himself +"Chaucer's disciple."] + +[Footnote 558: Caxton. William Caxton, the English author, more famous +as the first English printer, was not born until after Chaucer's +death. The work from which Emerson supposes the poet to have borrowed +Caxton's translation of _Recueil des Histoires de Troye_, the first +printed English book, appeared about 1474.] + +[Footnote 559: Guido di Colonna. A Sicilian poet and historian of the +thirteenth century. Chaucer in his _House of Fame_ placed in his +vision "on a pillar higher than the rest, Homer and Livy, Dares the +Phrygian, Guido Colonna, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the other +historians of the war of Troy."] + +[Footnote 560: Dares Phrygius. A Latin account of the fall of Troy, +written about the fifth century, which pretends to be a translation of +a lost work on the fall of Troy by Dares, a Trojan priest mentioned in +Homer's _Iliad_.] + +[Footnote 561: Ovid. A Roman poet who lived about the time of Christ, +whose best-known work is the _Metamorphoses_, founded on classical +legends.] + +[Footnote 562: Statius. A Roman poet of the first century after +Christ.] + +[Footnote 563: Petrarch. An Italian poet of the fourteenth century.] + +[Footnote 564: Boccaccio. An Italian novelist and poet of the +fourteenth century. See note on "Italian tales," 539. It is supposed +that the plan of the _Decameron_ suggested the similar but far +superior plan of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_.] + +[Footnote 565: Provençal poets. The poets of Provençe, a province of +the southeastern part of France. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated +for its lyric poets, called troubadours.] + +[Footnote 566: Romaunt of the Rose, etc. Chaucer's _Romaunt of the +Rose_, written during the period of French influence, is an incomplete +and abbreviated translation of a French poem of the thirteenth +century, _Roman de la Rose_, the first part of which was written by +William of Loris and the latter by John of Meung, or Jean de Meung.] + +[Footnote 567: Troilus and Creseide, etc. Chaucer ascribes the Italian +poem which he followed in his _Troilus and Creseide_ to an unknown +"Lollius of Urbino"; the source of the poem, however, is _Il +Filostrato_, by Boccaccio, the Italian poet already mentioned. +Chaucer's poem is far more than a translation; more than half is +entirely original, and it is a powerful poem, showing profound +knowledge of the Italian poets, whose influence with him superseded +the French poets.] + +[Footnote 568: The Cock and the Fox. _The Nun's Priest's Tale_ in the +_Canterbury Tales_ was an original treatment of the _Roman de Renart_, +of Marie of France, a French poet of the twelfth century.] + +[Footnote 569: House of Fame, etc. The plan of the _House of Fame_, +written during the period of Chaucer's Italian influence, shows the +influence of Dante; the general idea of the poem is from Ovid, the +Roman poet.] + +[Footnote 570: Gower. John Gower was an English poet, Chaucer's +contemporary and friend; the two poets went to the same sources for +poetic materials, but Chaucer made no such use of Gower's works as we +would infer from this passage. Emerson relied on his memory for facts, +and hence made mistakes, as here in the instances of Lydgate, Caxton, +and Gower.] + +[Footnote 571: Westminster, Washington. What legislative body +assembles at Westminster Palace, London? What at Washington?] + +[Footnote 572: Sir Robert Peel. An English statesman who died in 1850, +not long after _Representative Men_ was published.] + +[Footnote 573: Webster. Daniel Webster, an American statesman and +orator who was living when this essay was written.] + +[Footnote 574: Locke. John Locke. (See note 18.)] + +[Footnote 575: Rousseau. Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher +of the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 576: Homer. (See note 550.)] + +[Footnote 577: Menn. Menn, or Mann, was in Sanscrit one of fourteen +legendary beings; the one referred to by Emerson, Mann Vaivasvata was +supposed to be the author of the laws of Mann, a collection made about +the second century.] + +[Footnote 578: Saadi or Sadi. (See note 552.)] + +[Footnote 579: Milton. Of this great English poet and prose writer of +the seventeenth century, Emerson says: "No man can be named whose mind +still acts on the cultivated intellect of England and America with an +energy comparable to that of Milton. As a poet Shakespeare undoubtedly +transcends and far surpasses him in his popularity with foreign +nations: but Shakespeare is a voice merely: who and what he was that +sang, that sings, we know not."] + +[Footnote 580: Delphi. Here, source of prophecy. Delphi was a city in +Greece, where was the oracle of Apollo, the most famous of the oracles +of antiquity.] + +[Footnote 581: Our English Bible. The version made in the reign of +King James I. by forty-seven learned divines is a monument of noble +English.] + +[Footnote 582: Liturgy. An appointed form of worship used in a +Christian church,--here, specifically, the service of the Episcopal +church. Emerson's mother had been brought up in that church, and +though she attended her husband's church, she always loved and read +her Episcopal prayer book.] + +[Footnote 583: Grotius. Hugo Grotius was a Dutch jurist, statesman, +theologian, and poet of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 584: Rabbinical forms. The forms used by the rabbis, Jewish +doctors or expounders of the law.] + +[Footnote 585: Common law. In a general sense, the system of law +derived from England, in general use among English-speaking people.] + +[Footnote 586: Vedas. The sacred books of the Brahmins.] + +[Footnote 587: Æsop's Fables. Fables ascribed to Æsop, a Greek slave +who lived in the sixth century before Christ.] + +[Footnote 588: Pilpay, or Bidpai. Indian sage to whom were ascribed +some fables. From an Arabic translation, these passed into European +languages and were used by La Fontaine, the French fabulist.] + +[Footnote 589: Arabian Nights. _The Arabian Nights' Entertainment or A +Thousand and One Nights_ is a collection of Oriental tales, the plan +and name of which are very ancient.] + +[Footnote 590: Cid. _The Romances of the Cid_, the story of the +Spanish national hero, mentioned in note on _Heroism_139:5, was +written about the thirteenth century by an unknown author; it supplied +much of the material for two Spanish chronicles and Spanish and French +tragedies written later on the same subject.] + +[Footnote 591: Iliad. The poem in which the Greek, poet, Homer, +describes the siege and fall of Troy. Emerson here expresses the view +adopted by many scholars that it was the work, not of one, but of many +men.] + +[Footnote 592: Robin Hood. The ballads about Robin Hood, an English +outlaw and popular hero of the twelfth century.] + +[Footnote 593: Scottish Minstrelsy. _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish +Border_, a collection of original and collected poems, published by +Sir Walter Scott in 1802.] + +[Footnote 594: Shakespeare Society. The Shakespeare Society, founded +in 1841, was dissolved in 1853. In 1874 The New Shakespeare Society +was founded.] + +[Footnote 595: Mysteries. See "Kyd, Marlowe, etc." 531.] + +[Footnote 596: Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc. The first regular +English tragedy, by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, printed in +1565.] + +[Footnote 597: Gammer Gurtor's Needle. One of the first English +comedies, written by Bishop Still and printed in 1575.] + +[Footnote 598: Whether the boy Shakespeare poached, etc. For a fuller +account of the facts of Shakespeare's life, of which some traditions +and facts are mentioned here, consult some good biography of the +poet.] + +[Footnote 599: Queen Elizabeth. Dining her reign, 1558-1603, the +English drama rose and attained its height, and there was produced a +prose literature hardly inferior to the poetic.] + +[Footnote 600: King James. King James VI. of Scotland and I. of +England who was Elizabeth's kinsman and successor; he reigned in +England from 1603 to 1625.] + +[Footnote 601: Essexes. Walter Devereux was a brave English gentleman +whom Elizabeth made Earl of Essex in 1572. His son Robert, the second +Earl of Essex, was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth's.] + +[Footnote 602: Leicester. The Earl of Leicester, famous in +Shakespeare's time, was Robert Dudley, an English courtier, +politician, and general, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth.] + +[Footnote 603: Burleighs or Burghleys: William Cecil, baron of +Burghley, was an English statesman, who, for forty years, was +Elizabeth's chief minister.] + +[Footnote 604: Buckinghams. George Villiers, the first duke of +Buckingham, was an English courtier and politician, a favorite of +James I. and Charles I.] + +[Footnote 605: Tudor dynasty. The English dynasty of sovereigns +descended on the male side from Owen Tudor. It began with Henry VII. +and ended with Elizabeth.] + +[Footnote 606: Bacon. Consult English literature and history for an +account of the great statesman and author, Francis Bacon, "the wisest, +brightest, meanest of mankind."] + +[Footnote 607: Ben Jonson, etc. In his _Timber or Discoveries_, Ben +Jonson, a famous classical dramatist contemporary with Shakespeare, +says: "I loved the man and do honor his memory on this side idolatry +as much as any. He was indeed honest and of an open and free nature: +had an excellent fancy; brave notions and gentle expressions: wherein +he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should +be stopped.... His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had +been so, too. Many times he fell into those things could not escape +laughter.... But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was +ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned."] + +[Footnote 608: Sir Henry Wotton. An English diplomatist and author of +wide culture.] + +[Footnote 609: The following persons, etc. The persons enumerated were +all people of note of the seventeenth century. Sir Philip Sidney, Earl +of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, Sir Henry Vane, +Isaac Walton, Dr. John Donne, Abraham Cowley, Charles Cotton, John +Pym, and John Hales were Englishmen, scholars, statesmen, and authors. +Theodore Beza was a French theologian; Isaac Casaubon was a +French-Swiss scholar; Roberto Berlarmine was an Italian cardinal; +Johann Kepler was a German astronomer; Francis Vieta was a French +mathematician; Albericus Gentilis was an Italian jurist; Paul Sarpi +was an Italian historian; Arminius was a Dutch theologian.] + +[Footnote 610: Many others whom doubtless, etc. Emerson here +enumerates some famous English authors of the same period, not +mentioned in the preceeding list.] + +[Footnote 611: Pericles. See note on _Heroism_, 352.] + +[Footnote 612: Lessing. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a German critic and +poet of the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 613: Wieland. Christopher Martin Wieland was a German +contemporary of Lessing's, who made a prose translation into German of +Shakespeare's plays.] + +[Footnote 614: Schlegel. August Wilhelm von Schlegel, a German critic +and poet, who about the first of the nineteenth century translated +some of Shakespeare's plays into classical German.] + +[Footnote 615: Hamlet. The hero of Shakespeare's play of the same +name.] + +[Footnote 616: Coleridge. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet, +author of critical lectures and notes on Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 617: Goethe. (See note 85.)] + +[Footnote 618: Blackfriar's Theater. A famous London theater in which +nearly all the great dramas of the Elizabethan age were performed.] + +[Footnote 619: Stratford. Stratford-on-Avon, a little town in +Warwickshire, England, where Shakespeare was born and where he spent +his last years.] + +[Footnote 620: Macbeth. One of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, +written about 1606.] + +[Footnote 621: Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and Collier. English scholars +of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who edited the works of +Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 622: Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont: The +leading London theaters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.] + +[Footnote 623: Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready, famous +British actors of the Shakespearian parts.] + +[Footnote 624: The Hamlet of a famed performer, etc. Macready. Emerson +said to a friend: "I see you are one of the happy mortals who are +capable of being carried away by an actor of Shakespeare. Now, +whenever I visit the theater to witness the performance of one of his +dramas, I am carried away by the poet."] + +[Footnote 625: What may this mean, etc. _Hamlet_, I. 4.] + +[Footnote 626: Midsummer Night's Dream. One of Shakespeare's plays.] + +[Footnote 627: The forest of Arden. In which is laid, the scene of +Shakespeare's play, _As You Like It_.] + +[Footnote 628: The nimble air of Scone Castle. It was of the air of +Inverness, not of Scone, that "the air nimbly and sweetly recommends +itself unto our gentle senses."--_Macbeth_, I. 6.] + +[Footnote 629: Portia's villa. See the moonlight scene, _Merchant of +Venice_, V. 1.] + +[Footnote 630: The antres vost, etc. See _Othello_, I. 3. "Antres" is +an old word, meaning caves, caverns.] + +[Footnote 631: Cyclopean architecture. In Greek mythology, the Cyclops +were a race of giants. The term 'Cyclopean' is applied here to the +architecture of Egypt and India, because of the majestic size of the +buildings, and the immense size of the stones used, as if it would +require giants to perform such works.] + +[Footnote 632: Phidian sculpture. Phidias was a famous Greek sculptor +who lived in the age of Pericles and beautified Athens with his +works.] + +[Footnote 633: Gothic minsters. Churches or cathedrals, built in the +Gothic, or pointed, style of architecture which prevailed during the +Middle Ages; it owed nothing to the Goths, and this term was +originally used in reproach, in the sense of "barbarous."] + +[Footnote 634: The Italian painting. In Italy during the fifteenth and +sixteenth centuries pictorial art was carried to a degree of +perfection unknown in any other time or country.] + +[Footnote 635: Ballads of Spain and Scotland. The old ballads of these +countries are noted for beauty and spirit.] + +[Footnote 636: Tripod. Define this word, and explain its +appropriateness here.] + +[Footnote 637: Aubrey. John Aubrey, an English antiquarian of the +seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 638: Rowe. Nicholas Rowe, an English author of the +seventeenth century, who wrote a biography of Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 639: Timon. See note on _Gifts_, 466.] + +[Footnote 640: Warwick. An English politician and commander of the +fifteenth century, called "the King Maker." He appears in +Shakespeare's plays, _Henry IV._, _V._, and _VI._] + +[Footnote 641: Antonio. The Venetian Merchant in Shakespeare's play, +_The Merchant of Venice_.] + +[Footnote 642: Talma. François Joseph Talma was a French tragic actor, +to whom Napoleon showed favor.] + +[Footnote 643: An omnipresent humanity, etc. See what Carlyle has to +say on this subject in his _Hero as Poet_.] + +[Footnote 644: Daguerre. Louis Jacques Daguerre, a French painter, one +of the inventors of the daguerreotype process, by means of which an +image is fixed on a metal plate by the chemical action of light.] + +[Footnote 645: Euphuism. The word here has rather the force of +euphemism, an entirely different word. Euphuism was an affected ornate +style of expression, so called from _Euphues_, by John Lyly, a +sixteenth century master of that style.] + +[Footnote 646: Epicurus. A Greek philosopher of the third century +before Christ. He was the founder of the Epicurean school of +philosophy which taught that pleasure should be man's chief aim and +that the highest pleasure is freedom.] + +[Footnote 647: Dante. (See note 258.)] + +[Footnote 648: Master of the revels, etc. Emerson always expressed +thankfulness for "the spirit of joy which Shakespeare had shed over +the universe." See what Carlyle says in _The Hero as Poet_, about +Shakespeare's "mirthfulness and love of laughter."] + +[Footnote 649: Koran. The Sacred book of the Mohammedans.] + +[Footnote 650: Twelfth Night, etc. The names of three bright, merry, +or serene plays by Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 651: Egyptian verdict. Emerson used Egyptian probably in the +sense of "gipsy." He compares such opinions to the fortunes told by +the gipsies.] + +[Footnote 652: Tasso. An Italian poet of the sixteenth century.] + +[Footnote 653: Cervantes. A Spanish poet and romancer of the sixteenth +century, the author of _Don Quixote_.] + +[Footnote 654: Israelite. Such Hebrew prophets as Isaiah and +Jeremiah.] + +[Footnote 655: German. Such as Luther.] + +[Footnote 656: Swede. Such as Swedenborg, the mystic philosopher of +the eighteenth century of whom Emerson had already written in +_Representative Men_.] + +[Footnote 657: A pilgrim's progress. As described by John Bunyan, the +English writer, in his famous _Pilgrim's Progress_.] + +[Footnote 658: Doleful histories of Adam's fall, etc. The subject of +_Paradise Lost,_ the great poem by John Milton.] + +[Footnote 659: With doomsdays and purgatorial, etc. As described by +Dante in his _Divine Commedia_, an epic about hell, purgatory, and +paradise.] + + +PRUDENCE + +[Footnote 660: The essay on _Prudence_ was given as a lecture in +the course on _Human Culture_, in the winter of 1837-8. It was +published in the first series of _Essays_, which appeared in 1841.] + +[Footnote 661: Lubricity. The word means literally the state or +quality of being slippery; Emerson uses it several times, in its +derived sense of "instability."] + +[Footnote 662: Love and Friendship. The subjects of the two essays +preceding _Prudence_, in the volume of 1841.] + +[Footnote 663: The world is filled with the proverbs, etc. Compare +with this passage Emerson's words in _Compensation_ on "the flights of +proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as that of +birds and flies."] + +[Footnote 664: A good wheel or pin. That is, a part of a machine.] + +[Footnote 665: The law of polarity. Having two opposite poles, the +properties of the one of which are the opposite of the other.] + +[Footnote 666: Summer will have its flies. Emerson discoursed +with philosophic calm about the impediments and disagreeableness which +beset every path; he also accepted them with serenity when he +encountered them in his daily life.] + +[Footnote 667: The inhabitants of the climates, etc. As a +northerner, Emerson naturally felt that the advantage and superiority +were with his own section. He expressed in his poems _Voluntaries_ and +_Mayday_ views similar to those declared here.] + +[Footnote 668: Peninsular campaign. Emerson here refers to +the military operations carried on from 1808 to 1814 in Portugal, +Spain, and southern France against the French, by the British, +Spanish, and Portuguese forces commanded by Wellington. What was the +"Peninsular campaign" in American history?] + +[Footnote 669: Dr. Johnson is reported to have said, etc. Dr. +Samuel Johnson was an eminent English scholar of the eighteenth +century. In this, as in many other instances, Emerson quotes from his +memory instead of from the book. The words of Dr. Johnson, as reported +by his biographer Boswell, are: "Accustom your children constantly to +this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, +say it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check +them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."] + +[Footnote 670: Rifle. A local name in England and New England +for an instrument, on the order of a whetstone, used for sharpening +scythes; it is made of wood, covered with fine sand or emery.] + +[Footnote 671: Last grand duke of Weimar. Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach is a +grand duchy of Germany. The grand duke referred to was Charles +Augustus, who died in 1828. He was the friend and patron of the great +German authors, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland.] + +[Footnote 672: The Raphael in the Dresden gallery. The Sistine +Madonna, the most famous picture of the great Italian artist, +Raphael.] + +[Footnote 673: Call a spade a spade. Plutarch, the Greek historian, +said, "These Macedonians ... call a spade a spade."] + +[Footnote 674: Parts. A favorite eighteenth century term for +abilities, talents.] + +[Footnote 675: We have found out, etc. Emerson always insisted that +morals and intellect should be united. He urged that power and +insight are lessened by shortcomings in morals.] + +[Footnote 676: Goethe's Tasso. A play by the German poet +Goethe, founded on the belief that the imprisonment of Tasso was due +to his aspiration to the hand of Leonora d'Este, sister of the duke of +Ferrara. Tasso was a famous Italian poet of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 677: Richard III. An English king, the last of the +Plantagenet line, the hero--or villain--of Shakespeare's historical +play, Richard III.] + +[Footnote 678: Bifold. Give a simpler word that means the same.] + +[Footnote 679: Cæsar. Why is Cæsar the great Roman ruler, given as a +type of greatness?] + +[Footnote 680: Job. Why is Job, the hero of the Old Testament book of +the same name, given as a type of misery?] + +[Footnote 681: Poor Richard. _Poor Richard's Almanac_, +published (1732-1757) by Benjamin Franklin was a collection of maxims +inculcating prudence and thrift. These were given as the sayings of +"Poor Richard."] + +[Footnote 682: State Street. A street in Boston, Massachusetts, noted +as a financial center.] + +[Footnote 683: Stick in a tree between whiles, etc. "Jock, when ye hae +naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be +growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping."--Scott's _Heart of Midlothian_. +It is said that these were the words of a dying Scotchman to his son.] + +[Footnote 684: Minor virtues. Emerson suggests that punctuality and +regard for a promise are two of these. Can you name others?] + +[Footnote 685: The Latin proverb says, etc. This is quoted from +Tacitus, the famous Roman historian.] + +[Footnote 686: If he set out to contend, etc. In contention, +Emerson holds, the best men would lose their characteristic virtues, +--the fearless apostle Paul, his devotion to truth; the gentle +disciple John, his loving charity.] + +[Footnote 687: Though your views are in straight antagonism, &c. This +was Emerson's own method, and by it he won a courteous hearing from +those to whom his views were most objectionable.] + +[Footnote 688: Consuetudes. Give a simpler word that has the same +meaning.] + +[Footnote 689: Begin where we will, etc. Explain what Emerson means by +this expression.] + + +CIRCLES + +[Footnote 690: This essay first appeared in the first series of +_Essays_, published in 1841. Unlike most of the other essays in the +volume, no earlier form of it exists, and it was probably not +delivered first as a lecture. + +Dr. Richard Garnett says in his _Life of Emerson_: "The object of this +fine essay quaintly entitled _Circles_ is to reconcile this rigidity +of unalterable law with the fact of human progress. Compensation +illustrates one property of a circle, which always returns to the +point where it began, but it is no less true that around every circle +another can be drawn.... Emerson followed his own counsel; he always +keeps a reserve of power. His theory of _Circles_ reappears without +the least verbal indebtedness to himself in the splendid essay on +_Love_."] + +[Footnote 691: St. Augustine. A celebrated father of the +Latin church, who flourished in the fourth century. His most famous +work is his _Confessions_, an autobiographical volume of religious +meditations.] + +[Footnote 692: Another dawn risen on mid-noon. "Another morn has risen +on mid-noon." Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book V.] + +[Footnote 693: Greek sculpture. The greatest development of +the art of sculpture that the world has ever known was that which took +place in Greece, with Athens as the center, in the fifth century +before Christ. The masterpieces which remain are the models on which +modern art formed itself.] + +[Footnote 694: Greek letters. In literature--in drama, philosophy and +history--Greece attained an excellence as signal as in art. Emerson as +a scholar, felt that the literature of Greece was more permanent than +its art. Would an artist be apt to take this view?] + +[Footnote 695: New arts destroy the old, etc. Tell the ways in which +the improvements and inventions mentioned by Emerson have been +superseded by others; give the reasons. Mention other similar cases of +more recent date.] + +[Footnote 696: The life of man is a self-evolving circle, etc. "Throw a +stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the +beautiful type of all influence."--EMERSON, in _Nature_.] + +[Footnote 697: The heart refuses to be imprisoned. It is a +superstition current in many countries that an evil spirit cannot +escape from a circle drawn round it.] + +[Footnote 698: Crass. Gross; coarse.] + +[Footnote 699: The continual effort to raise himself above +himself, etc. + + "Unless above himself he can + Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!" + SAMUEL DANIEL. + +] + +[Footnote 700: If he were high enough, etc. + + Have I a lover + Who is noble and free?-- + I would he were nobler + Than to love me.--EMERSON, _The Sphinx._ + +] + +[Footnote 701: Aristotle and Plato. Plato was a famous Greek +philosopher who flourished in the fourth century before Christ. He was +the disciple of Socrates, the teacher of Aristotle, and the founder of +the academic school of philosophy. His exposition of idealism was +founded on the teachings of Socrates. Aristotle, another famous Greek +philosopher, was for twenty years the pupil of Plato. He founded the +peripatetic school of philosophy, and his writing dealt with all the +then known branches of science.] + +[Footnote 702: Berkeley. George Berkeley was a British clergyman of +the eighteenth century. He was the author of works on philosophy which +are marked by extreme subjective idealism.] + +[Footnote 703: Termini. Boundaries or marks to indicate boundaries. In +Roman mythology, Terminus was the god who presided over boundaries or +landmarks. He is represented with a human head, but without feet or +arms,--to indicate that he never moved from his place.] + +[Footnote 704: Pentecost. One of three great Jewish festivals. On the +day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the infant Christian +church, with the gift of tongues. See Acts ii. 1-20.] + +[Footnote 705: Hodiernal. Belonging to our present day.] + +[Footnote 706: Punic. Of Carthage, a famous ancient city, and +state of northern Africa. Carthage was the rival of Rome, but was, +after long warfare, overcome in the second century before Christ.] + +[Footnote 707: In like manner, etc. Emerson always urged that in order +to get the best from all, one must pass from affairs to thought, +society to solitude, books to nature. + + "See thou bring not to field or stone + The fancies found in books; + Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, + To brave the landscape's look."--EMERSON, + _Waldeinsamkeit_. + +] + +[Footnote 708: Petrarch. (See note 563.)] + +[Footnote 709: Ariosto. A famous Italian author of the sixteenth +century, who wrote comedies, satires, and a metrical romance, _Orlando +Furioso_.] + +[Footnote 710: "Then shall also the Son", etc. See 1 Corinthians xv. +28: Does Emerson quote the passage verbatim?] + +[Footnote 711: These manifold tenacious qualities, etc. It is +remarked of Emerson that the idea of the symbolism of nature which he +received from Plato, was the source of much of his pleasure in +Swedenborg, the Swedish mystic philosopher. Emerson says in his volume +on _Nature_: "The noblest ministry of nature is to stand as an +apparition of God."] + +[Footnote 712: "Forgive his crimes," etc. This is quoted from _Night +Thoughts_ by the English didactic poet, Edward Young.] + +[Footnote 713: Pyrrhonism. A doctrine held by a follower of Pyrrho, a +Greek philosopher of the third century before Christ, who founded the +sceptical school. He taught that it is impossible to attain truth, and +that men should be indifferent to all external circumstances.] + +[Footnote 714: I own I am gladdened, etc. Emerson always held fast to +the consoling thought that there was no evil without good, none out of +which Good did not or could not come.] + +[Footnote 715: Sempiternal. Everlasting; eternal.] + +[Footnote 716: Oliver Cromwell. An Englishman of the middle classes +who became the military and civil leader of the English Revolution of +the seventeenth century. He refused the title of king; but as Lord +Protector of the English commonwealth, he exercised royal power.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS *** + +***** This file should be named 16643-8.txt or 16643-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/6/4/16643/ + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant , Sankar Viswanathan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/16643-8.zip b/old/16643-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8fa65cd --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16643-8.zip diff --git a/old/16643.txt b/old/16643.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..19ad090 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16643.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10231 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Essays + +Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson + +Editor: Edna H. L. Turpin + +Release Date: September 4, 2005 [EBook #16643] +[Last updated: March 15, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Sankar Viswanathan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + ESSAYS + + BY + + RALPH WALDO EMERSON + + + + + Merrill's English Texts + + SELECTED AND EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION + AND NOTES, BY EDNA H.L. TURPIN, AUTHOR + OF "STORIES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY," + "CLASSIC FABLES," "FAMOUS PAINTERS," ETC. + + + + NEW YORK + + CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. + + 1907 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + LIFE OF EMERSON + CRITICAL OPINIONS + CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PRINCIPAL WORKS + +THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR + +COMPENSATION + +SELF RELIANCE + +FRIENDSHIP + +HEROISM + +MANNERS + +GIFTS + +NATURE + +SHAKESPEARE; OR, THE POET + +PRUDENCE + +CIRCLES + +NOTES + + + + +PUBLISHERS' NOTE + +Merrill's English Texts + + +This series of books will include in complete editions those +masterpieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the use +of schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes will be +chosen for their special qualifications in connection with the texts +to be issued under their individual supervision, but familiarity with +the practical needs of the classroom, no less than sound scholarship, +will characterize the editing of every book in the series. + +In connection with each text, a critical and historical introduction, +including a sketch of the life of the author and his relation to the +thought of his time, critical opinions of the work in question chosen +from the great body of English criticism, and, where possible, a +portrait of the author, will be given. Ample explanatory notes of such +passages in the text as call for special attention will be supplied, +but irrelevant annotation and explanations of the obvious will be +rigidly excluded. + +CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. + + + + +LIFE OF EMERSON + + +Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, May 25, 1803. He was descended +from a long line of New England ministers, men of refinement and +education. As a school-boy he was quiet and retiring, reading a great +deal, but not paying much attention to his lessons. He entered Harvard +at the early age of fourteen, but never attained a high rank there, +although he took a prize for an essay on Socrates, and was made class +poet after several others had declined. Next to his reserve and the +faultless propriety of his conduct, his contemporaries at college +seemed most impressed by the great maturity of his mind. Emerson +appears never to have been really a boy. He was always serene and +thoughtful, impressing all who knew him with that spirituality which +was his most distinguishing characteristic. + +After graduating from college he taught school for a time, and then +entered the Harvard Divinity School under Dr. Channing, the great +Unitarian preacher. Although he was not strong enough to attend all +the lectures of the divinity course, the college authorities deemed +the name Emerson sufficient passport to the ministry. He was +accordingly "approbated to preach" by the Middlesex Association of +Ministers on October 10, 1826. As a preacher, Emerson was interesting, +though not particularly original. His talent seems to have been in +giving new meaning to the old truths of religion. One of his hearers +has said: "In looking back on his preaching I find he has impressed +truths to which I always assented in such a manner as to make them +appear new, like a clearer revelation." Although his sermons were +always couched in scriptural language, they were touched with the +light of that genius which avoids the conventional and commonplace. In +his other pastoral duties Emerson was not quite so successful. It is +characteristic of his deep humanity and his dislike for all fuss and +commonplace that he appeared to least advantage at a funeral. A +connoisseur in such matters, an old sexton, once remarked that on such +occasions "he did not appear at ease at all. To tell the truth, in my +opinion, that young man was not born to be a minister." + +Emerson did not long remain a minister. In 1832 he preached a sermon +in which he announced certain views in regard to the communion service +which were disapproved by a large part of his congregation. He found +it impossible to continue preaching, and, with the most friendly +feelings on both sides, he parted from his congregation. + +A few months later (1833) he went to Europe for a short year of +travel. While abroad, he visited Walter Savage Landor, Coleridge and +Wordsworth, and Thomas Carlyle. This visit to Carlyle was to both men +a most interesting experience. They parted feeling that they had much +intellectually in common. This belief fostered a sympathy which, by +the time they had discovered how different they really were, had grown +so strong a habit that they always kept up their intimacy. This year +of travel opened Emerson's eyes to many things of which he had +previously been ignorant; he had profited by detachment from the +concerns of a limited community and an isolated church. + +After his return he began to find his true field of activity in the +lecture-hall, and delivered a number of addresses in Boston and its +vicinity. While thus coming before the open public on the lecture +platform, he was all the time preparing the treatise which was to +embody all the quintessential elements of his philosophical doctrine. +This was the essay _Nature_, which was published in 1836. By its +conception of external Nature as an incarnation of the Divine Mind it +struck the fundamental principle of Emerson's religious belief. The +essay had a very small circulation at first, though later it became +widely known. + +In the winter of 1836 Emerson followed up his discourse on Nature by a +course of twelve lectures on the "Philosophy of History," a +considerable portion of which eventually became embodied in his +essays. The next year (1837) was the year of the delivery of the _Man +Thinking, or the American Scholar_ address before the Phi Beta Kappa +Society at Cambridge. + +This society, composed of the first twenty-five men in each class +graduating from college, has annual meetings which have called forth +the best efforts of many distinguished scholars and thinkers. +Emerson's address was listened to with the most profound interest. It +declared a sort of intellectual independence for America. Henceforth +we were to be emancipated from clogging foreign influences, and a +national literature was to expand under the fostering care of the +Republic. + +These two discourses, _Nature_ and _The American Scholar_, strike the +keynote of Emerson's philosophical, poetical, and moral teachings. In +fact he had, as every great teacher has, only a limited number of +principles and theories to teach. These principles of life can all be +enumerated in twenty words--self-reliance, culture, intellectual and +moral independence, the divinity of nature and man, the necessity of +labor, and high ideals. + +Emerson spent the latter part of his life in lecturing and in literary +work. His son, Dr. Edward Emerson, gave an interesting account of how +these lectures were constructed. "All through his life he kept a +journal. This book, he said, was his 'Savings Bank.' The thoughts thus +received and garnered in his journals were indexed, and a great many +of them appeared in his published works. They were religiously set +down just as they came, in no order except chronological, but later +they were grouped, enlarged or pruned, illustrated, worked into a +lecture or discourse, and, after having in this capacity undergone +repeated testing and rearranging, were finally carefully sifted and +more rigidly pruned, and were printed as essays." + +Besides his essays and lectures Emerson left some poetry in which is +embodied those thoughts which were to him too deep for prose +expression. Oliver Wendell Holmes in speaking of this says: "Emerson +wrote occasionally in verse from his school-days until he had reached +the age which used to be known as the grand climacteric, +sixty-three.... His poems are not and hardly can become popular; they +are not meant to be liked by the many, but to be dearly loved and +cherished by the few.... His occasional lawlessness in technical +construction, his somewhat fantastic expressions, his enigmatic +obscurities hardly detract from the pleasant surprise his verses so +often bring with them.... The poetic license which we allow in the +verse of Emerson is more than excused by the noble spirit which makes +us forget its occasional blemishes, sometimes to be pleased with them +as characteristic of the writer." + +Emerson was always a striking figure in the intellectual life of +America. His discourses were above all things inspiring. Through them +many were induced to strive for a higher self-culture. His influence +can be discerned in all the literary movements of the time. He was the +central figure of the so-called transcendental school which was so +prominent fifty years ago, although he always rather held aloof from +any enthusiastic participation in the movement. + +Emerson lived a quiet life in Concord, Massachusetts. "He was a +first-rate neighbor and one who always kept his fences up." He +traveled extensively on his lecturing tours, even going as far as +England. In _English Traits_ he has recorded his impressions of what +he saw of English life and manners. + +Oliver Wendell Holmes has described him in this wise: "His personal +appearance was that of the typical New Englander of college-bred +ancestry. Tall, spare, slender, with sloping shoulders, slightly +stooping in his later years, with light hair and eyes, the scholar's +complexion, the prominent, somewhat arched nose which belongs to many +of the New England sub-species, thin lips, suggestive of delicacy, but +having nothing like primness, still less of the rigidity which is +often noticeable in the generation succeeding next to that of the men +in their shirt-sleeves, he would have been noticed anywhere as one +evidently a scholarly thinker astray from the alcove or the study, +which were his natural habitats. His voice was very sweet, and +penetrating without any loudness or mark of effort. His enunciation +was beautifully clear, but he often hesitated as if waiting for the +right word to present itself. His manner was very quiet, his smile was +pleasant, but he did not like explosive laughter any better than +Hawthorne did. None who met him can fail to recall that serene and +kindly presence, in which there was mingled a certain spiritual +remoteness with the most benignant human welcome to all who were +privileged to enjoy his companionship." + +Emerson died April 27, 1882, after a few days' illness from pneumonia. +Dr. Garnett in his excellent biography says: "Seldom had 'the reaper +whose name is Death' gathered such illustrious harvest as between +December 1880 and April 1882. In the first month of this period George +Eliot passed away, in the ensuing February Carlyle followed; in April +Lord Beaconsfield died, deplored by his party, nor unregretted by his +country; in February of the following year Longfellow was carried to +the tomb; in April Rossetti was laid to rest by the sea, and the +pavement of Westminster Abbey was disturbed to receive the dust of +Darwin. And now Emerson lay down in death beside the painter of man +and the searcher of nature, the English-Oriental statesman, the poet +of the plain man and the poet of the artist, and the prophet whose +name is indissolubly linked with his own. All these men passed into +eternity laden with the spoils of Time, but of none of them could it +be said, as of Emerson, that the most shining intellectual glory and +the most potent intellectual force of a continent had departed along +with him." + + + + +CRITICAL OPINIONS OF EMERSON AND HIS WRITINGS. + + +Matthew Arnold, in an address on Emerson delivered in Boston, gave +an excellent estimate of the rank we should accord to him in the great +hierarchy of letters. Some, perhaps, will think that Arnold was +unappreciative and cold, but dispassionate readers will be inclined to +agree with his judgment of our great American. + +After a review of the poetical works of Emerson the English critic +draws his conclusions as follows: + +"I do not then place Emerson among the great poets. But I go farther, +and say that I do not place him among the great writers, the great men +of letters. Who are the great men of letters? They are men like +Cicero, Plato, Bacon, Pascal, Swift, Voltaire--writers with, in the +first place, a genius and instinct for style.... Brilliant and +powerful passages in a man's writings do not prove his possession of +it. Emerson has passages of noble and pathetic eloquence; he has +passages of shrewd and felicitous wit; he has crisp epigram; he has +passages of exquisitely touched observation of nature. Yet he is not a +great writer.... Carlyle formulates perfectly the defects of his +friend's poetic and literary productions when he says: 'For me it is +too ethereal, speculative, theoretic; I will have all things condense +themselves, take shape and body, if they are to have my sympathy.' ... + +".... Not with the Miltons and Grays, not with the Platos and Spinozas, +not with the Swifts and Voltaires, not with the Montaignes and +Addisons, can we rank Emerson. No man could see this clearer than +Emerson himself. 'Alas, my friend,' he writes in reply to Carlyle, who +had exhorted him to creative work,--'Alas, my friend, I can do no such +gay thing as you say. I do not belong to the poets, but only to a low +department of literature,--the reporters; suburban men.' He deprecated +his friend's praise; praise 'generous to a fault' he calls it; praise +'generous to the shaming of me,--cold, fastidious, ebbing person that +I am.'" + +After all this unfavorable criticism Arnold begins to praise. Quoting +passages from the Essays, he adds: + +"This is tonic indeed! And let no one object that it is too general; +that more practical, positive direction is what we want.... Yes, +truly, his insight is admirable; his truth is precious. Yet the secret +of his effect is not even in these; it is in his temper. It is in the +hopeful, serene, beautiful temper wherewith these, in Emerson, are +indissolubly united; in which they work and have their being.... One +can scarcely overrate the importance of holding fast to happiness and +hope. It gives to Emerson's work an invaluable virtue. As Wordsworth's +poetry is, in my judgment, the most important done in verse, in our +language, during the present century, so Emerson's Essays are, I +think, the most important work done in prose.... But by his conviction +that in the life of the spirit is happiness, and by his hope that this +life of the spirit will come more and more to be sanely understood, +and to prevail, and to work for happiness,--by this conviction and +hope Emerson was great, and he will surely prove in the end to have +been right in them.... You cannot prize him too much, nor heed him too +diligently." + +Herman Grimm, a German critic of great influence in his own country, +did much to obtain a hearing for Emerson's works in Germany. At first +the Germans could not understand the unusual English, the unaccustomed +turns of phrase which are so characteristic of Emerson's style. + +"Macaulay gives them no difficulty; even Carlyle is comprehended. But +in Emerson's writings the broad turnpike is suddenly changed into a +hazardous sandy foot-path. His thoughts and his style are American. He +is not writing for Berlin, but for the people of Massachusetts.... It +is an art to rise above what we have been taught.... All great men are +seen to possess this freedom. They derive their standard from their +own natures, and their observations on life are so natural and +spontaneous that it would seem as if the most illiterate person with a +scrap of common-sense would have made the same.... We become wiser +with them, and know not how the difficult appears easy and the +involved plain. + +"Emerson possesses this noble manner of communicating himself. He +inspires me with courage and confidence. He has read and seen but +conceals the labor. I meet in his works plenty of familiar facts, but +he does not employ them to figure up anew the old worn-out problems: +each stands on a new spot and serves for new combinations. From +everything he sees the direct line issuing which connects it with the +focus of life.... + +".... Emerson's theory is that of the 'sovereignty of the individual.' +To discover what a young man is good for, and to equip him for the +path he is to strike out in life, regardless of any other +consideration, is the great duty to which he calls attention. He makes +men self-reliant. He reveals to the eyes of the idealist the +magnificent results of practical activity, and unfolds before the +realist the grandeur of the ideal world of thought. No man is to allow +himself, through prejudice, to make a mistake in choosing the task to +which he will devote his life. Emerson's essays are, as it were, +printed sermons--all having this same text.... The wealth and harmony +of his language overpowered and entranced me anew. But even now I +cannot say wherein the secret of his influence lies. What he has +written is like life itself--the unbroken thread ever lengthened +through the addition of the small events which make up each day's +experience." + +Froude in his famous "Life of Carlyle" gives an interesting description +of Emerson's visit to the Carlyles in Scotland: + +"The Carlyles were sitting alone at dinner on a Sunday afternoon at +the end of August when a Dumfries carriage drove to the door, and +there stepped out of it a young American then unknown to fame, but +whose influence in his own country equals that of Carlyle in ours, and +whose name stands connected with his wherever the English language is +spoken. Emerson, the younger of the two, had just broken his Unitarian +fetters, and was looking out around him like a young eagle longing for +light. He had read Carlyle's articles and had discerned with the +instinct of genius that here was a voice speaking real and fiery +convictions, and no longer echoes and conventionalisms. He had come to +Europe to study its social and spiritual phenomena; and to the young +Emerson as to the old Goethe, the most important of them appeared to +be Carlyle.... The acquaintance then begun to their mutual pleasure +ripened into a deep friendship, which has remained unclouded in spite +of wide divergences of opinion throughout their working lives." + +Carlyle wrote to his mother after Emerson had left: + +"Our third happiness was the arrival of a certain young unknown friend +named Emerson, from Boston, in the United States, who turned aside so +far from his British, French, and Italian travels to see me here! He +had an introduction from Mill and a Frenchman (Baron d'Eichthal's +nephew) whom John knew at Rome. Of course, we could do no other than +welcome him; the rather as he seemed to be one of the most lovable +creatures in himself we had ever looked on. He stayed till next day +with us, and talked and heard to his heart's content, and left us all +really sad to part with him." + +In 1841 Carlyle wrote to John Sterling a few words apropos of the +recent publication of Emerson's essays in England: + +"I love Emerson's book, not for its detached opinions, not even for +the scheme of the general world he has framed for himself, or any +eminence of talent he has expressed that with, but simply because it +is his own book; because there is a tone of veracity, an unmistakable +air of its being _his_, and a real utterance of a human soul, not a +mere echo of such. I consider it, in that sense, highly remarkable, +rare, very rare, in these days of ours. Ach Gott! It is frightful to +live among echoes. The few that read the book, I imagine, will get +benefit of it. To America, I sometimes say that Emerson, such as he +is, seems to me like a kind of New Era." + +John Morley, the acute English critic, has made an analytic study of +Emerson's style, which may reconcile the reader to some of its +exasperating peculiarities. + +"One of the traits that every critic notes in Emerson's writing is +that it is so abrupt, so sudden in its transitions, so discontinuous, +so inconsecutive. Dislike of a sentence that drags made him +unconscious of the quality that French critics name _coulant_. +Everything is thrown in just as it comes, and sometimes the pell-mell +is enough to persuade us that Pope did not exaggerate when he said +that no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer as the +power of rejecting his own thoughts.... Apart from his difficult +staccato, Emerson is not free from secondary faults. He uses words +that are not only odd, but vicious in construction; he is sometimes +oblique and he is often clumsy; and there is a visible feeling after +epigrams that do not always come. When people say that Emerson's style +must be good and admirable because it fits his thought, they forget +that though it is well that a robe should fit, there is still +something to be said about its cut and fashion.... Yet, as happens to +all fine minds, there came to Emerson ways of expression deeply marked +with character. On every page there is set the strong stamp of +sincerity, and the attraction of a certain artlessness; the most +awkward sentence rings true; and there is often a pure and simple note +that touches us more than if it were the perfection of elaborated +melody. The uncouth procession of the periods discloses the travail of +the thought, and that, too, is a kind of eloquence. An honest reader +easily forgives the rude jolt or unexpected start when it shows a +thinker faithfully working his way along arduous and unworn tracks. +Even at the roughest, Emerson often interjects a delightful cadence. +As he says of Landor, his sentences are cubes which will stand firm, +place them how or where you will. He criticised Swedenborg for being +superfluously explanatory, and having an exaggerated feeling of the +ignorance of men. 'Men take truths of this nature,' said Emerson, +'very fast;' and his own style does no doubt very boldly take this +capacity for granted in us. In 'choice and pith of diction,' again, of +which Mr. Lowell speaks, he hits the mark with a felicity that is +almost his own in this generation. He is terse, concentrated, and free +from the important blunder of mistaking intellectual dawdling for +meditation. Nor in fine does his abruptness ever impede a true +urbanity. The accent is homely and the apparel plain, but his bearing +has a friendliness, a courtesy, a hospitable humanity, which goes +nearer to our hearts than either literary decoration or rhetorical +unction. That modest and lenient fellow-feeling which gave such charm +to his companionship breathes in his gravest writing, and prevents us +from finding any page of it cold or hard or dry." + +E.P. Whipple, the well-known American critic, wrote soon after Emerson's +death: + +"But 'sweetness and light' are precious and inspiring only so far as +they express the essential sweetness of the disposition of the +thinker, and the essential illuminating power of his intelligence. +Emerson's greatness came from his character. Sweetness and light +streamed from him because they were _in_ him. In everything he +thought, wrote, and did, we feel the presence of a personality as +vigorous and brave as it was sweet, and the particular radical thought +he at any time expressed derived its power to animate and illuminate +other minds from the might of the manhood, which was felt to be within +and behind it. To 'sweetness and light' he therefore added the prime +quality of fearless manliness. + +"If the force of Emerson's character was thus inextricably blended +with the force of all his faculties of intellect and imagination, and +the refinement of all his sentiments, we have still to account for the +peculiarities of his genius, and to answer the question, why do we +instinctively apply the epithet 'Emersonian' to every characteristic +passage in his writings? We are told that he was the last in a long +line of clergymen, his ancestors, and that the modern doctrine of +heredity accounts for the impressive emphasis he laid on the moral +sentiment; but that does not solve the puzzle why he unmistakably +differed in his nature and genius from all other Emersons. An +imaginary genealogical chart of descent connecting him with Confucius +or Gautama would be more satisfactory. + +"What distinguishes _the_ Emerson was his exceptional genius and +character, that something in him which separated him from all other +Emersons, as it separated him from all other eminent men of letters, +and impressed every intelligent reader with the feeling that he was +not only 'original but aboriginal.' Some traits of his mind and +character may be traced back to his ancestors, but what doctrine of +heredity can give us the genesis of his genius? Indeed, the safest +course to pursue is to quote his own words, and despairingly confess +that it is the nature of genius 'to spring, like the rainbow daughter +of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse all +history.'" + + + + +CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF EMERSON'S PRINCIPAL WORKS. + + +Nature 1836 +Essays (First Series) 1841 +Essays (Second Series) 1844 +Poems 1847 +Miscellanies 1849 +Representative Men 1850 +English Traits 1856 +Conduct of Life 1860 +Society and Solitude 1870 +Correspondence of Thomas +Carlyle and R.W. Emerson 1883 + + + + +THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. + + This address was delivered at Cambridge in 1837, before the + Harvard Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, a college + fraternity composed of the first twenty-five men in each + graduating class. The society has annual meetings, which + have been the occasion for addresses from the most + distinguished scholars and thinkers of the day. + + +MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN, + +I greet you on the recommencement of our literary year. Our +anniversary is one of hope, and, perhaps, not enough of labor. We do +not meet for games of strength[1] or skill, for the recitation of +histories, tragedies, and odes, like the ancient Greeks; for +parliaments of love and poesy, like the Troubadours;[2] nor for the +advancement of science, like our co-temporaries in the British and +European capitals. Thus far, our holiday has been simply a friendly +sign of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy +to give to letters any more. As such it is precious as the sign of an +indestructible instinct. Perhaps the time is already come when it +ought to be, and will be, something else; when the sluggard intellect +of this continent will look from under its iron lids and fill the +postponed expectation of the world with something better than the +exertions of mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, our long +apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The +millions that around us are rushing into life cannot always be fed on +the sere remains of foreign harvests.[3] Events, actions arise that +must be sung, that will sing themselves. Who can doubt that poetry +will revive and lead in a new age, as the star in the constellation +Harp, which now flames in our zenith, astronomers announce, shall one +day be the pole-star[4] for a thousand years? + +In the light of this hope I accept the topic which not only usage but +the nature of our association seem to prescribe to this day,--the +AMERICAN SCHOLAR. Year by year we come up hither to read one +more chapter of his biography. Let us inquire what new lights, new +events, and more days have thrown on his character, his duties, and +his hopes. + +It is one of those fables which out of an unknown antiquity convey an +unlooked-for wisdom, that the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into +men, that he might be more helpful to himself; just as the hand was +divided into fingers, the better to answer its end.[5] + +The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is +One Man,--present to all particular men only partially, or through one +faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole +man. Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is +all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and +soldier. In the _divided_ or social state these functions are parceled +out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint[6] of the joint +work, whilst each other performs his. The fable implies that the +individual, to possess himself, must sometimes return from his own +labor to embrace all the other laborers. But, unfortunately, this +original unit, this fountain of power, has been so distributed to +multitudes, has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out, that it +is spilled into drops, and cannot be gathered. The state of society is +one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk and +strut about so many walking monsters,--a good finger, a neck, a +stomach, an elbow, but never a man. + +Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, +who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered +by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel +and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead +of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth +to his work, but is ridden[7] by the routine of his craft, and the +soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the attorney a +statute-book; the mechanic a machine; the sailor a rope of the ship. + +In this distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated +intellect. In the right state he is _Man Thinking_. In the degenerate +state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, +or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking. + +In this view of him, as Man Thinking, the whole theory of his office +is contained. Him Nature solicits with all her placid, all her +monitory pictures.[8] Him the past instructs. Him the future invites. +Is not indeed every man a student, and do not all things exist for the +student's behoof? And, finally, is not the true scholar the only true +master? But as the old oracle said, "All things have two handles: +Beware of the wrong one."[9] In life, too often, the scholar errs with +mankind and forfeits his privilege. Let us see him in his school, and +consider him in reference to the main influences he receives. + + * * * * * + +I. The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon +the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun;[10] and, after sunset, +Night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. Every +day, men and women, conversing, beholding and beholden.[11] The scholar +must needs stand wistful and admiring before this great spectacle. He +must settle its value in his mind. What is nature to him? There is never +a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of +this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.[12] +Therein it resembles his own spirit, whose beginning, whose ending, he +never can find,--so entire, so boundless. Far too as her splendors +shine, system on system shooting like rays, upward, downward, without +center, without circumference,--in the mass and in the particle, Nature +hastens to render account of herself to the mind. Classification begins. +To the young mind everything is individual, stands by itself. By and by +it finds how to join two things and see in them one nature; then three, +then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying +instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, +discovering roots running under ground whereby contrary and remote +things cohere and flower out from one stem. It presently learns that +since the dawn of history there has been a constant accumulation and +classifying of facts. But what is classification but the perceiving that +these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law which +is also a law of the human mind? The astronomer discovers that geometry, +a pure abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of planetary +motion. The chemist finds proportions and intelligible method throughout +matter; and science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in +the most remote parts. The ambitious soul sits down before each +refractory fact; one after another reduces all strange constitutions, +all new powers, to their class and their law, and goes on forever to +animate the last fiber of organization, the outskirts of nature, by +insight. + +Thus to him, to this school-boy under the bending dome of day, is +suggested that he and it proceed from one Root; one is leaf and one is +flower; relation, sympathy, stirring in every vein. And what is that +root? Is not that the soul of his soul?--A thought too bold?--A dream +too wild? Yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of +more earthly natures,--when he has learned to worship the soul, and to +see that the natural philosophy that now is, is only the first +gropings of its gigantic hand,--he shall look forward to an +ever-expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator.[13] He shall see +that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for +part. One is seal and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his +own mind. Its laws are the laws of his own mind. Nature then becomes +to him the measure of his attainments. So much of nature as he is +ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he not yet possess. And, in +fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself,"[14] and the modern precept, +"Study nature," become at last one maxim. + + * * * * * + +II. The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar is the +mind of the Past,--in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of +institutions, that mind is inscribed. Books are the best type of the +influence of the past, and perhaps we shall get at the truth,--learn +the amount of this influence more conveniently,--by considering their +value alone. + +The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received +into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new +arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again. It came into him +life; it went out from him truth. It came to him short-lived actions; +it went out from him immortal thoughts. It came to him business; it +went from him poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It +can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now +inspires.[15] Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which +it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing. + +Or, I might say, it depends on how far the process had gone, of +transmuting life into truth. In proportion to the completeness of the +distillation, so will the purity and imperishableness of the product +be. But none is quite perfect. As no air-pump can by any means make a +perfect vacuum,[16] so neither can any artist entirely exclude the +conventional, the local, the perishable from his book, or write a book +of pure thought, that shall be as efficient, in all respects, to a +remote posterity, as to contemporaries, or rather to the second age. +Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each +generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will +not fit this. + +Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacredness which attaches to +the act of creation, the act of thought, is instantly transferred to +the record. The poet chanting was felt to be a divine man. Henceforth +the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit. +Henceforward it is settled the book is perfect; as love of the hero +corrupts into worship of his statue. Instantly the book becomes +noxious.[17] The guide is a tyrant. We sought a brother, and lo, a +governor. The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, always +slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, +having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry if +it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by +thinkers, not by Man Thinking, by men of talent, that is, who start +wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of +principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their +duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke,[18] which +Bacon,[19] have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were +only young men in libraries when they wrote these books. + +Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence the +book-learned class, who value books, as such; not as related to nature +and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate[20] +with the world and soul. Hence the restorers of readings,[21] the +emendators,[22] the bibliomaniacs[23] of all degrees. This is bad; +this is worse than it seems. + +Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What +is the right use? What is the one end which all means go to effect? +They are for nothing but to inspire.[24] I had better never see a book +than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and +made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world of +value is the active soul,--the soul, free, sovereign, active. This +every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although +in almost all men obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees +absolute truth and utters truth, or creates. In this action it is +genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound +estate of every man.[25] In its essence it is progressive. The book, +the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with +some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they,--let us hold by +this. They pin me down.[26] They look backward and not forward. But +genius always looks forward. The eyes of man are set in his forehead, +not in his hindhead. Man hopes. Genius creates. To create,--to +create,--is the proof of a divine presence. Whatever talents may be, +if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not +his;[27]--cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are +creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative words; +manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or +authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good +and fair. + +On the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it receive +always from another mind its truth, though it were in torrents of +light, without periods of solitude, inquest, and self-recovery; and a +fatal disservice[28] is done. Genius is always sufficiently the enemy +of genius by over-influence.[29] The literature of every nation bear +me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakespearized now for two +hundred years.[30] + +Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly +subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. +Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, +the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of +their readings.[31] But when the intervals of darkness come, as come +they must,--when the soul seeth not, when the sun is hid and the stars +withdraw their shining,--we repair to the lamps which were kindled by +their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn +is.[32] We hear, that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, "A +fig-tree, looking on a fig-tree, becometh fruitful." + +It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the +best books. They impress us ever with the conviction that one nature +wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great +English poets, of Chaucer,[33] of Marvell,[34] of Dryden,[35] with the +most modern joy,--with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part +caused by the abstraction of all _time_ from their verses. There is +some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived +in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which +lies close to my own soul, that which I also had well-nigh thought and +said. But for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical +doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should suppose some +pre-established harmony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and +some preparation of stores for their future wants, like the fact +observed in insects, who lay up food before death for the young grub +they shall never see. + +I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration of +instincts, to underrate the Book. We all know that as the human body +can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the +broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge. And +great and heroic men have existed who had almost no other information +than by the printed page. I only would say that it needs a strong head +to bear that diet. One must be an inventor to read well. As the +proverb says, "He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies must +carry out the wealth of the Indies." There is then creative reading as +well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and +invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with +manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense +of our author is as broad as the world. We then see, what is always +true, that as the seer's hour of vision is short and rare among heavy +days and months, so is its record, perchance, the least part of his +volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato[36] or Shakespeare, +only that least part,--only the authentic utterances of the +oracle;--all the rest he rejects, were it never so many times Plato's +and Shakespeare's. + +Of course there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise +man. History and exact science he must learn by laborious reading. +Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office,--to teach +elements. But they can only highly serve us when they aim not to +drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various +genius to their hospitable halls, and by the concentrated fires set +the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are natures +in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns[37] and +pecuniary foundations,[38] though of towns of gold, can never +countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit.[39] Forget this, +and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, +whilst they grow richer every year. + + * * * * * + +III. There goes in the world a notion that the scholar should be a +recluse, a valetudinarian,[40]--as unfit for any handiwork or public +labor as a penknife for an axe. The so-called "practical men" sneer at +speculative men, as if, because they speculate or _see_, they could do +nothing. I have heard it said that the clergy--who are always, more +universally than any other class, the scholars of their day--are +addressed as women; that the rough, spontaneous conversation of men +they do not hear, but only a mincing[41] and diluted speech. They are +often virtually disfranchised; and indeed there are advocates for +their celibacy. As far as this is true of the studious classes, it is +not just and wise. Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is +essential. Without it he is not yet man. Without it thought can never +ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of +beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, but +there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. The preamble[42] of +thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious +to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. +Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not. + +The world--this shadow of the soul, or _other me_, lies wide around. +Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me +acquainted with myself. I launch eagerly into this resounding tumult. +I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to +suffer and to work, taught by an instinct that so shall the dumb +abyss[43] be vocal with speech. I pierce its order; I dissipate its +fear;[44] I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So +much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness +have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my +dominion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his +nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is +pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, +want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar +grudges every opportunity of action passed by, as a loss of power. + +It is the raw material out of which the intellect molds her splendid +products. A strange process too, this by which experience is converted +into thought, as a mulberry-leaf is converted into satin.[45] The +manufacture goes forward at all hours. + +The actions and events of our childhood and youth are now matters of +calmest observation. They lie like fair pictures in the air. Not so +with our recent actions,--with the business which we now have in hand. +On this we are quite unable to speculate. Our affections as yet +circulate through it. We no more feel or know it than we feel the +feet, or the hand, or the brain of our body. The new deed is yet a +part of life,--remains for a time immersed in our unconscious life. In +some contemplative hour it detaches itself from the life like a ripe +fruit,[46] to become a thought of the mind. Instantly it is raised, +transfigured; the corruptible has put on incorruption.[47] Henceforth +it is an object of beauty, however base its origin and neighborhood. +Observe, too, the impossibility of antedating this act. In its grub +state it cannot fly, it cannot shine, it is a dull grub. But suddenly, +without observation, the selfsame thing unfurls beautiful wings, and +is an angel of wisdom. So is there no fact, no event, in our private +history, which shall not, sooner or later, lose its adhesive, inert +form, and astonish us by soaring from our body into the empyrean.[48] +Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the fear of boys, and dogs, +and ferules,[49] the love of little maids and berries, and many +another fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already; friend +and relative, profession and party, town and country, nation and +world, must also soar and sing.[50] + +Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions has +the richest return of wisdom. I will not shut myself out of this globe +of action, and transplant an oak into a flower-pot, there to hunger +and pine; nor trust the revenue of some single faculty, and exhaust +one vein of thought, much like those Savoyards,[51] who, getting their +livelihood by carving shepherds, shepherdesses, and smoking Dutchmen, +for all Europe, went out one day to the mountain to find stock, and +discovered that they had whittled up the last of their pine-trees. +Authors we have, in numbers, who have written out their vein, and who, +moved by a commendable prudence, sail for Greece or Palestine, follow +the trapper into the prairie, or ramble round Algiers, to replenish +their merchantable stock. + +If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would be covetous of +action. Life is our dictionary.[52] Years are well spent in country +labors; in town; in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank +intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one +end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate +and embody our perceptions. I learn immediately from any speaker how +much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his +speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and +copestones for the masonry of to-day. This is the way to learn +grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and +the work-yard made. + +But the final value of action, like that of books, and better than +books, is that it is a resource. That great principle of Undulation in +nature, that shows itself in the inspiring and expiring of the breath; +in desire and satiety; in the ebb and flow of the sea; in day and night; +in heat and cold; and, as yet more deeply ingrained in every atom and +every fluid, is known to us under the name of Polarity,--these "fits of +easy transmission and reflection," as Newton[53] called them, are the +law of nature because they are the law of spirit. + +The mind now thinks, now acts, and each fit reproduces the other. When +the artist has exhausted his materials, when the fancy no longer +paints, when thoughts are no longer apprehended and books are a +weariness,--he has always the resource _to live_. Character is higher +than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary. +The stream retreats to its source. A great soul will be strong to +live, as well as strong to think. Does he lack organ or medium to +impart his truth? He can still fall back on this elemental force of +living them. This is a total act. Thinking is a partial act. Let the +grandeur of justice shine in his affairs. Let the beauty of affection +cheer his lowly roof. Those "far from fame," who dwell and act with +him, will feel the force of his constitution in the doings and +passages of the day better than it can be measured by any public and +designed display. Time shall teach him that the scholar loses no hour +which the man lives. Herein he unfolds the sacred germ of his +instinct, screened from influence. What is lost in seemliness is +gained in strength. Not out of those on whom systems of education have +exhausted their culture comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or +to build the new, but out of unhandselled[54] savage nature; out of +terrible Druids[55] and Berserkers[56] come at last Alfred[57] and +Shakespeare. I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be +said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is +virtue yet in the hoe and the spade,[58] for learned as well as for +unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are +invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall +not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the +popular judgments and modes of action. + + * * * * * + +I have now spoken of the education of the scholar by nature, by books, +and by action. It remains to say somewhat of his duties. + +They are such as become Man Thinking. They may all be comprised in +self-trust. The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to +guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, +unhonored, and unpaid task of observation. Flamsteed[59] and +Herschel,[60] in their glazed observatories, may catalogue the stars +with the praise of all men, and, the results being splendid and +useful, honor is sure. But he, in his private observatory, cataloguing +obscure and nebulous[61] stars of the human mind, which as yet no man +has thought of as such,--watching days and months sometimes for a few +facts; correcting still his old records,--must relinquish display and +immediate fame. In the long period of his preparation he must betray +often an ignorance and shiftlessness in popular arts, incurring the +disdain of the able who shoulder him aside. Long he must stammer in +his speech; often forego the living for the dead. Worse yet, he must +accept--how often!--poverty and solitude. For the ease and pleasure of +treading the old road, accepting the fashions, the education, the +religion of society, he takes the cross of making his own, and, of +course, the self-accusation, the faint heart, the frequent uncertainty +and loss of time, which are the nettles and tangling vines in the way +of the self-relying and self-directed; and the state of virtual +hostility in which he seems to stand to society, and especially to +educated society. For all this loss and scorn, what offset? He is to +find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. +He is one who raises himself from private considerations and breathes +and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world's eye. +He is the world's heart. He is to resist the vulgar prosperity that +retrogrades ever to barbarism, by preserving and communicating heroic +sentiments, noble biographies, melodious verse, and the conclusions of +history. Whatsoever oracles the human heart, in all emergencies, in +all solemn hours, has uttered as its commentary on the world of +actions,--these he shall receive and impart. And whatsoever new +verdict Reason from her inviolable seat pronounces on the passing men +and events of to-day,--this he shall hear and promulgate. + +These being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in +himself, and to defer never to the popular cry. He and he only knows +the world. The world of any moment is the merest appearance. Some +great decorum, some fetich[62] of a government, some ephemeral trade, +or war, or man, is cried up[63] by half mankind and cried down by the +other half, as if all depended on this particular up or down. The odds +are that the whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the +scholar has lost in listening to the controversy. Let him not quit his +belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable[64] +of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In silence, in +steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add +observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach, +and bide his own time,--happy enough if he can satisfy himself alone +that this day he has seen something truly. Success treads on every +right step. For the instinct is sure that prompts him to tell his +brother what he thinks. He then learns that in going down into the +secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all +minds. He learns that he who has mastered any law in his private +thoughts is master to that extent of all men whose language he speaks, +and of all into whose language his own can be translated. The poet, in +utter solitude remembering his spontaneous thoughts and recording +them, is found to have recorded that which men in cities vast find +true for them also. The orator distrusts at first the fitness of his +frank confessions, his want of knowledge of the persons he addresses, +until he finds that he is the complement[65] of his hearers;--that +they drink his words because he fulfills for them their own nature; +the deeper he dives into his privatest, secretest presentiment, to his +wonder he finds this is the most acceptable, most public and +universally true. The people delight in it; the better part of every +man feels--This is my music; this is myself. + +In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the +scholar be,--free and brave. Free even to the definition of freedom, +"without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own +constitution." Brave; for fear is a thing which a scholar by his very +function puts behind him. Fear always springs from ignorance. It is a +shame to him if his tranquility, amid dangerous times, arise from the +presumption that like children and women his is a protected class; or +if he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from +politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the +flowering bushes, peeping into microscopes, and turning rhymes, as a +boy whistles to keep his courage up. So is the danger a danger still; +so is the fear worse. Manlike let him turn and face it. Let him look +into its eye and search its nature, inspect its origin,--see the +whelping of this lion,--which lies no great way back; he will then +find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent; he +will have made his hands meet on the other side, and can henceforth +defy it and pass on superior. The world is his who can see through its +pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown +error you behold is there only by sufferance,--by your sufferance. See +it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow. + +Yes, we are the cowed,--we the trustless. It is a mischievous notion +that we are come late into nature; that the world was finished a long +time ago. As the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of God, so +it is ever to so much of his attributes as we bring to it. To +ignorance and sin it is flint. They adapt themselves to it as they +may; but in proportion as a man has any thing in him divine, the +firmament flows before him and takes his signet[66] and form. Not he +is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind. +They are the kings of the world who give the color of their present +thought to all nature and all art, and persuade men, by the cheerful +serenity of their carrying the matter, that this thing which they do +is the apple which the ages have desired to pluck, now at last ripe, +and inviting nations to the harvest. The great man makes the great +thing. Wherever Macdonald[67] sits, there is the head of the table. +Linnaeus[68] makes botany the most alluring of studies, and wins it +from the farmer and the herb-woman: Davy,[69] chemistry; and +Cuvier,[70] fossils. The day is always his who works in it with +serenity and great aims. The unstable estimates of men crowd to him +whose mind is filled with a truth, as the heaped waves of the Atlantic +follow the moon.[71] + +For this self-trust, the reason is deeper than can be fathomed,--darker +than can be enlightened. I might not carry with me the feeling of my +audience in stating my own belief. But I have already shown the ground +of my hope, in adverting to the doctrine that man is one. I believe man +has been wronged; he has wronged himself. He has almost lost the light +that can lead him back to his prerogatives. Men are become of no +account. Men in history, men in the world of to-day, are bugs, are +spawn, and are called "the mass" and "the herd." In a century, in a +millennium, one or two men;[72] that is to say, one or two +approximations to the right state of every man. All the rest behold in +the hero or the poet their own green and crude being,--ripened; yes, and +are content to be less, so _that_ may attain to its full stature. What a +testimony, full of grandeur, full of pity, is borne to the demands of +his own nature, by the poor clansman, the poor partisan, who rejoices in +the glory of his chief! The poor and the low find some amends to their +immense moral capacity, for their acquiescence in a political and social +inferiority.[73] They are content to be brushed like flies from the path +of a great person, so that justice shall be done by him to that common +nature which it is the dearest desire of all to see enlarged and +glorified. They sun themselves in the great man's light, and feel it to +be their own element. They cast the dignity of man from their downtrod +selves upon the shoulders of a hero, and will perish to add one drop of +blood to make that great heart beat, those giant sinews combat and +conquer. He lives for us, and we live in him. + +Men such as they[74] are very naturally seek money or power; and power +because it is as good as money,--the "spoils," so called, "of office." +And why not? For they aspire to the highest, and this, in their +sleep-walking, they dream is highest. Wake them and they shall quit +the false good and leap to the true, and leave governments to clerks +and desks. This revolution is to be wrought by the gradual +domestication of the idea of Culture. The main enterprise of the world +for splendor, for extent, is the upbuilding of a man. Here are the +materials strewn along the ground. The private life of one man shall +be a more illustrious monarchy, more formidable to its enemy, more +sweet and serene in its influence to its friend, than any kingdom in +history. For a man, rightly viewed, comprehendeth[75] the particular +natures of all men. Each philosopher, each bard, each actor has only +done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself. The +books which once we valued more than the apple of the eye, we have +quite exhausted. What is that but saying that we have come up with the +point of view which the universal mind took through the eyes of one +scribe; we have been that man, and have passed on. First, one, then +another, we drain all cisterns, and waxing greater by all these +supplies, we crave a better and a more abundant food. The man has +never lived that can feed us ever. The human mind cannot be enshrined +in a person who shall set a barrier on any one side to this unbounded, +unboundable empire. It is one central fire, which, flaming now out of +the lips of Etna, lightens the capes of Sicily, and now out of the +throat of Vesuvius, illuminates the towers and vineyards of Naples. It +is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which +animates all men. + + * * * * * + +But I have dwelt perhaps tediously upon this abstraction of the +Scholar. I ought not to delay longer to add what I have to say of +nearer reference to the time and to this country. + +Historically, there is thought to be a difference in the ideas which +predominate over successive epochs, and there are data for marking the +genius of the Classic, of the Romantic, and now of the Reflective or +Philosophical age.[76] With the views I have intimated of the oneness +or the identity of the mind through all individuals, I do not much +dwell on these differences. In fact, I believe each individual passes +through all three. The boy is a Greek; the youth, romantic; the +adult, reflective. I deny not, however, that a revolution in the +leading idea may be distinctly enough traced. + +Our age is bewailed as the age of Introversion.[77] Must that needs be +evil? We, it seems, are critical. We are embarrassed with second +thoughts.[78] We cannot enjoy anything for hankering to know whereof +the pleasure consists. We are lined with eyes. We see with our feet. +The time is infected with Hamlet's unhappiness,-- + + "Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."[79] + +Is it so bad then? Sight is the last thing to be pitied. Would we be +blind? Do we fear lest we should outsee nature and God, and drink +truth dry? I look upon the discontent of the literary class as a mere +announcement of the fact that they find themselves not in the state of +mind of their fathers, and regret the coming state as untried; as a +boy dreads the water before he has learned that he can swim. If there +is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of +Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side and admit of +being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and +by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by +the rich possibilities of the new era? This time, like all times, is a +very good one, if we but know what to do with it. + +I read with some joy of the auspicious signs of the coming days, as +they glimmer already through poetry and art, through philosophy and +science, through church and state. + +One of these signs is the fact that the same movement[80] which +effected the elevation of what was called the lowest class in the +state assumed in literature a very marked and as benign an aspect. +Instead of the sublime and beautiful, the near, the low, the common, +was explored and poetized. That which had been negligently trodden +under foot by those who were harnessing and provisioning themselves +for long journeys into far countries, is suddenly found to be richer +than all foreign parts. The literature of the poor, the feelings of +the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household +life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a +sign--is it not?--of new vigor when the extremities are made active, +when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet. I ask not +for the great, the remote, the romantic; what is doing in Italy or +Arabia; what is Greek art, or Provencal minstrelsy; I embrace the +common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. Give +me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future +worlds. What would we really know the meaning of? The meal in the +firkin; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street; the news of the +boat; the glance of the eye; the form and the gait of the body;--show +me the ultimate reason of these matters; show me the sublime presence +of the highest spiritual cause lurking, as always it does lurk, in +these suburbs and extremities of nature; let me see every trifle +bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal +law;[81] and the shop, the plow, and the ledger referred to the like +cause by which light undulates and poets sing;--and the world lies no +longer a dull miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and order: +there is no trifle, there is no puzzle, but one design unites and +animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench. + +This idea has inspired the genius of Goldsmith,[82] Burns,[83] +Cowper,[84] and, in a newer time, of Goethe,[85] Wordsworth,[86] and +Carlyle.[87] This idea they have differently followed and with various +success. In contrast with their writing, the style of Pope,[88] of +Johnson,[89] of Gibbon,[90] looks cold and pedantic. This writing is +blood-warm. Man is surprised to find that things near are not less +beautiful and wondrous than things remote. The near explains the far. +The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature. This +perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries. +Goethe, in this very thing the most modern of the moderns, has shown +us, as none ever did, the genius of the ancients. + +There is one man of genius who has done much for this philosophy of +life, whose literary value has never yet been rightly estimated:--I +mean Emanuel Swedenborg.[91] The most imaginative of men, yet writing +with the precision of a mathematician, he endeavored to engraft a +purely philosophical Ethics on the popular Christianity of his time. +Such an attempt of course must have difficulty which no genius could +surmount. But he saw and showed the connexion between nature and the +affections of the soul. He pierced the emblematic or spiritual +character of the visible, audible, tangible world. Especially did his +shade-loving muse hover over and interpret the lower parts of nature; +he showed the mysterious bond that allies moral evil to the foul +material forms, and has given in epical parables a theory of insanity, +of beasts, of unclean and fearful things. + +Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political +movement, is the new importance given to the single person. Everything +that tends to insulate the individual--to surround him with barriers +of natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his, and +man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign +state--tends to true union as well as greatness. "I learned," said the +melancholy Pestalozzi,[92] "that no man in God's wide earth is either +willing or able to help any other man." Help must come from the bosom +alone. The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the +ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes +of the future. He must be an university of knowledges. If there be one +lesson more than another that should pierce his ear, it is--The world +is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and +you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers +the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all; it is for you to dare +all. Mr. President and Gentlemen, this confidence in the unsearched +might of man belongs, by all motives, by all prophecy, by all +preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the +courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already +suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice +make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, +indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of +this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is +no work for any one but the decorous and the complaisant. Young men of +the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the +mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth +below not in unison with these, but are hindered from action by the +disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and +turn drudges, or die of disgust, some of them suicides. What is the +remedy? They did not yet see, and thousands of young men as hopeful +now crowding to the barriers for the career do not yet see, that if +the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there +abide, the huge world will come round to him. Patience,--patience; +with the shades of all the good and great for company; and for solace +the perspective of your own infinite life; and for work the study and +the communication of principles, the making those instincts prevalent, +the conversion of the world. Is it not the chief disgrace in the +world, not to be an unit; not to be reckoned one character; not to +yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, but to +be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand, of the +party, the section, to which we belong; and our opinion predicted +geographically, as the north, or the south? Not so, brothers and +friends,--please God, ours shall not be so. We will walk on our own +feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. +Then shall man be no longer a name for pity, for doubt, and for +sensual indulgence. The dread of man and the love of man shall be a +wall of defense and a wreath of joy around all. A nation of men will +for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by +the Divine Soul which also inspires all men. + + + + +COMPENSATION.[93] + + The wings of Time are black and white, + Pied with morning and with night. + Mountain tall and ocean deep + Trembling balance duly keep. + In changing moon, in tidal wave, + Glows the feud of Want and Have. + Gauge of more and less through space + Electric star and pencil plays. + The lonely Earth amid the balls + That hurry through the eternal halls, + A makeweight flying to the void, + Supplemental asteroid, + Or compensatory spark, + Shoots across the neutral Dark. + + Man's the elm, and Wealth the vine, + Stanch and strong the tendrils twine; + Through the frail ringlets thee deceive, + None from its stock that vine can reave. + Fear not, then, thou child infirm, + There's no god dare wrong a worm. + Laurel crowns cleave to deserts, + And power to him who power exerts; + Hast not thy share? On winged feet, + Lo! it rushes thee to meet; + And all that Nature made thy own, + Floating in air or pent in stone, + Will rive the hills and swim the sea, + And, like thy shadow, follow thee. + + +Ever since I was a boy, I have wished to write a discourse on +Compensation: for it seemed to me when very young, that on this +subject life was ahead of theology, and the people knew more than the +preachers taught. The documents,[94] too, from which the doctrine is +to be drawn, charmed my fancy by their endless variety, and lay always +before me, even in sleep; for they are the tools in our hands, the +bread in our basket, the transactions of the street, the farm, and the +dwelling-house, greetings, relations, debts and credits, the influence +of character, the nature and endowment of all men. It seemed to me, +also, that in it might be shown men a ray of divinity, the present +action of the soul of this world, clean from all vestige of tradition, +and so the heart of man might be bathed by an inundation of eternal +love, conversing with that which he knows was always and always must +be, because it really is now. It appeared, moreover, that if this +doctrine could be stated in terms with any resemblance to those bright +intuitions in which this truth is sometimes revealed to us, it would +be a star in many dark hours and crooked passages in our journey that +would not suffer us to lose our way. + +I was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon at church. +The preacher, a man esteemed for his orthodoxy, unfolded in the +ordinary manner the doctrine of the Last Judgment. He assumed that +judgment is not executed in this world; that the wicked are +successful; that the good are miserable;[95] and then urged from +reason and from Scripture a compensation to be made to both parties in +the next life. No offense appeared to be taken by the congregation at +this doctrine. As far as I could observe, when the meeting broke up, +they separated without remark on the sermon. + +Yet what was the import of this teaching? What did the preacher mean +by saying that the good are miserable in the present life? Was it that +houses and lands, offices, wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had by +unprincipled men, whilst the saints are poor and despised; and that a +compensation is to be made to these last hereafter, by giving them the +like gratifications another day,--bank stock and doubloons,[96] +venison and champagne? This must be the compensation intended; for +what else? Is it that they are to have leave to pray and praise? to +love and serve men? Why, that they can do now. The legitimate +inference the disciple would draw was: "We are to have _such_ a good +time as the sinners have now"; or, to push it to its extreme import: +"You sin now; we shall sin by and by; we would sin now, if we could; +not being successful, we expect our revenue to-morrow." + +The fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad are successful; +that justice is not done now. The blindness of the preacher consisted +in deferring to the base estimate of the market of what constitutes a +manly success, instead of confronting and convicting the world from +the truth; announcing the presence of the soul; the omnipotence of the +will: and so establishing the standard of good and ill, of success and +falsehood. + +I find a similar base tone in the popular religious works of the day, +and the same doctrines assumed by the literary men when occasionally +they treat the related topics. I think that our popular theology has +gained in decorum, and not in principle, over the superstitions it has +displaced. But men are better than this theology. Their daily life +gives it the lie. Every ingenuous and aspiring soul leaves the +doctrine behind him in his own experience; and all men feel sometimes +the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate. Few men are wiser than +they know. That which they hear in schools and pulpits without +afterthought, if said in conversation, would probably be questioned in +silence. If a man dogmatize in a mixed company on Providence and the +divine laws, he is answered by a silence which conveys well enough to +an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer, but his incapacity to +make his own statement. + +I shall attempt in this and the following chapter to record some facts +that indicate the path of the law of Compensation; happy beyond my +expectation, if I shall truly draw the smallest arc of this circle. + +POLARITY,[97] or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; +in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; +in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and +animals; in the equation of quantity and quality in the fluids of the +animal body; in the systole and diastole[98] of the heart; in the +undulations of fluids, and of sound; in the centrifugal and centripetal +gravity; in electricity, galvanism, and chemical affinity. Superinduce +magnetism at one end of a needle; the opposite magnetism takes place at +the other end. If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here, +you must condense there. An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that +each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole; as, +spirit, matter; man, woman; odd, even; subjective, objective; in, out; +upper, under; motion, rest; yea, nay. + +Whilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its parts. The +entire system of things gets represented in every particle. There is +somewhat that resembles the ebb and flow of the sea, day and night, +man and woman, in a single needle of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in +each individual of every animal tribe. The reaction, so grand in the +elements, is repeated within these small boundaries. For example, in +the animal kingdom the physiologist has observed that no creatures +are favorites, but a certain compensation balances every gift and +every defect. A surplusage given to one part is paid out of a +reduction from another part of the same creature. If the head and neck +are enlarged, the trunk and extremities are cut short. + +The theory of the mechanic forces is another example. What we gain in +power is lost in time; and the converse. The periodic or compensating +errors of the planets is another instance. The influences of climate +and soil in political history is another. The cold climate +invigorates. The barren soil does not breed fevers, crocodiles, +tigers, or scorpions. + +The same dualism underlies the nature and condition of man. Every +excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its +sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of +pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for +its moderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain +of folly. For everything you have missed, you have gained something +else; and for everything you gain, you lose something. If riches +increase, they are increased[99] that use them. If the gatherer +gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his +chest, swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies +and exceptions. The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level +from their loftiest tossing, than the varieties of condition tend to +equalize themselves. There is always some leveling circumstance that +puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, +substantially on the same ground with all others. Is a man too strong +and fierce for society, and by temper and position a bad citizen,--a +morose ruffian, with a dash of the pirate in him;--nature sends him a +troop of pretty sons and daughters, who are getting along in the +dame's classes at the village school, and love and fear for them +smooths his grim scowl to courtesy. Thus she contrives to +intenerate[100] the granite and felspar, takes the boar out and puts +the lamb in, and keeps her balance true. + +The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President +has paid dear for his White House.[101] It has commonly cost him all +his peace, and the best of his many attributes. To preserve for a +short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is +content to eat dust[102] before the real masters who stand erect +behind the throne. Or, do men desire the more substantial and +permanent grandeur of genius? Neither has this an immunity. He who by +force of will or of thought, is great, and overlooks[103] thousands, +has the charges of that eminence. With every influx of light comes new +danger. Has he light? he must bear witness to the light, and always +outrun that sympathy which gives him such keen satisfaction, by his +fidelity to new revelations of the incessant soul. He must hate father +and mother, wife and child. Has he all that the world loves and +admires and covets?--he must cast behind him their admiration, and +afflict them by faithfulness to his truth, and become a by-word and a +hissing. + +This law writes the laws of cities and nations. It is in vain to build +or plot or combine against it. Things refuse to be mismanaged long. +_Res nolunt diu male administrari._[104] Though no checks to a new +evil appear, the checks exist, and will appear. If the government is +cruel, the governor's life is not safe. If you tax too high, the +revenue will yield nothing. If you make the criminal code sanguinary, +juries will not convict. If the law is too mild, private vengeance +comes in. If the government is a terrific democracy, the pressure is +resisted by an overcharge of energy in the citizen, and life glows +with a fiercer flame. The true life and satisfactions of man seem to +elude the utmost rigors or felicities of condition, and to establish +themselves with great indifferency under all varieties of +circumstances. Under all governments the influence of character +remains the same,--in Turkey and in New England about alike. Under the +primeval despots of Egypt, history honestly confesses that man must +have been as free as culture could make him. + +These appearances indicate the fact that the universe is represented +in every one of its particles. Everything in nature contains all the +powers of nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff; as the +naturalist sees one type under every metamorphosis, and regards a +horse as a running man, a fish as a swimming man, a bird as a flying +man, a tree as a rooted man. Each new form repeats not only the main +character of the type, but part for part all the details, all the +aims, furtherances, hindrances, energies, and whole system of every +other. Every occupation, trade, art, transaction, is a compend of the +world and a correlative of every other. Each one is an entire emblem +of human life; of its good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its +course and its end. And each one must somehow accommodate the whole +man, and recite all his destiny. + +The world globes itself in a drop of dew.[105] The microscope cannot +find the animalcule which is less perfect for being little.[106] Eyes, +ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of +reproduction that take hold on eternity,--all find room to consist in +the small creature. So do we put our life into every act. The true +doctrine of omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in +every moss and cobweb.[107] The value of the universe contrives to +throw itself into every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; +if the affinity, so the repulsion; if the force, so the limitation. + +Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That soul, which +within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its +inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength. "It +is in the world, and the world was made by it." Justice is not +postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. +[Greek: Hoi kyboi Dios aei eupiptousi],[108]--the dice of God are +always loaded. The world looks like a multiplication table, or a +mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. +Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still +returns to you. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every +virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty. What +we call retribution is the universal necessity by which the whole +appears wherever a part appears. If you see smoke, there must be fire. +If you see a hand or limb, you know that the trunk to which it belongs +is there behind. + +Every act rewards itself, or, in other words, integrates itself, in a +twofold manner; first, in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly, +in the circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance +the retribution. The causal retribution is in the thing, and is seen +by the soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the +understanding; it is inseparable from the thing, but is often spread +over a long time, and so does not become distinct until after many +years. The specific stripes may follow late after the offense, but +they follow because they accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out +of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the +flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and +ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms +in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed. + +Whilst thus the world will be whole, and refuses to be disparted, we +seek to act partially, to sunder, to appropriate; for example,--to +gratify the senses, we sever the pleasure of the senses from the needs +of the character. The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to +the solution of one problem,--how to detach the sensual sweet, the +sensual strong, the sensual bright, etc., from the moral sweet, the +moral deep, the moral fair; that is, again, to contrive to cut clean +off this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a +_one end_, without an _other end_. The soul says, Eat; the body would +feast. The soul says, The man and woman shall be one flesh and one +soul; the body would join the flesh only. The soul says, Have dominion +over all things to the ends of virtue; the body would have the power +over things to its own ends. + +The soul strives amain[109] to live and work through all things. It +would be the only fact. All things shall be added unto it,--power, +pleasure, knowledge, beauty. The particular man aims to be somebody; +to set up for himself; to truck and higgle for a private good; and, in +particulars, to ride, that he may ride; to dress, that he may be +dressed; to eat, that he may eat; and to govern, that he may be seen. +Men seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and +fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of +nature,--the sweet, without the other side,--the bitter. + +This dividing and detaching is steadily counteracted. Up to this day, +it must be owned, no projector has had the smallest success. The +parted water reunites behind our hand. Pleasure is taken out of +pleasant things, profit out of profitable things, power out of strong +things, as soon as we seek to separate them from the whole. We can no +more have things and get the sensual good, by itself, than we can get +an inside that shall have no outside, or a light without a shadow. +"Drive out nature with a fork, she comes running back."[110] + +Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the unwise seek +to dodge, which one and another brags that he does not know; that they +do not touch him;--but the brag is on his lips, the conditions are in +his soul. If he escapes them in one part, they attack him in another +more vital part. If he has escaped them in form, and in the +appearance, it is because he has resisted his life, and fled from +himself, and the retribution is so much death. So signal is the +failure of all attempts to make this separation of the good from the +tax, that the experiment would not be tried,--since to try it is to be +mad,--but for the circumstance, that when the disease began in the +will, of rebellion and separation, the intellect is at once infected, +so that the man ceases to see God whole in each object, but is able to +see the sensual allurement of an object, and not see the sensual hurt; +he sees the mermaid's head, but not the dragon's tail; and thinks he +can cut off that which he would have, from that which he would not +have. "How secret art thou who dwellest in the highest heavens in +silence, O thou only great God, sprinkling with an unwearied +Providence certain penal blindnesses upon such as have unbridled +desires!"[111] + +The human soul is true to these facts in the painting of fable, of +history, of law, of proverbs, of conversation. It finds a tongue in +literature unawares. Thus the Greeks called Jupiter,[112] Supreme +Mind; but having traditionally ascribed to him many base actions, they +involuntarily made amends to reason, by tying up the hands[113] of so +bad a god. He is made as helpless as a king of England.[114] +Prometheus[115] knows one secret which Jove must bargain for; +Minerva,[116] another. He cannot get his own thunders; Minerva keeps +the key of them. + + "Of all the gods, I only know the keys + That ope the solid doors within whose vaults + His thunders sleep." + +A plain confession of the in-working of the All, and of its moral aim. +The Indian mythology ends in the same ethics; and it would seem +impossible for any fable to be invented to get any currency which was +not moral. Aurora[117] forgot to ask youth for her lover, and though +Tithonus is immortal, he is old, Achilles[118] is not quite +invulnerable; the sacred waters did not wash the heel by which Thetis +held him. Siegfried,[119] in the Niebelungen, is not quite immortal, +for a leaf fell on his back whilst he was bathing in the dragon's +blood, and that spot which it covered is mortal. And so it must be. +There is a crack in everything God has made. It would seem, there is +always this vindictive circumstance stealing in at unawares, even into +the wild poesy in which the human fancy attempted to make bold +holiday, and to shake itself free of the old laws,--this back-stroke, +this kick of the gun, certifying that the law is fatal; that in nature +nothing can be given, all things are sold. + +This is that ancient doctrine of Nemesis,[120] who keeps watch in the +universe, and lets no offense go unchastised. The Furies,[121] they +said, are attendants on justice, and if the sun in heaven should +transgress his path, they would punish him. The poets related that +stone walls, and iron swords, and leathern thongs had an occult +sympathy with the wrongs of their owners; that the belt which Ajax +gave Hector[122] dragged the Trojan hero over the field at the wheels +of the car of Achilles, and the sword which Hector gave Ajax was that +on whose point Ajax fell. They recorded, that when the Thasians[123] +erected a statue to Theagenes, a victor in the games, one of his +rivals went to it by night, and endeavored to throw it down by +repeated blows, until at last he moved it from its pedestal, and was +crushed to death beneath its fall. + +This voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It came from thought +above the will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer, +which has nothing private in it;[124] that which he does not know, +that which flowed out of his constitution, and not from his too +active invention; that which in the study of a single artist you might +not easily find, but in the study of many, you would abstract as the +spirit of them all. Phidias it is not, but the work of man in that +early Hellenic[125] world, that I would know. The name and +circumstance of Phidias, however convenient for history, embarrass +when we come to the highest criticism. We are to see that which man +was tending to do in a given period, and was hindered, or, if you +will, modified in doing, by the interfering volitions of Phidias, of +Dante, of Shakespeare, the organ whereby man at the moment wrought. + +Still more striking is the expression of this fact in the proverbs of +all nations, which are always the literature of reason, or the +statements of an absolute truth, without qualification. Proverbs, like +the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. +That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow +the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in +proverbs without contradiction. And this law of laws which the pulpit, +the senate, and the college deny, is hourly preached in all markets +and workshops by flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as +omnipresent as that of birds and flies. + +All things are double, one against another.--Tit for tat;[126] an eye +for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure; +love for love.--Give and it shall be given you.--- He that watereth +shall be watered himself.--What will you have? quoth God; pay for it +and take it.--Nothing venture, nothing have.--Thou shalt be paid +exactly for what thou hast done, no more, no less.--Who doth not work +shall not eat.--Harm watch, harm catch.--Curses always recoil on the +head of him who imprecates them.--If you put a chain around the neck +of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.--Bad counsel +confounds the adviser.--The Devil is an ass. + +It is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our action is +overmastered and characterized above our will by the law of nature. We +aim at a petty end quite aside from the public good, but our act +arranges itself by irresistible magnetism in a line with the poles of +the world. + +A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will, or against +his will, he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every +word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a thread-ball +thrown at a mark, but the other end remains in the thrower's bag. Or, +rather, it is a harpoon hurled at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a +coil of cord in the boat, and if the harpoon is not good, or not well +thrown, it will go nigh to cut the steersman in twain, or to sink the +boat. + +You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. "No man had ever a point +of pride that was not injurious to him," said Burke.[127] The +exclusive in fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself +from enjoyment in the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in +religion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself, in +striving to shut out others. Treat men as pawns[128] and ninepins, and +you shall suffer as well as they. If you leave out their heart, you +shall lose your own. The senses would make things of all persons; of +women, of children, of the poor. The vulgar proverb, "I will get it +from his purse or get it from his skin," is sound philosophy. + +All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are +speedily punished. They are punished by fear. Whilst I stand in simple +relations to my fellow-man, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We +meet as water meets water, or as two currents of air mix, with perfect +diffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as there is any +departure from simplicity, and attempt at halfness, or good for me +that is not good for him, my neighbor feels the wrong; he shrinks from +me as far as I have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek mine; +there is war between us; there is hate in him and fear in me. + +All the old abuses in society, universal and particular, all unjust +accumulations of property and power, are avenged in the same manner. +Fear is an instructor of great sagacity, and the herald of all +revolutions. One thing he teaches, that there is rottenness where he +appears. He is a carrion crow, and though you see not well what he +hovers for, there is death somewhere. Our property is timid, our laws +are timid, our cultivated classes are timid. Fear for ages has boded +and mowed and gibbered over government and property. That obscene[129] +bird is not there for nothing. He indicates great wrongs which must be +revised. + +Of the like nature is that expectation of change which instantly +follows the suspension of our voluntary activity. The terror of +cloudless noon, the emerald of Polycrates,[130] the awe of prosperity, +the instinct which leads every generous soul to impose on itself tasks +of a noble asceticism and vicarious virtue, are the tremblings of the +balance of justice through the heart and mind of man. + +Experienced men of the world know very well that it is best to pay +scot and lot[131] as they go along, and that a man often pays dear for +a small frugality. The borrower runs in his own debt. Has a man gained +anything who has received a hundred favors and rendered none? Has he +gained by borrowing, through indolence or cunning, his neighbor's +wares, or horses, or money? There arises on the deed the instant +acknowledgment of benefit on the one part, and of debt on the other; +that is, of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in +the memory of himself and his neighbor; and every new transaction +alters, according to its nature, their relation to each other. He may +soon come to see that he had better have broken his own bones than to +have ridden in his neighbor's coach, and that "the highest price he +can pay for a thing is to ask for it." + +A wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and know that +it is the part of prudence to face every claimant, and pay every just +demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay; for, +first or last, you must pay your entire debt. Persons and events may +stand for a time between you and justice, but it is only a +postponement. You must pay at last your own debt. If you are wise, you +will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more. Benefit is the +end of nature. But for every benefit which you receive, a tax is +levied. He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base--and +that is the one base thing in the universe--to receive favors and +render none. In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those +from whom we receive them, or only seldom.[132] But the benefit we +receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for +cent, to somebody. Beware of too much good staying in your hand. It +will fast corrupt and worm worms.[133] Pay it away quickly in some +sort. + +Labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws. Cheapest, say the +prudent, is the dearest labor. What we buy in a broom, a mat, a wagon, +a knife, is some application of good sense to a common want. It is +best to pay in your land a skillful gardener, or to buy good sense +applied to gardening; in your sailor, good sense applied to +navigation; in the house, good sense applied to cooking, sewing, +serving; in your agent, good sense applied to accounts and affairs. +So do you multiply your presence, or spread yourself throughout your +estate. But because of the dual constitution of things, in labor as in +life there can be no cheating. The thief steals from himself. The +swindler swindles himself. For the real price of labor is knowledge +and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs. These signs, like +paper money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which they +represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or +stolen. These ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions +of the mind, and in obedience to pure motives. The cheat, the +defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the knowledge of material and +moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative. +The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power: but +they who do not the thing have not the power. + +Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to +the construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of +the perfect compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give +and Take, the doctrine that everything has its price,--and if that +price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and +that it is impossible to get anything without its price,--is not less +sublime in the columns of a ledger than in the budgets of states, in +the laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of +nature. I cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees +implicated in those processes with which he is conversant, the stern +ethics which sparkle on his chisel edge, which are measured out by his +plumb and foot rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the +shop bill as in the history of a state,--do recommend to him his +trade, and though seldom named, exalt his business to his imagination. + +The league between virtue and nature engages all things to assume a +hostile front to vice. The beautiful laws and substances of the world +persecute and whip the traitor. He finds that things are arranged for +truth and benefit, but there is no den in the wide world to hide a +rogue. Commit a crime,[134] and the earth is made of glass. Commit a +crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as +reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel +and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word,[135] you cannot wipe out +the foot-track, you cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet +or clew. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and +substances of nature--water, snow, wind, gravitation--become penalties +to the thief. + +On the other hand, the law holds with equal sureness for all right +action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, +as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. The good man has +absolute good, which like fire turns everything to its own nature, so +that you cannot do him any harm; but as the royal armies sent against +Napoleon, when he approached, cast down their colors and from enemies +became friends, so disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offense, +poverty, prove benefactors:-- + + "Winds blow and waters roll + Strength to the brave, and power and deity, + Yet in themselves are nothing." + +The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had +ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had +ever a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in +the fable[136] admired his horns and blamed his feet, but when the +hunter came, his feet saved him, and afterwards, caught in the +thicket, his horns destroyed him. Every man in his lifetime needs to +thank his faults. As no man thoroughly understands a truth until he +has contended against it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with +the hindrances or talents of men, until he has suffered from the one, +and seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the same. Has +he a defect of temper that unfits him to live in society? Thereby he +is driven to entertain himself alone, and acquire habits of self-help; +and thus, like the wounded oyster, he mends his shell with pearl. + +Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms +itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and +stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. +Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he +is punished, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; +he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; +learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got +moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of +his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his +weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead +skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. +Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As +long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain +assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are +spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. +In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As +the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the +enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the +temptation we resist. + +The same guards which protect us from disaster, defect, and enmity, +defend us, if we will, from selfishness and fraud. Bolts and bars are +not the best of our institutions, nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of +wisdom. Men suffer all their life long, under the foolish superstition +that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be +cheated by anyone but himself,[137] as for a thing to be and not to be +at the same time. There is a third silent party to all our bargains. +The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the +fulfillment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to +loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God +in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is +withholden,[138] the better for you; for compound interest on compound +interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer. + +The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, +to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. It makes no +difference whether the actors be many or one, a tyrant or a mob. A +mob[139] is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of +reason, and traversing its work. The mob is man voluntarily descending +to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its +actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a +principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by +inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who +have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines +to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate +spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be +dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a +more illustrious abode; every burned book or house enlightens the +world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the +earth from side to side. Hours of sanity and consideration are always +arriving to communities, as to individuals, when the truth is seen, +and the martyrs are justified. + +Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances. The man +is all. Everything has two sides, a good and an evil. Every advantage +has its tax. I learn to be content. But the doctrine of compensation +is not the doctrine of indifferency. The thoughtless say, on hearing +these representations, What boots it to do well? there is one event to +good and evil; if I gain any good, I must pay for it; if I lose any +good, I gain some other; all actions are indifferent. + +There is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation, to wit, its own +nature. The soul is not a compensation, but a life. The soul _is_. +Under all this running sea of circumstance, whose waters ebb and flow +with perfect balance, lies the aboriginal abyss of real Being. +Essence, or God, is not a relation, or a part, but the whole. Being is +the vast affirmative, excluding negation, self-balanced, and +swallowing up all relations, parts, and times within itself. Nature, +truth, virtue, are the influx from thence. Vice is the absence or +departure of the same. Nothing, Falsehood, may indeed stand as the +great Night or shade, on which, as a background, the living universe +paints itself forth, but no fact is begotten by it; it cannot work, +for it is not. It cannot work any good; it cannot work any harm. It is +harm inasmuch as it is worse not to be than to be. + +We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts, because the +criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy, and does not come to a +crisis or judgment anywhere in visible nature. There is no stunning +confutation of his nonsense before men and angels. Has he therefore +outwitted the law? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie +with him, he so far deceases from nature. In some manner there will be +a demonstration of the wrong to the understanding also; but should we +not see it, this deadly deduction makes square the eternal account. + +Neither can it be said, on the other hand, that the gain of rectitude +must be bought by any loss. There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty +to wisdom; they are proper additions of being. In a virtuous action, I +properly _am_; in a virtuous act, I add to the world; I plant into +deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing, and see the darkness +receding on the limits of the horizon. There can be no excess to love; +none to knowledge; none to beauty, when these attributes are +considered in the purest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always +affirms an Optimism,[140] never a Pessimism. + +Man's life is a progress, and not a station. His instinct is trust. +Our instinct uses "more" and "less" in application to man, of the +_presence of the soul_, and not of its absence; the brave man is +greater than the coward; the true, the benevolent, the wise, is more a +man, and not less, than the fool and knave. There is no tax on the +good of virtue; for that is the incoming of God himself, or absolute +existence without any comparative. Material good has its tax, and if +it came without desert or sweat, has no root in me, and the next wind +will blow it away. But all the good of nature is the soul's, and may +be had, if paid for in nature's lawful coin, that is, by labor which +the heart and the head allow. I no longer wish to meet a good I do not +earn; for example, to find a pot of buried gold, knowing that it +brings with it new burdens. I do not wish more external +goods,--neither possessions, nor honors, nor powers, nor persons. The +gain is apparent; the tax is certain. But there is no tax on the +knowledge that the compensation exists, and that it is not desirable +to dig up treasure. Herein I rejoice with a serene eternal peace. I +contract the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn the wisdom of +St. Bernard,[141]--"Nothing can, work me damage except myself; the +harm, that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real +sufferer but by my own fault." + +In the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequalities of +condition. The radical tragedy of nature seems to be the distinction +of More and Less. How can Less not feel the pain; how not feel +indignation or malevolence towards More? Look at those who have less +faculty, and one feels sad, and knows not well what to make of it. He +almost shuns their eye; he fears they will upbraid God. What should +they do? It seems a great injustice. But see the facts nearly, and +these mountainous inequalities vanish. Love reduces them, as the sun +melts the iceberg in the sea. The heart and soul of all men being one, +this bitterness of _His_ and _Mine_ ceases. His is mine. I am my +brother, and my brother is me. If I feel overshadowed and outdone by +great neighbors, I can yet love; I can still receive; and he that +loveth maketh his own the grandeur he loves. Thereby I make the +discovery that my brother is my guardian, acting for me with the +friendliest designs, and the estate I so admired and envied is my own. +It is the nature of the soul to appropriate all things. Jesus[142] and +Shakespeare are fragments of the soul, and by love I conquer and +incorporate them in my own conscious domain. His[143] virtue,--is not +that mine? His wit,--if it cannot be made mine, it is not wit. + +Such, also, is the natural history of calamity. The changes which +break up at short intervals the prosperity of men are advertisements +of a nature whose law is growth. Every soul is by this intrinsic +necessity quitting its whole system of things, its friends, and home, +and laws, and faith, as the shellfish crawls out of its beautiful but +stony case, because it no longer admits of its growth, and slowly +forms a new house. In proportion to the vigor of the individual, these +revolutions are frequent, until in some happier mind they are +incessant, and all worldly relations hang very loosely about him, +becoming, as it were, a transparent fluid membrane through which the +living form is seen, and not, as in most men, an indurated +heterogeneous fabric of many dates, and of no settled character, in +which the man is imprisoned. Then there can be enlargement, and the +man of to-day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday. And such +should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead +circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment day by day. But to +us, in our lapsed estate, resting, not advancing, resisting, not +cooeperating with the divine expansion, this growth comes by shocks. + +We cannot part with our friend. We cannot let our angels go. We do not +see that they only go out, that archangels may come in. We are +idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in +its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any +force in to-day to rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We +linger in the ruins of the old tent, where once we had bread and +shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and +nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so +graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty +saith, "Up and onward forevermore!" We cannot stay amid the ruins. +Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted +eyes, like those monsters who look backwards. + +And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the +understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a +mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of +friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure +years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The +death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but +privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; +for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an +epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up +a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows +the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It +permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the +reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the +next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny +garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for +its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, +is made the banyan[144] of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to +wide neighborhoods of men. + + + + +SELF-RELIANCE + +"Ne te quaesiveris extra."[145] + + "Man is his own star; and the soul that can + Render an honest and a perfect man, + Commands all light, all influence, all fate; + Nothing to him falls early or too late. + Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, + Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."[146] + + * * * * * + + Cast the bantling on the rocks, + Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat; + Wintered with the hawk and fox, + Power and speed be hands and feet.[147] + +I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which +were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an +admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The +sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may +contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for +you in your private heart is true for all men,--that is genius.[148] +Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal +sense;[149] for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,--and our +first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last +Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest +merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato,[150] and Milton[151] is, that they +set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what +they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of +light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster +of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice +his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize +our own rejected thoughts:[152] they come back to us with a certain +alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson +for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression +with good-humored inflexibility then most when[153] the whole cry of +voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with +masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the +time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from +another. + +There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the +conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide;[154] +that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that +though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn +can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground +which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new +in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor +does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one +character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. +This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. +The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of +that particular ray. We but half express ourselves,[155] and are +ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be +safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be +faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by +cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his +work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall +give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the +attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no +hope. + +Trust thyself:[156] every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept +the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your +contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done +so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, +betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated +at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all +their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind +the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a +protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, +redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing +on Chaos[157] and the Dark. + +What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text, in the face and +behavior of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel +mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed +the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these[158] have not. +Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we +look in their faces we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody: +all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five[159] +out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth +and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and +made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it +will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he +cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is +sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his +contemporaries. Bashful or bold, then, he will know how to make us +seniors very unnecessary. + +The nonchalance[160] of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would +disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the +healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit +is in the playhouse;[161] independent, irresponsible, looking out from +his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences +them on their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys, as good, bad, +interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never +about consequences about interests; he gives an independent, genuine +verdict. You must court him: he does not court you. But the man is, as +it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has +once acted or spoken with _eclat_[162] he is a committed person, +watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections +must now enter into his account. There is no Lethe[163] for this. Ah, +that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who[164] can thus avoid +all pledges, and having observed, observe again from the same +unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always +be formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which +being seen to be not private, but necessary, would sink like darts +into the ear of men, and put them in fear. + +These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint +and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in +conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is +a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better +securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty +and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. +Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, +but names and customs. + +Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.[165] He who would gather +immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must +explore if it be goodness.[166] Nothing is at last sacred but the +integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall +have the suffrage[167] of the world. I remember an answer which when +quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont +to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my +saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live +wholly from within? my friend suggested: "But these impulses may be +from below, not from above." I replied: "They do not seem to me to be +such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." +No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but +names very readily transferable to that or this;[168] the only right +is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A +man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if +everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think +how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and +dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and +sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and +speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat +of philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this +bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from +Barbadoes,[169] why should I not say to him: "Go love thy infant; love +thy wood-chopper: be good-natured and modest: have that grace; and +never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible +tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is +spite at home." Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth +is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have +some edge to it,--else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be +preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules +and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my +genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, +_Whim_.[170] I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we +cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I +seek or why I exclude company. Then, again, do not tell me, as a good +man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good +situations. Are they _my_ poor? I tell thee, thou foolish +philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give +to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There +is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought +and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your +miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; +the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now +stand; alms to sots; and the thousand-fold Relief Societies;--though I +confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a +wicked dollar which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold. + +Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the +rule. There is the man _and_ his virtues. Men do what is called a good +action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a +fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are +done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world,--as +invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. +I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not +for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so +it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and +unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and +bleeding.[171] I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse +this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it +makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are +reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I +have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, +and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows +any secondary testimony. + +What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. +This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may +serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is +the harder, because you will always find those who think they know +what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to +live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after +our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps +with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.[172] + +The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, +that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the +impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, +contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for +the government or against it, spread your table like base +housekeepers,--under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the +precise[173] man you are. And, of course, so much force is withdrawn +from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you.[174] Do +your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what +a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I +anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and +topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I +not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous +word? Do I not know that, with[175] all this ostentation of examining +the grounds of the institution, he will do no such thing? Do I not +know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side,--the +permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister? He is a +retained attorney, and these airs of the bench[176] are the emptiest +affectation. Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another +handkerchief,[177] and attached themselves to some one of these +communities of opinion.[178] This conformity makes them not false in a +few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. +Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, +their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, +and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is +not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we +adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by +degrees the gentlest asinine expression. There is a mortifying +experience in particular which does not fail to wreak itself also in +the general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced +smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease in +answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not +spontaneously moved, but moved by a low usurping willfulness, grow +tight about the outline of the face with the most disagreeable +sensation. + +For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.[179] And +therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The bystanders +look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlor. If +this aversation had its origin in contempt and resistance like his +own, he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces +of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are +put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs.[180] Yet is +the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the +senate and the college. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the +world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is +decorous and prudent, for they are timid as being very vulnerable +themselves. But when to their feminine rage the indignation of the +people is added, when the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the +unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made +to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to +treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment. + +The other terror[181] that scares us from self-trust is our +consistency;[182] a reverence for our past act or word, because the +eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit[183] than +our past acts, and we are loth to disappoint them. + +But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about +this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat[184] you have +stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict +yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on +your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring +the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in +a new day. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the +Deity; yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them +heart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color. +Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and +flee.[185] + +A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by +little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a +great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself +with the shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, +and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though +it contradict everything you said to-day.--"Ah, so you shall be sure +to be misunderstood."--Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? +Pythagoras[186] was misunderstood, and Socrates,[187] and Jesus, and +Luther,[188] and Copernicus,[189] and Galileo,[190] and Newton,[191] +and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to +be misunderstood. + +I suppose no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will +are rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of +Andes[192] and Himmaleh[193] are insignificant in the curve of the +sphere. Nor does it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is +like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;[194]--read it forward, +backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing, +contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my +honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it +will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not, and see it not. My +book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The +swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he +carries in his bill into my web also. We pass for what we are. +Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate +their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue +or vice emit a breath every moment. + +There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be +each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions +will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost +sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One +tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line +of a hundred tacks.[195] See the line from a sufficient distance, and +it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action +will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your +conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already +done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If +I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes,[196] I must +have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, +do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. The force +of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their +health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate +and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a +train of great days and victories behind. They shed an united light on +the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of angels. +That is it which throws thunder into Chatham's[197] voice, and dignity +into Washington's port, and America into Adams's[198] eye. Honor is +venerable to us because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient +virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it +and pay it homage, because it is not a trap for our love and homage, +but is self-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an old +immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person. + +I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and +consistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward. +Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the +Spartan[199] fife. Let us never bow and apologize more. A great man is +coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he +should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity, and though I +would make it kind, I would make it true. Let us affront and reprimand +the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl +in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the +upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and +Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no +other time or place, but is the center of things. Where he is, there +is nature. He measures you, and all men, and all events. Ordinarily, +everybody in society reminds us of somewhat else, or of some other +person. Character, reality, reminds you of nothing else; it takes +place of the whole creation. The man must be so much, that he must +make all circumstances indifferent. Every true man is a cause, a +country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time +fully to accomplish his design;--and posterity seem to follow his +steps as a train of clients. A man Caesar[200] is born, and for ages +after we have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds +so grow and cleave to his genius, that he is confounded with virtue +and the possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of +one man; as Monachism, of the hermit Antony;[201] the Reformation, of +Luther; Quakerism, of Fox;[202] Methodism, of Wesley;[203] Abolition, +of Clarkson.[204] Scipio,[205] Milton called "the height of Rome"; and +all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few +stout and earnest persons. + +Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him +not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, +a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which exists for him. But +the man in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds +to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels +poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, a statue, a costly book, +have an alien and forbidding air, much like a gay equipage, and seem +to say like that, "Who are you, Sir?" Yet they all are his, suitors +for his notice, petitioners to his faculties that they will come out +and take possession. The picture waits for my verdict: it is not to +command me, but I am to settle its claims to praise. That popular +fable of the sot who was picked up dead drunk in the street, carried +to the duke's house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke's bed, +and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the +duke, and assured that he had been insane,[206] owes its popularity to +the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the +world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason, +and finds himself a true prince. + +Our reading is mendicant and sycophantic. In history, our imagination +plays us false. Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier +vocabulary than private John and Edward in a small house and common +day's work; but the things of life are the same to both; the sum total +of both is the same. Why all this deference to Alfred,[207] and +Scanderbeg,[208] and Gustavus?[209] Suppose they were virtuous; did +they wear out virtue? As great a stake depends on your private act +to-day, as followed their public and renowned steps. When private men +shall act with original views, the luster will be transferred from the +actions of kings to those of gentlemen. + +The world has been instructed by its kings, who have so magnetized the +eyes of nations. It has been taught by this colossal symbol the mutual +reverence that is due from man to man. The joyful loyalty with which +men have everywhere suffered the king, the noble, or the great +proprietor to walk among them by a law of his own, make his own scale +of men and things, and reverse theirs, pay for benefits not with money +but with honor, and represent the law in his person, was the +hieroglyphic[210] by which they obscurely signified their +consciousness of their own right and comeliness, the right of every +man. + +The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we +inquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee? What is the +aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What +is the nature and power of that science-baffling star, without +parallax,[211] without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of +beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of +independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the +essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity +or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all +later teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, the last fact behind +which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin. For the +sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the +soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, +from man, but one with them, and proceeds obviously from the same +source whence their life and being also proceed. We first share the +life by which things exist, and afterwards see them as appearances in +nature, and forget that we have shared their cause. Here is the +fountain of action and of thought. Here are the lungs of that +inspiration which giveth man wisdom, and which cannot be denied +without impiety and atheism. We lie in the lap of immense +intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its +activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do +nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask +whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all +philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can +affirm. Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his +mind, and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his +involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the +expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day +and night, not to be disputed. My willful actions and acquisitions are +but roving;--the idlest reverie, the faintest native emotion, command +my curiosity and respect. Thoughtless people contradict as readily the +statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; +for, they do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy +that I choose to see this or that thing. But perception is not +whimsical, it is fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it +after me, and in course of time, all mankind,--although it may chance +that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much +a fact as the sun. + +The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is +profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh +he should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the +world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, +from the center of the present thought; and new date and new create +the whole. Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, +old things pass away,--means, teachers, texts, temples, fall; it lives +now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are +made sacred by relation to it,--one as much as another. All things +are dissolved to their center by their cause, and, in the universal +miracle, petty and particular miracles disappear. If, therefore, a man +claims to know and speak of God, and carries you backward to the +phraseology of some old moldered nation in another country, in another +world, believe him not. Is the acorn better than the oak which is its +fullness and completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom +he has cast his ripened being?[212] Whence, then, this worship of the +past?[213] The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and +authority of the soul. Time and space are but physiological colors +which the eye makes, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where +it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury, if it +be anything more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and +becoming. + +Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say +"I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before +the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window +make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what +they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There +is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. +Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown +flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its +nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. +But man postpones, or remembers; he does not live in the present, but +with a reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that +surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be +happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above +time. + +This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not +yet hear God himself, unless he speak the phraseology of I know not +what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a +price on a few texts, on a few lives.[214] We are like children who +repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they +grow older, of the men and talents and characters they chance to +see,--painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, +when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered +those saying, they understand them, and are willing to let the words +go; for, at any time, they can use words as good when occasion comes. +If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man +to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. When we have new +perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded +treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall +be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn. + +And now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid; +probably cannot be said; for all that we say is the far-off +remembering of the intuition. That thought, by what I can now nearest +approach to say it, is this. When good is near you, when you have +life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall +not discern the footprints of any other; you shall not see the face of +man; you shall not hear any name;--the way, the thought, the good, +shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and +experience. You take the way from man, not to man. All persons that +ever existed are its forgotten ministers. Fear and hope are alike +beneath it. There is somewhat low even in hope. In the hour of vision, +there is nothing that can be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The +soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation, +perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right, and calms itself with +knowing that all things go well. Vast spaces of nature, the Atlantic +Ocean, the South Sea,--long intervals of time, years, centuries,--are +of no account. This which I think and feel underlay every former state +of life and circumstances, as it does underlie my present, and what is +called life, and what is called death. + +Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of +repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new +state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one +fact the world hates, that the soul _becomes_; for that forever +degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to +shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas[215] +equally aside. Why, then, do we prate of self-reliance? Inasmuch as +the soul is present, there will be power not confident but agent.[216] +To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather +of that which relies, because it works and is. Who has more obedience +than I masters me, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I +must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. We fancy it rhetoric, when +we speak of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, +and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable to +principles, by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities, +nations, kings, rich men, poets, who are not. + +This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on +every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE. +Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it +constitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into +all lower forms. All things real are so by so much virtue as they +contain. Commerce, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war eloquence, +personal weight, are somewhat, and engage my respect as examples of +its presence and impure action. I see the same law working in nature +for conservation and growth. Power is in nature the essential measure +of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which +cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise +and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the +vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of +the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul. + +Thus all concentrates: let us not rove; let us sit at home with the +cause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books +and institutions, by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the +invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here +within.[217] Let our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our +own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our +native riches. + +But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his +genius admonished to stay at home to put itself in communication with +the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the +urns of other men. We must go alone. I like the silent church before +the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, +how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or +sanctuary! So let us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of +our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our +hearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood, and +I have all men's.[218] Not for that will I adopt their petulance or +folly, even to the extent of being ashamed of it. But your isolation +must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At +times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with +emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, +charity, all knock at once at thy closet door, and say, "Come out unto +us." But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men +possess to annoy men, I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can +come near me but through my act. "What we love that we have, but by +desire we bereave ourselves of the love." + +If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and faith, +let us at least resist our temptations; let us enter into the state of +war, and wake Thor and Woden,[219] courage and constancy, in our Saxon +breasts. This is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. +Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to +the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we +converse. Say to them, O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O +friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward +I am the truth's. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law +less than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but +proximities.[220] I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support +my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife,--but these relations +I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your +customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, +or you.[221] If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the +happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. +I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is +deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever +inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will +love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by +hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth +with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not +selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, +and all men's however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. +Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by +your nature as well as mine, and, if we follow the truth, it will +bring us out safe at last.[222] But so may you give these friends +pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their +sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when +they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they +justify me, and do the same thing. + +The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a +rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism;[223] and the bold +sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the +law of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one or +the other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfill your round of +duties by clearing yourself in the _direct_, or in the _reflex_ way. +Consider whether you have satisfied your relations to father, mother, +cousin, neighbor, town, cat, and dog; whether any of these can upbraid +you. But I may also neglect this reflex standard, and absolve me to +myself. I have my own stern claims and perfect circle. It denies the +name of duty to many offices that are called duties. But if I can +discharge its debts, it enables me to dispense with the popular code. +If any one imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its +commandment one day. + +And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the +common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a +taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, +that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, +that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to +others! + +If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by +distinction _society_, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew +and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, +desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, +afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and +perfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our +social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot +satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to +their practical force,[224] and do lean and beg day and night +continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, +our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but society has +chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of +fate, where strength is born. + +If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all +heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is _ruined_. If the +finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in +an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of +Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is +right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. +A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the +professions, who _teams it, farms it_,[225] _peddles_, keeps a school, +preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so +forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, +is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his +days, and feels no shame in not "studying a profession," for he does +not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a +hundred chances. Let a Stoic[226] open the resources of man, and tell +men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; +that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a +man is the word made flesh,[227] born to shed healing to the +nations,[228] that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that +the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, +idolatries and customs out of the window, we pity him no more, but +thank and revere him,--and that teacher shall restore the life of man +to splendor, and make his name dear to all history. + +It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution +in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their +education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their +association; in their property; in their speculative views. + +1. In what prayers do men allow themselves![229] That which they call +a holy office is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad +and asks for some foreign addition to come through some foreign +virtue, and loses itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural, +and mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves a particular +commodity,--anything less than all good,--is vicious. Prayer is the +contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It +is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul.[230] It is the +spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to +effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and +not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one +with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action. The +prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of +the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard +throughout nature, though for cheap ends. Caratach,[231] in Fletcher's +Bonduca, when admonished to inquire the mind of the god Audate, +replies,-- + + "His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors; + Our valors are our best gods." + +Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want +of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you +can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and +already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. +We come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for company, +instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric +shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. +The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods +and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him +all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our +love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We +solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he +held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods love him +because men hated him. "To the persevering mortal," said +Zoroaster,[232] "the blessed Immortals are swift." + +As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a +disease of the intellect. They say with those foolish Israelites, "Let +not God speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any man with us, and +we will obey."[233] Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my +brother, because he has shut his own temple doors, and recites fables +merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God. Every new mind +is a new classification. If it prove a mind of uncommon activity and +power, a Locke,[234] a Lavoisier,[235] a Hutton,[236] a Betham,[237] a +Fourier,[238] it imposes its classification on other men, and lo! a new +system. In proportion to the depth of the thought, and so to the number +of the objects it touches and brings within reach of the pupil, is his +complacency. But chiefly is this apparent in creeds and churches, which +are also classifications of some powerful mind acting on the elemental +thought of duty, and man's relation to the Highest. Such is +Calvinism,[239] Quakerism,[240] Swedenborgism.[241] The pupil takes the +same delight in subordinating everything to the new terminology, as a +girl who has just learned botany in seeing a new earth and new seasons +thereby. It will happen for a time, that the pupil will find his +intellectual power has grown by the study of his master's mind. But in +all unbalanced minds, the classification is idolized, passes for the +end, and not for a speedily exhaustible means, so that the walls of the +system blend to their eye in the remote horizon with the walls of the +universe; the luminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their +master built. They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to +see,--how you can see; "It must be somehow that you stole the light from +us." They do not yet perceive that light, unsystematic, indomitable, +will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and +call it their own. If they are honest and do well, presently their neat +new pinfold will be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot +and vanish, and the immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, +million-colored, will beam over the universe as on the first morning. + +2. It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Traveling, +whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all +educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable +in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an +axis of the earth. In manly hours, we feel that duty is our place. The +soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home, and when his +necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or +into foreign lands, he is at home still; and shall make men sensible +by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of +wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not +like an interloper or a valet. + +I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for +the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is +first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding +somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get +somewhat which he does not carry,[242] travels away from himself, and +grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes,[243] in +Palmyra,[244] his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as +they. He carries ruins to ruins. + +Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the +indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can +be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, +embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, +and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, +identical, that I fled from.[245] I seek the Vatican,[246] and the +palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but +I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go. + +3. But the rage of traveling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness +affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, +and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel +when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is +imitation but the traveling of the mind? Our houses are built with +foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our +opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the +Distant. The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It +was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an +application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the +conditions to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric[247] or the +Gothic[248] model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought, and +quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if the American +artist will study with hope and love the precise thing to be done by +him considering the climate, the soil, the length of the day, the +wants of the people, the habit and form of the government, he will +create a house in which all these will find themselves fitted, and +taste and sentiment will be satisfied also. + +Insist on yourself; never imitate.[249] Your own gift you can present +every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; +but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, +half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can +teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has +exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught +Shakespeare?[250] Where is the master who could have instructed +Franklin,[251] or Washington, or Bacon,[252] or Newton?[253] Every great +man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio[254] is precisely that part he +could not borrow. Shakespeare will never be made by the study of +Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too +much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance +brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias,[255] or +trowel of the Egyptians,[256] or the pen of Moses,[257] or Dante,[258] +but different from all these. Not possibly will the soul all rich, all +eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if +you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in +the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue are two organs of +one nature. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy +heart, and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld[259] again. + +4. As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so does our +spirit of society. All men plume themselves on the improvement of +society, and no man improves. + +Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on +the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is +civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this +change is not amelioration. For everything that is given, something is +taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. What a +contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, +with a watch, a pencil, and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the +naked New Zealander,[260] whose property is a club, a spear, a mat, +and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under! But compare the +health of the two men, and you shall see that the white man has lost +his aboriginal strength. If the traveler tell us truly, strike the +savage with a broad ax, and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and +heal as if you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow +shall send the white to his grave. + +The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. +He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He +has a fine Geneva[261] watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the +hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac[262] he has, and so +being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street +does not know a star in the sky. The solstice[263] he does not +observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar +of the year is without a dial in his mind. His notebooks impair his +memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases +the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery +does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some +energy, by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and forms, some +vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom +where is the Christian? + +There is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the standard +of height or bulk. No greater men are now than ever were. A singular +equality may be observed between great men of the first and of the +last ages; nor can all the science, art, religion, and philosophy of +the nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than +Plutarch's[264] heroes, three or four and twenty centuries ago. Not in +time is the race progressive. Phocion,[265] Socrates, Anaxagoras,[266] +Diogenes,[267] are great men, but they leave no class. He who is +really of their class will not be called by their name, but will be +his own man, and, in his turn, the founder of a sect. The arts and +inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate +men. The harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good. +Hudson[268] and Bering[269] accomplished so much in their fishing +boats, as to astonish Parry[270] and Franklin,[271] whose equipment +exhausted the resources of science and art. Galileo, with an +opera-glass, discovered a more splendid series of celestial phenomena +than any one since. Columbus[272] found the New World in an undecked +boat. It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of +means and machinery, which were introduced with loud laudation a few +years or centuries before. The great genius returns to essential man. +We reckoned the improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of +science, and yet Napoleon[273] conquered Europe by the bivouac, which +consisted of falling back on naked valor, and disencumbering it of all +aids. The Emperor held it impossible to make a perfect army, says Las +Casas,[274] "without abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries, and +carriages, until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should +receive his supply of corn, grind it in his handmill, and bake his +bread himself." + +Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is +composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to +the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a +nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them. + +And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments +which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away +from themselves and at things so long, that they have come to esteem +the religious, learned, and civil institutions as guards of property, +and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be +assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what +each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes +ashamed of his property, out of new respect for his nature. Especially +he hates what he has, if he see that it is accidental,--came to him by +inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; +it does not belong to him, has no root in him, and merely lies there, +because no revolution or no robber takes it away. But that which a man +is, does always by necessity acquire, and what the man acquires is +living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or +revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually +renews itself wherever the man breathes. "Thy lot or portion of life," +said the Caliph Ali,[275] "is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest +from seeking after it." Our dependence on these foreign goods leads us +to our slavish respect for numbers. The political parties meet in +numerous conventions; the greater the concourse, and with each new +uproar of announcement, The delegation from Essex![276] The Democrats +from New Hampshire! The Whigs of Maine! the young patriot feels +himself stronger than before by a new thousand of eyes and arms. In +like manner the reformers summon conventions, and vote and resolve in +multitude. Not so, O friends! will the god deign to enter and inhabit +you, but by a method precisely the reverse. It is only as a man puts +off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong +and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a +man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and in the endless +mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of +all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is inborn, that he is +weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so +perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly +rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, +works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than +a man who stands on his head. + +So use all that is called Fortune.[277] Most men gamble with her, and +gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as +unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the +chancelors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained +the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her +rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your +sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable +event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for +you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. +Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. + + + + +FRIENDSHIP.[278] + + +1. We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Barring all +the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human +family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many +persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we +honor, and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in +church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the +language of these wandering eyebeams. The heart knoweth. + +2. The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain +cordial exhilaration. In poetry, and in common speech, the emotions of +benevolence and complacency which are felt toward others, are likened +to the material effects of fire; so swift, or much more swift, more +active, more cheering are these fine inward irradiations. From the +highest degree of passionate love, to the lowest degree of good will, +they make the sweetness of life. + +3. Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The +scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not +furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is +necessary to write a letter to a friend, and, forthwith, troops of +gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen words. +See in any house where virtue and self-respect abide, the palpitation +which the approach of a stranger causes. A commended stranger is +expected and announced, and an uneasiness between pleasure and pain +invades all the hearts of a household. His arrival almost brings fear +to the good hearts that would welcome him. The house is dusted, all +things fly into their places, the old coat is exchanged for the new, +and they must get up a dinner if they can. Of a commended stranger, +only the good report is told by others, only the good and new is heard +by us. He stands to us for humanity. He is, what we wish. Having +imagined and invested him, we ask how we should stand related in +conversation and action with such a man, and are uneasy with fear. The +same idea exalts conversation with him. We talk better than we are +wont. We have the nimblest fancy, a richer memory, and our dumb devil +has taken leave for the time. For long hours we can continue a series +of sincere, graceful, rich communications, drawn from the oldest, +secretest experience, so that they who sit by, of our own kinsfolk and +acquaintance, shall feel a lively surprise at our unusual powers. But +as soon as the stranger begins to intrude his partialities, his +definitions, his defects, into the conversation, it is all over. He +has heard the first, the last and best, he will ever hear from us. He +is no stranger now. Vulgarity, ignorance, misapprehension, are old +acquaintances. Now, when he comes, he may get the order, the dress, +and the dinner, but the throbbing of the heart, and the communications +of the soul, no more. + +4. What is so pleasant as these jets of affection which relume[279] a +young world for me again? What is so delicious as a just and firm +encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling? How beautiful, on their +approach to this beating heart, the steps and forms of the gifted and +the true! The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is +metamorphosed; there is no winter, and no night; all tragedies, all +ennuis vanish; all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity +but the forms all radiant of beloved persons. Let the soul be assured +that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it +would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years. + +5. I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old +and the new. Shall I not call God, the Beautiful, who daily showeth +himself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude, and +yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely, and the +noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate.[280] Who hears me, +who understands me, becomes mine,--a possession for all time. Nor is +nature so poor, but she gives me this joy several times, and thus we +weave social threads of our own, a new web of relations; and, as many +thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by-and-by stand +in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims +is a traditionary globe. My friends have come[281] to me unsought. The +great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of +virtue with itself, I find them, or rather, not I, but the Deity in me +and in them, both deride and cancel the thick walls of individual +character, relation, age, sex and circumstance, at which he usually +connives, and now makes many one. High thanks I owe you, excellent +lovers, who carry out the world for me to new and noble depths, and +enlarge the meaning of all my thoughts. These are new poetry of the +first Bard[282]--poetry without stop--hymn, ode and epic,[283] poetry +still flowing, Apollo[284] and the Muses[285] chanting still. Will these +two separate themselves from me again, or some of them? I know not, but +I fear it not; for my relation to them is so pure, that we hold by +simple affinity, and the Genius[286] of my life being thus social, the +same affinity will exert its energy on whomsoever is as noble as these +men and women, wherever I may be. + +6. I confess to an extreme tenderness of nature on this point. It is +almost dangerous to me to "crush the sweet poison,[287] of misused +wine" of the affections. A new person is to me a great event, and +hinders me from sleep. I have had such fine fancies lately about two +or three persons, as have given me delicious hours, but the joy ends +in the day: it yields no fruit. Thought is not born of it; my action +is very little modified. I must feel pride in my friend's +accomplishments as if they were mine, and a property in his virtues. +I feel as warmly when he is praised, as the lover when he hears +applause of his engaged maiden. We over-estimate the conscience of our +friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature finer, +his temptations less. Everything that is his,--his name, his form, his +dress, books and instruments,--fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds +new and larger from his mouth. + +7. Yet the systole and diastole[288] of the heart are not without +their analogy in the ebb and flow of love. Friendship, like the +immortality[289] of the soul, is too good to be believed. The lover, +beholding his maiden, half knows that she is not verily that which he +worships; and in the golden hour of friendship, we are surprised with +shades of suspicion and unbelief. We doubt that we bestow on our hero +the virtues in which he shines, and afterward worship the form to +which we have ascribed this divine inhabitation. In strictness, the +soul does not respect men as it respects itself. In strict science, +all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness. +Shall we fear to cool our love by mining for the metaphysical +foundation of this Elysian temple?[290] Shall I not be as real as the +things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they +are. Their essence is not less beautiful than their appearance, though +it needs finer organs for its apprehension. The root of the plant is +not unsightly to science, though for chaplets and festoons we cut the +stem short. And I must hazard the production of the bald fact amid +these pleasing reveries, though it should prove an Egyptian skull at +our banquet.[291] A man who stands united with his thought, conceives +magnificently to himself. He is conscious of a universal success,[292] +even though bought by uniform particular failures. No advantages, no +powers, no gold or force can be any match for him. I cannot choose but +rely on my own poverty, more than on your wealth. I cannot make your +consciousness tantamount to mine. Only the star dazzles; the planet +has a faint, moon-like ray. I hear what you say of the admirable parts +and tried temper of the party you praise, but I see well that for all +his purple cloaks I shall not like him, unless he is at least a poor +Greek like me. I cannot deny it, O friend, that the vast shadow of the +Phenomenal includes thee, also, in its pied and painted +immensity,--thee, also, compared with whom all else is shadow. Thou +art not Being, as Truth is, as Justice is,--thou art not my soul, but +a picture and effigy of that. Thou hast come to me lately, and already +thou art seizing thy hat and cloak. It is not that the soul puts forth +friends, as the tree puts forth leaves, and presently, by the +germination of new buds, extrudes the old leaf?[293] The law of nature +is alternation forevermore. Each electrical state superinduces the +opposite. The soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter +into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone, for a +season, that it may exalt its conversation or society. This method +betrays itself along the whole history of our personal relations. The +instinct of affection revives the hope of union with our mates, and +the returning sense of insulation recalls us from the chase. Thus +every man passes his life in the search after friendship, and if he +should record his true sentiment, he might write a letter like this, +to each new candidate for his love:-- + + DEAR FRIEND:-- + + If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match + my mood with thine, I should never think again of trifles, + in relation to thy comings and goings. I am not very wise; + my moods are quite attainable; and I respect thy genius; it + is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a + perfect intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a + delicious torment. Thine ever, or never. + +8. Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity, and +not for life. They are not to be indulged. This is to weave cobweb, +and not cloth. Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, +because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams,[294] instead +of the tough fiber of the human heart. The laws of friendship are +great, austere, and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of +morals. But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a +sudden sweetness. We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden +of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen. We seek our +friend not sacredly but with an adulterate passion which would +appropriate him to ourselves. In vain. We are armed all over with +subtle antagonisms, which, as soon as we meet, begin to play, and +translate all poetry into stale prose. Almost all people descend to +meet. All association must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the +very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures +disappears as they approach each other. What a perpetual +disappointment is actual society, even of the virtuous and gifted! +After interviews have been compassed with long foresight, we must be +tormented presently by baffled blows, by sudden, unseasonable +apathies, by epilepsies of wit and of animal spirits, in the heyday of +friendship and thought. Our faculties do not play us true, and both +parties are relieved by solitude. + +9. I ought to be equal to every relation. It makes no difference how +many friends I have, and what content I can find in conversing with +each, if there be one to whom I am not equal. If I have shrunk unequal +from one contest instantly, the joy I find in all the rest becomes +mean and cowardly. I should hate myself, if then I made my other +friends my asylum. + + "The valiant warrior[295] famoused for fight, + After a hundred victories, once foiled, + Is from the book of honor razed quite, + And all the rest forgot for which he toiled." + +10. Our impatience is thus sharply rebuked. Bashfulness and apathy are +a tough husk in which a delicate organization is protected from +premature ripening. It would be lost if it knew itself before any of +the best souls were yet ripe enough to know and own it. Respect the +_naturlangsamkeit_[296] which hardens the ruby in a million years, +and works in duration, in which Alps and Andes come and go as +rainbows. The good spirit of our life has no heaven which is the price +of rashness. Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but +for the total worth of man. Let us not have this childish luxury in +our regards, but the austerest worth; let us approach our friend with +an audacious trust in the truth of his heart, in the breadth, +impossible to be overturned, of his foundations. + +11. The attractions of this subject are not to be resisted, and I +leave, for the time, all account of subordinate social benefit, to +speak of that select and sacred relation which is a kind of absolute, +and which even leaves the language of love suspicious and common, so +much is this purer, and nothing is so much divine. + +12. I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest +courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, +but the solidest thing we know. For now, after so many ages of +experience, what do we know of nature, or of ourselves? Not one step +has man taken toward the solution of the problem of his destiny. In +one condemnation of folly stand the whole universe of men. But the +sweet sincerity of joy and peace, which I draw from this alliance +with my brother's soul, is the nut itself whereof all nature and all +thought is but the husk and shell. Happy is the house that shelters a +friend! It might well be built, like a festal bower or arch, to +entertain him a single day. Happier, if he know the solemnity of that +relation, and honor its law! He who offers himself a candidate for +that covenant comes up, like an Olympian,[297] to the great games, +where the first-born of the world are the competitors. He proposes +himself for contest where Time, Want, Danger are in the lists, and he +alone is victor who has truth enough in his constitution to preserve +the delicacy of his beauty from the wear and tear of all these. The +gifts of fortune may be present or absent, but all the hap in that +contest depends on intrinsic nobleness, and the contempt of trifles. +There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each +so sovereign, that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason +why either should be first named. One is Truth. A friend is a person +with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud. I am +arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may +drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and +second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with +the simplicity and wholeness, with which one chemical atom meets +another. Sincerity is the luxury allowed, but diadems and authority, +only to the highest rank, _that_ being permitted to speak truth as +having none above it to court or conform unto. Every man alone is +sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We +parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by +gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him +under a hundred folds. I knew a man who,[298] under a certain +religious frenzy, cast off this drapery, and omitting all compliments +and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he +encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first he was +resisted, and all men agreed he was mad. But persisting, as indeed he +could not help doing, for some time in this course, he attained to the +advantage of bringing every man of his acquaintance into true +relations with him. No man would think of speaking falsely with him, +or of putting him off with any chat of markets or reading-rooms. But +every man was constrained by so much sincerity to the like plain +dealing and what love of nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth he +had, he did certainly show him. But to most of us society shows not +its face and eye, but its side and its back. To stand in true +relations with men in a false age, is worth a fit of insanity, is it +not? We can seldom go erect. Almost every man we meet requires some +civility,--requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some +whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be +questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend +is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me. My friend gives +me entertainment without requiring any stipulation on my part. A +friend, therefore, is a sort of paradox[299] in nature. I who alone +am, I who see nothing in nature whose existence I can affirm with +equal evidence to my own, behold now the semblance of my being in all +its height, variety and curiosity, reiterated in a foreign form; so +that a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. + +13. The other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to +men by every sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by +lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and +badge and trifle, but we can scarce believe that so much character can +subsist in another as to draw us by love. Can another be so blessed, +and we so pure, that we can offer him tenderness? When a man becomes +dear to me, I have touched the goal of fortune. I find very little +written directly to the heart of this matter in books. And yet I have +one text which I cannot choose but remember. My author says,[300]--"I +offer myself faintly and bluntly to those whose I effectually am, and +tender myself least to him to whom I am the most devoted." I wish that +friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and eloquence. It must +plant itself on the ground, before it vaults over the moon. I wish it +to be a little of a citizen, before it is quite a cherub.[301] We +chide the citizen because he makes love a commodity. It is an exchange +of gifts, of useful loans; it is good neighborhood; it watches with +the sick; it holds the pall at the funeral; and quite loses sight of +the delicacies and nobility of the relation. But though we cannot find +the god under this disguise of a sutler, yet, on the other hand, we +cannot forgive the poet if he spins his thread too fine, and does not +substantiate his romance by the municipal virtues of justice, +punctuality, fidelity and pity. I hate the prostitution of the name of +friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances. I much prefer the +company of plow-boys and tin-peddlers, to the silken and perfumed +amity which only celebrates its days of encounter by a frivolous +display, by rides in a curricle,[302] and dinners at the best taverns. +The end of friendship is a commerce the most strict and homely that +can be joined; more strict than any of which we have experience. It is +for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and +death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country +rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, +and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the +trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs +and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and +unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but +should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was +drudgery. + +14. Friendship may be said to require natures so rare and costly, each +so well-tempered, and so happily adapted, and withal so +circumstanced, (for even in that particular, a poet says, love demands +that the parties be altogether paired,) that its satisfaction can very +seldom be assured. It cannot subsist in its perfection, say some of +those who are learned in this warm lore of the heart, betwixt more +than two. I am not quite so strict in my terms, perhaps because I have +never known so high a fellowship as others. I please my imagination +more with a circle of godlike men and women variously related to each +other, and between whom subsists a lofty intelligence. But I find this +law of _one to one_,[303] peremptory for conversation, which is the +practice and consummation of friendship. Do not mix waters too much. +The best mix as ill as good and bad. You shall have very useful and +cheering discourse at several times with two several men, but let all +three of you come together, and you shall not have one new and hearty +word. Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take part in a +conversation of the most sincere and searching sort. In good company +there is never such discourse between two, across the table, as takes +place when you leave them alone. In good company, the individuals at +once merge their egotism into a social soul exactly co-extensive with +the several consciousnesses there present. No partialities of friend +to friend, no fondnesses of brother to sister, of wife to husband, are +there pertinent, but quite otherwise. Only he may then speak who can +sail on the common thought of the party, and not poorly limited to +his own. Now this convention, which good sense demands, destroys the +high freedom of great conversation, which requires an absolute running +of two souls into one. + +15. No two men but being left alone with each other, enter into +simpler relations. Yet it is affinity that determines _which_ two +shall converse. Unrelated men give little joy to each other; will +never suspect the latent powers of each. We talk sometimes of a great +talent for conversation, as if it were a permanent property in some +individuals. Conversation is an evanescent relation,--no more. A man +is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say +a word to his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his silence with as +much reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the +shade. In the sun it will mark the hour. Among those who enjoy his +thought, he will regain his tongue. + +16. Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and +unlikeness, that piques each with the presence of power and of consent +in the other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather +than that my friend should overstep by a word or a look his real +sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him +not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being +mine, is that the _not mine_ is _mine_. I hate, where I looked for a +manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of +concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend, than his +echo. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do +without it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There +must be very two before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance +of two large formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, +before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these +disparities unites them. + +17. He only is fit for this society who is magnanimous; who is sure +that greatness and goodness are always economy; who is not swift to +intermeddle with his fortunes. Let him not intermeddle with this. +Leave to the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the +births of the eternal. Friendship demands a religious treatment. We +talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected. Reverence +is a great part of it. Treat your friend as a spectacle. Of course he +has merits that are not yours, and that you cannot honor, if you must +needs hold him close to your person. Stand aside; give those merits +room; let them mount and expand. Are you the friend of your friend's +buttons, or of his thought? To a great heart he will still be a +stranger in a thousand particulars, that he may come near in the +holiest ground. Leave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as +property, and to suck a short and all-confounding pleasure instead of +the noblest benefits. + +18. Let us buy our entrance to this guild by a long probation. Why +should we desecrate noble and beautiful souls by intruding on them? +Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to his +house, or know his mother and brother and sisters? Why be visited by +him at your own? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this +touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, +a sincerity, a glance from him I want, but not news, nor pottage. I +can get politics, and chat, and neighborly conveniences, from cheaper +companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, +universal, and great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is +profane in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the +horizon, or that clump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us +not vilify but raise it to that standard. That great defying eye, that +scornful beauty of his mien and action, do not pique yourself on +reducing, but rather fortify and enhance. Worship his superiorities; +wish him not less by a thought, but hoard and tell them all. Guard him +as thy counterpart. Let him be to thee forever a sort of beautiful +enemy, untamable, devoutly revered, and not a trivial conveniency to +be soon outgrown and cast aside. The hues of the opal, the light of +the diamond, are not to be seen, if the eye is too near. To my friend +I write a letter, and from him I receive a letter. That seems to you a +little. It suffices me. It is a spiritual gift worthy of him to give +and of me to receive. It profanes nobody. In these warm lines the +heart will trust itself, as it will not to the tongue, and pour out +the prophecy of a godlier existence than all the annals of heroism +have yet made good. + +19. Respect so far the holy laws of this fellowship as not to +prejudice its perfect flower by your impatience for its opening. We +must be our own before we can be another's. There is at least this +satisfaction in crime, according to the Latin proverb;--you can speak +to your accomplice on even terms. _Crimen quos[304] inquinat, aequat_. +To those whom we admire and love, at first we cannot. Yet the least +defect of self-possession vitiates, in my judgment, the entire +relation. There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never +mutual respect until, in their dialogue, each stands for the whole +world. + +20. What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what grandeur of +spirit we can. Let us be silent,--so we may hear the whisper of the +gods. Let us not interfere. Who set you to cast about what you should +say to the select souls, or how to say anything to such? No matter how +ingenious, no matter how graceful and bland. There are innumerable +degrees of folly and wisdom, and for you to say aught is to be +frivolous. Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait until the necessary +and everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves +of your lips. The only reward of virtue, is virtue; the only way to +have a friend is to be one. You shall not come nearer a man by getting +into his house. If unlike, his soul only flees the faster from you, +and you shall catch never a true glance of his eye. We see the noble +afar off, and they repel us; why should we intrude? Late,--very +late,--we perceive that no arrangements, no introductions, no +consuetudes or habits of society, would be of any avail to establish +us in such relations with them as we desire,--but solely the uprise of +nature in us to the same degree it is in them; then shall we meet as +water with water; and if we should not meet them then, we shall not +want them, for we are already they. In the last analysis, love is only +the reflection of a man's own worthiness from other men. Men have +sometimes exchanged names with their friends, as if they would signify +that in their friend each loved his own soul. + +21. The higher the style we demand of friendship, of course the less +easy to establish it with flesh and blood. We walk alone in the world. +Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope +cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of +the universal power, souls are now acting, enduring and daring, which +can love us, and which we can love. We may congratulate ourselves that +the period of nonage,[305] of follies, of blunders, and of shame, is +passed in solitude, and when we are finished men, we shall grasp +heroic hands in heroic hands. Only be admonished by what you already +see, not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no +friendship can be. Our impatience betrays us into rash and foolish +alliances which no God attends. By persisting in your path, though +you forfeit the little you gain the great. You demonstrate yourself, +so as to put yourself out of the reach of false relations, and you +draw to you the first-born of the world, those rare pilgrims whereof +only one or two wander in nature at once, and before whom the vulgar +great show as specters and shadows merely. + +22. It is foolish to be afraid of making our ties too spiritual, as if +so we could lose any genuine love. Whatever correction of our popular +views we make from insight, nature will be sure to bear us out in, and +though it seem to rob us of some joy, will repay us with a greater. +Let us feel, if we will, the absolute insulation of man. We are sure +that we have all in us. We go to Europe, or we pursue persons, or we +read books, in the instinctive faith that these will call it out and +reveal us to ourselves. Beggars all. The persons are such as we; the +Europe, an old faded garment of dead persons; the books, their ghosts. +Let us drop this idolatry. Let us give over this mendicancy. Let us +even bid our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, "Who are +you? Unhand me. I will be dependent no more." Ah! seest thou not, O +brother, that thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform, +and only be more each other's, because we are more our own? A friend +is Janus-faced:[306] he looks to the past and the future. He is the +child of all my foregoing hours, the prophet of those to come, and +the harbinger[307] of a greater friend. + +23. I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them +where I can find them, but I seldom use them. We must have society on +our own terms, and admit or exclude it on the slightest cause. I +cannot afford to speak much with my friend. If he is great, he makes +me so great that I cannot descend to converse. In the great days, +presentiments hover before me, far before me in the firmament. I ought +then to dedicate myself to them. I go in that I may seize them, I go +out that I may seize them. I fear only that I may lose them receding +into the sky in which now they are only a patch of brighter light. +Then, though I prize my friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and +study their visions, lest I lose my own. It would indeed give me a +certain household joy to quit this lofty seeking, this spiritual +astronomy, or search of stars, and come down to warm sympathies with +you; but then I know well I shall mourn always the vanishing of my +mighty gods. It is true, next week I shall have languid moods, when I +can well afford to occupy myself with foreign objects; then I shall +regret the lost literature of your mind, and wish you were by my side +again. But if you come, perhaps you will fill my mind only with new +visions, not with yourself but with your lusters, and I shall not be +able any more than now to converse with you. So I will owe to my +friends this evanescent intercourse. I will receive from them, not +what they have, but what they are. They shall give me that which +properly they cannot give, but which emanates from them. But they +shall not hold me by any relations less subtile and pure. We will meet +as though we met not, and part as though we parted not. + +24. It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a +friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the +other. Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is +not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall +wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the +reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold +companion. If he is unequal, he will presently pass away; but thou art +enlarged by thy own shining, and no longer a mate for frogs and worms, +dost soar and burn with the gods of the empyrean.[308] It is thought a +disgrace to love unrequited. But the great will see that true love +cannot be unrequited. True love transcends the unworthy object, and +dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask +crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its +independency the surer. Yet these things may hardly be said without a +sort of treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is +entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or +provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it may +deify both. + + + + +HEROISM[309] + + "Paradise is under the shadow of swords,"[310] + _Mahomet._ + + +1. In the elder English dramatists,[311] and mainly in the plays of +Beaumont and Fletcher,[312] there is a constant recognition of +gentility, as if a noble behavior were as easily marked in the society +of their age, as color is in our American population. When any Rodrigo, +Pedro, or Valerio[313] enters, though he be a stranger, the duke or +governor exclaims, This is a gentleman,--and proffers civilities without +end; but all the rest are slag and refuse. In harmony with this delight +in personal advantages, there is in their plays a certain heroic cast of +character and dialogue,--as in Bonduca, Sophocles, the Mad Lover, the +Double Marriage,[314]--wherein the speaker is so earnest and cordial, +and on such deep grounds of character, that the dialogue, on the +slightest additional incident in the plot, rises naturally into poetry. +Among many texts, take the following. The Roman Martius has conquered +Athens--all but the invincible spirits of Sophocles, the duke of Athens, +and Dorigen, his wife. The beauty of the latter inflames Martius, and he +seeks to save her husband; but Sophocles will not ask his life, although +assured, that a word will save him, and the execution of both proceeds. + +"_Valerius._ Bid thy wife farewell. + +_Soph._ No, I will take no leave. My Dorigen, +Yonder, above, 'bout Ariadne's crown.[315] +My spirit shall hover for thee. Prithee, haste. + +_Dor._ Stay, Sophocles--with this, tie up my sight; +Let not soft nature so transformed be, +And lose her gentler sexed humanity, +To make me see my lord bleed. So, 'tis well; +Never one object underneath the sun +Will I behold before my Sophocles: +Farewell; now teach the Romans how to die. + +_Mar._ Dost know what 'tis to die? + +_Soph._ Thou dost not, Martius, +And therefore, not what 'tis to live; to die +Is to begin to live. It is to end +An old, stale, weary work, and to commence +A newer and a better. 'Tis to leave +Deceitful knaves for the society +Of gods and goodness. Thou, thyself, must part +At last, from all thy garlands, pleasures, triumphs, +And prove thy fortitude what then 'twill do. + +_Val._ But art not grieved nor vexed to leave thy life thus? + +_Soph._ Why should I grieve or vex for being sent +To them I ever loved best? Now, I'll kneel, +But with my back toward thee; 'tis the last duty +This trunk can do the gods. + +_Mar._ Strike, strike, Valerius, +Or Martius' heart will leap out at his mouth: +This is a man, a woman! Kiss thy lord, +And live with all the freedom you were wont. +O love! thou doubly hast afflicted me +With virtue and with beauty. Treacherous heart, +My hand shall cast thee quick into my urn, +Ere thou transgress this knot of piety. + +_Val._ What ails my brother? + +_Soph._ Martius, oh Martius, +Thou now hast found a way to conquer me. + +_Dor._ O star of Rome! what gratitude can speak +Fit words to follow such a deed as this? + +_Mar._ This admirable duke, Valerius, +With his disdain of fortune and of death, +Captived himself, has captived me, +And though my arm hath ta'en his body here, +His soul hath subjugated Martius' soul. +By Romulus,[316] he is all soul, I think; +He hath no flesh, and spirit cannot be gyved; +Then we have vanquished nothing; he is free, +And Martius walks now in captivity." + +2. I do not readily remember any poem, play, sermon, novel, or +oration, that our press vents in the last few years, which goes to the +same tune. We have a great many flutes and flageolets, but not often +the sound of any fife. Yet, Wordsworth's Laodamia, and the ode of +"Dion,"[317] and some sonnets, have a certain noble music; and +Scott[318] will sometimes draw a stroke like the portrait of Lord +Evandale, given by Balfour of Burley.[319] Thomas Carlyle,[320] with +his natural taste for what is manly and daring in character, has +suffered no heroic trait in his favorites to drop from his +biographical and historical pictures. Earlier, Robert Burns[321] has +given us a song or two. In the Harleian Miscellanies,[322] there is an +account of the battle of Lutzen,[323] which deserves to be read. And +Simon Ockley's[324] History of the Saracens recounts the prodigies of +individual valor with admiration, all the more evident on the part of +the narrator, that he seems to think that his place in Christian +Oxford[325] requires of him some proper protestations of abhorrence. +But if we explore the literature of Heroism, we shall quickly come to +Plutarch,[326] who is its Doctor and historian. To him we owe the +Brasidas,[327] the Dion,[328] the Epaminondas,[329] the Scipio[330] of +old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all +the ancient writers. Each of his "Lives" is a refutation to the +despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A +wild courage, a Stoicism[331] not of the schools, but of the blood, +shines in every anecdote, and has given that book its immense fame. + +3. We need books of this tart cathartic virtue, more than books of +political science, or of private economy. Life is a festival only to +the wise. Seen from the nook and chimney-side of prudence, it wears a +ragged and dangerous front. The violations of the laws of nature by +our predecessors and our contemporaries are punished in us also. The +disease and deformity around us certify the infraction of natural, +intellectual, and moral laws, and often violation on violation to +breed such compound misery. A lockjaw that bends a man's head back to +his heels, hydrophobia that makes him bark at his wife and babes, +insanity that makes him eat grass; war, plague, cholera, famine +indicate a certain ferocity in nature, which, as it had its inlet by +human crime, must have its outlet by human suffering. Unhappily, +almost no man exists who has not in his own person become, to some +amount, a stockholder in the sin, and so made himself liable to a +share in the expiation. + +4. Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let +him hear in season that he is born into the state of war, and that the +commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go +dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self-collected, and neither +defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and +life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the +mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his +behavior. + +5. Toward all this external evil, the man within the breast assumes a +warlike attitude, and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with +the infinite army of enemies. To this military attitude of the soul we +give the name of Heroism. Its rudest form is the contempt for safety +and ease, which makes the attractiveness of war. It is a self-trust +which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its +energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind +of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will, but +pleasantly, and, as it were, merrily, he advances to his own music, +alike in frightful alarms, and in the tipsy mirth of universal +dissoluteness. There is somewhat not philosophical in heroism; there +is somewhat not holy in it; it seems not to know that other souls are +of one texture with it; it has pride; it is the extreme of individual +nature. Nevertheless, we must profoundly revere it. There is somewhat +in great actions, which does not allow us to go behind them. Heroism +feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right; and although a +different breeding, different religion, and greater intellectual +activity, would have modified or even reversed the particular action, +yet for the hero, that thing he does is the highest deed, and is not +open to the censure of philosophers or divines. It is the avowal of +the unschooled man, that he finds a quality in him that is negligent +of expense, of health, of life, of danger, of hatred, of reproach, and +knows that his will is higher and more excellent than all actual and +all possible antagonists. + +6. Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind, and in +contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism +is an obedience[332] to a secret impulse of an individual's character. +Now to no other man can its wisdom appear as it does to him, for every +man must be supposed to see a little further on his own proper path +than any one else. Therefore, just and wise men take umbrage at his +act, until after some little time be past: then they see it to be in +unison with their acts. All prudent men see that the action is clean +contrary to a sensual prosperity; for every heroic act measures itself +by its contempt of some external good. But it finds its own success +at last, and then the prudent also extol. + +7. Self-trust is the essence of heroism. It is the state of the soul +at war, and its ultimate objects are the last defiance of falsehood +and wrong, and the power to bear all that can be inflicted by evil +agents. It speaks the truth, and it is just, generous, hospitable, +temperate, scornful of petty calculations, and scornful of being +scorned. It persists; it is of an undaunted boldness, and of a +fortitude not to be wearied out. Its jest is the littleness of common +life. That false prudence which dotes on health and wealth is the butt +and merriment of heroism. Heroism, like Plotinus,[333] is almost +ashamed of its body. What shall it say, then, to the sugar-plums, and +cats'-cradles, to the toilet, compliments, quarrels, cards, and +custard, which rack the wit of all human society. What joys has kind +nature provided for us dear creatures! There seems to be no interval +between greatness and meanness. When the spirit is not master of the +world then it is its dupe. Yet the little man takes the great hoax so +innocently, works in it so headlong and believing, is born red, and +dies gray, arranging his toilet, attending on his own health, laying +traps for sweet food and strong wine, setting his heart on a horse or +a rifle, made happy with a little gossip or a little praise, that the +great soul cannot choose but laugh at such earnest nonsense. "Indeed, +these humble considerations[334] make me out of love with greatness. +What a disgrace is it to me to take note how many pairs of silk +stockings thou hast, namely, these and those that were the +peach-colored ones; or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as one for +superfluity, and one other for use!" + +8. Citizens, thinking after the laws of arithmetic, consider the +inconvenience of receiving strangers at their fireside, reckon +narrowly the loss of time and the unusual display: the soul of a +better quality thrusts back the unreasonable economy into the vaults +of life, and says, I will obey the God, and the sacrifice and the fire +he will provide. Ibn Hankal,[335] the Arabian geographer, describes a +heroic extreme in the hospitality of Sogd, in Bokhar,[336] "When I was +in Sogd I saw a great building, like a palace, the gates of which were +open and fixed back to the wall with large nails. I asked the reason, +and was told that the house had not been shut, night or day, for a +hundred years. Strangers may present themselves at any hour, and in +whatever number; the master has amply provided for the reception of +the men and their animals, and is never happier than when they tarry +for some time. Nothing of the kind have I seen in any other country." +The magnanimous know very well that they who give time, or money, or +shelter, to the stranger--so it be done for love, and not for +ostentation--do, as it were, put God under obligation to them, so +perfect are the compensations of the universe. In some way the time +they seem to lose is redeemed, and the pains they seem to take +remunerate themselves. These men fan the flame of human love, and +raise the standard of civil virtue among mankind. But hospitality must +be for service, and not for show, or it pulls down the host. The brave +soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its +table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it hath, but its +own majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks[337] and fair water +than belong to city feasts. + +9. The temperance of the hero proceeds from the same wish to do no +dishonor to the worthiness he has. But he loves it for its elegancy, +not for its austerity. It seems not worth his while to be solemn, and +denounce with bitterness flesh-eating or wine-drinking, the use of +tobacco, or opium, or tea, or silk, or gold. A great man scarcely +knows how he dines, how he dresses; but without railing or precision, +his living is natural and poetic. John Eliot,[338] the Indian Apostle, +drank water, and said of wine,--"It is a noble, generous liquor, and +we should be humbly thankful for it, but, as I remember, water was +made before it." Better still is the temperance of king David[339] who +poured out on the ground unto the Lord the water which three of his +warriors had brought him to drink, at the peril of their lives. + +10. It is told of Brutus,[340] that when he fell on his sword, after +the battle of Philippi,[341] he quoted a line of Euripides,[342]--"O +virtue! I have followed thee through life, and I find thee at last but +a shade." I doubt not the hero is slandered by this report. The heroic +soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to +dine nicely, and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the +perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not +need plenty, and can very well abide its loss. + +11. But that which takes my fancy most, in the heroic class, is the +good humor and hilarity they exhibit. It is a height to which common +duty can very well attain, to suffer and to dare with solemnity. But +these rare souls set opinion, success, and life, at so cheap a rate, +that they will not soothe their enemies by petitions, or the show of +sorrow, but wear their own habitual greatness. Scipio,[343] charged +with peculation, refuses to do himself so great a disgrace as to wait +for justification, though he had the scroll of his accounts in his +hands, but tears it to pieces before the tribunes. Socrates'[344] +condemnation of himself to be maintained in all honor in the +Prytaneum,[345] during his life, and Sir Thomas More's[346] +playfulness at the scaffold, are of the same strain. In Beaumont and +Fletcher's "Sea Voyage," Juletta tells the stout captain and his +company, + +_Jul._ Why, slaves, 'tis in our power to hang ye. + +_Master._ Very likely, +'Tis in our powers, then, to be hanged, and scorn ye. + +These replies are sound and whole. Sport is the bloom and glow of a +perfect health. The great will not condescend to take anything +seriously; all must be as gay as the song of a canary, though it were +the building of cities, or the eradication of old and foolish +churches and nations, which have cumbered the earth long thousands of +years. Simple hearts put all the history and customs of this world +behind them, and play their own play in innocent defiance of the +Blue-Laws[347] of the world; and such would appear, could we see the +human race assembled in vision, like little children frolicking +together; though, to the eyes of mankind at large, they wear a stately +and solemn garb of works and influences. + +12. The interest these fine stories have for us, the power of a +romance over the boy who grasps the forbidden book under his bench at +school, our delight in the hero, is the main fact to our purpose. All +these great and transcendent properties are ours. If we dilate in +beholding the Greek energy, the Roman pride, it is that we are already +domesticating the same sentiment. Let us find room for this great +guest in our small houses. The first step of worthiness will be to +disabuse us of our superstitious associations with places and times, +with number and size. Why should these words, Athenian, Roman, Asia, +and England, so tingle in the ear? Where the heart is, there the +muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. +Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry +places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But +here we are; and, if we will tarry a little, we may come to learn that +here is best. See to it only that thyself is here;--and art and +nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall +not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest. Epaminondas,[348] +brave and affectionate, does not seem to us to need Olympus[349] to +die upon, nor the Syrian sunshine. He lies very well where he is. The +Jerseys[350] were handsome ground enough for Washington to tread, and +London streets for the feet of Milton.[351] A great man makes his +climate genial in the imagination of men, and its air the beloved +element of all delicate spirits. That country is the fairest, which is +inhabited by the noblest minds. The pictures which fill the +imagination in reading the actions of Pericles,[352] Xenophon,[353] +Columbus,[354] Bayard,[355] Sidney,[356] Hampden,[357] teach us how +needlessly mean our life is, that we, by the depth of our living, +should deck it with more than regal or national splendor, and act on +principles that should interest man and nature in the length of our +days. + +13. We have seen or heard of many extraordinary young men, who never +ripened, or whose performance in actual life was not extraordinary. +When we see their air and mien, when we hear them speak of society, or +books, or religion, we admire their superiority; they seem to throw +contempt on our entire polity and social state; theirs is the tone of +a youthful giant, who is sent to work revolutions. But they enter an +active profession, and the forming Colossus[358] shrinks to the common +size of man. The magic they used was the ideal tendencies, which +always make the Actual ridiculous; but the tough world had its revenge +the moment they put their horses of the sun to plow in its furrow. +They found no example and no companion, and their heart fainted. What +then? The lesson they gave in their first aspirations, is yet true; +and a better valor and a purer truth shall one day organize their +belief. Or why should a woman liken herself to any historical woman, +and think, because Sappho,[359] or Sevigne,[360] or De Stael,[361] or +the cloistered souls who have had genius and cultivation, do not +satisfy the imagination and the serene Themis,[362] none +can,--certainly not she. Why not? She has a new and unattempted +problem to solve, perchance that of the happiest nature that ever +bloomed. Let the maiden, with erect soul, walk serenely on her way, +accept the hint of each new experience, search, in turn, all the +objects that solicit her eye, that she may learn the power and the +charm of her new-born being which is the kindling of a new dawn in the +recesses of space. The fair girl, who repels interference by a decided +and proud choice of influences, so careless of pleasing, so wilful and +lofty, inspires every beholder with somewhat of her own nobleness. The +silent heart encourages her; O friend, never strike sail to a fear! +Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas. Not in vain you +live, for every passing eye is cheered and refined by the vision. + +14. The characteristic of a genuine heroism is its persistency. All +men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when +you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to +reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, +nor the common the heroic. Yet we have the weakness to expect the +sympathy of people in those actions whose excellence is that they +outrun sympathy, and appeal to a tardy justice. If you would serve +your brother, because it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back +your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. +Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done +something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a +decorous age. It was a high counsel[363] that I once heard given to a +young person,--"Always do what you are afraid to do." A simple manly +character need never make an apology, but should regard its past +action with the calmness of Phocion,[364] when he admitted that the +event of the battle was happy, yet did not regret his dissuasion from +the battle. + +15. There is no weakness or exposure for which we cannot find +consolation in the thought,--this is a part of my constitution, part +of my relation and office to my fellow-creature. Has nature covenanted +with me that I should never appear to disadvantage, never make a +ridiculous figure? Let us be generous of our dignity as well as of our +money. Greatness once and forever has done with opinion. We tell our +charities, not because we wish to be praised for them, not because we +think they have great merit, but for our justification. It is a +capital blunder; as you discover, when another man recites his +charities. + +16. To speak the truth, even with some austerity, to live with some +rigor of temperance, or some extremes of generosity, seems to be an +asceticism which common good-nature would appoint to those who are at +ease and in plenty, in sign that they feel a brotherhood with the +great multitude of suffering men. And not only need we breathe and +exercise the soul by assuming the penalties of abstinence, of debt, of +solitude, of unpopularity, but it behooves the wise man to look with a +bold eye into those rarer dangers which sometimes invade men, and to +familiarize himself with disgusting forms of disease, with sounds of +execration, and the vision of violent death. + +17. Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never +shines in which this element may not work. The circumstances of man, +we say, are historically somewhat better in this country, and at this +hour, than perhaps ever before. More freedom exists for culture. It +will not now run against an ax at the first step out of the beaten +track of opinion. But whoso is heroic will always find crises to try +his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the +trial of persecution always proceeds. It is but the other day that the +brave Lovejoy[365] gave his breast to the bullets of a mob, for the +rights of free speech and opinion, and died when it was better not to +live. + +18. I see not any road to perfect peace which a man can walk, but to +take counsel of his own bosom. Let him quit too much association, let +him go home much, and establish himself in those courses he approves. +The unremitting retention of simple and high sentiments in obscure +duties is hardening the character to that temper which will work with +honor, if need be, in the tumult, or on the scaffold. Whatever +outrages have happened to men may befall a man again; and very easily +in a republic, if there appear any signs of a decay of religion. +Coarse slander, fire, tar and feathers, and the gibbet, the youth may +freely bring home to his mind, and with what sweetness of temper he +can, and inquire how fast he can fix his sense of duty, braving such +penalties, whenever it may please the next newspaper and a sufficient +number of his neighbors to pronounce his opinions incendiary. + +19. It may calm the apprehension of calamity in the most susceptible +heart to see how quick a bound nature has set to the utmost infliction +of malice. We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow +us. + + "Let them rave:[366] + Thou art quiet in thy grave." + +In the gloom of our ignorance of what shall be, in the hour when we +are deaf to the higher voices, who does not envy them who have seen +safely to an end their manful endeavor? Who that sees the meanness of +our politics, but inly congratulates Washington that he is long +already wrapped in his shroud, and forever safe; that he was laid +sweet in his grave, the hope of humanity not yet subjugated in him? +Who does not sometimes envy the good and brave, who are no more to +suffer from the tumults of the natural world, and await with curious +complacency the speedy term of his own conversation with finite +nature? And yet the love that will be annihilated sooner than +treacherous has already made death impossible, and affirms itself no +mortal, but a native of the deeps of absolute and inextinguishable +being. + + + + +MANNERS[367] + + +1. Half the world, it is said, knows not how the other half live. Our +Exploring Expedition saw the Feejee Islanders[368] getting their +dinner off human bones; and they are said to eat their own wives and +children. The husbandry of the modern inhabitants of Gournou[369] +(west of old Thebes) is philosophical to a fault. To set up their +housekeeping, nothing is requisite but two or three earthen pots, a +stone to grind meal, and a mat which is the bed. The house, namely, a +tomb, is ready without rent or taxes. No rain can pass through the +roof, and there is no door, for there is no want of one, as there is +nothing to lose. If the house do not please them, they walk out and +enter another, as there are several hundreds at their command. "It is +somewhat singular," adds Berzoni, to whom we owe this account, "to +talk of Happiness among people who live in sepulchers, among corpses +and rags of an ancient nation which they knew nothing of." In the +deserts of Borgoo[370] the rock-Tibboos still dwell in caves, like +cliff-swallows, and the language of these negroes is compared by their +neighbors to the shrieking of bats, and to the whistling of birds. +Again, the Bornoos[371] have no proper names; individuals are called +after their height, thickness, or other accidental quality, and have +nick-names merely. But the salt, the dates, the ivory, and the gold, +for which these horrible regions are visited, find their way into +countries, where the purchaser and consumer can hardly be ranked in +one race with these cannibals and man-stealers; countries where man +serves himself with metals, wood, stone, glass, gum, cotton, silk and +wool; honors himself with architecture;[372] writes laws, and +contrives to execute his will through the hands of many nations; and, +especially, establishes a select society, running through all the +countries of intelligent men, a self-constituted aristocracy, or +fraternity of the best, which, without written law, or exact usage of +any kind, perpetuates itself, colonizes every new-planted island, and +adopts and makes its own whatever personal beauty or extraordinary +native endowment anywhere appears. + +2. What fact more conspicuous in modern history, than the creation of +the gentleman? Chivalry[373] is that, and loyalty is that, and, in +English literature, half the drama, and all the novels, from Sir +Philip Sidney[374] to Sir Walter Scott,[375] paint this figure. The +word _gentleman_, which, like the word Christian, must hereafter +characterize the present and the few preceding centuries, by the +importance attached to it, is a homage to personal and incommunicable +properties. Frivolous and fantastic additions have got associated with +the name, but the steady interest of mankind in it must be attributed +to the valuable properties which it designates. An element which +unites all the most forcible persons of every country; makes them +intelligible and agreeable to each other, and is somewhat so precise, +that it is at once felt if an individual lack the masonic sign,[376] +cannot be any casual product, but must be an average result of the +character and faculties universally found in men. It seems a certain +permanent average; as the atmosphere is a permanent composition, +whilst so many gases are combined only to be decompounded. _Comme il +faut_, is the Frenchman's description of good society, _as we must +be_. It is a spontaneous fruit of talents and feelings of precisely +that class who have most vigor, who take the lead in the world of this +hour, and, though far from pure, far from constituting the gladdest +and highest tone of human feeling, is as good as the whole society +permits it to be. It is made of the spirit, more than of the talent of +men, and is a compound result, into which every great force enters as +an ingredient, namely, virtue, wit, beauty, wealth, and power. + +3. There is something equivocal in all the words in use to express the +excellence of manners and social cultivation, because the qualities +are fluxional, and the last effect is assumed by the senses as the +cause. The word _gentleman_ has not any correlative abstract[377] to +express the quality. _Gentility_ is mean, and _gentilesse_[378] is +obsolete. But we must keep alive in the vernacular the distinction +between _fashion_, a word of narrow and often sinister meaning, and +the heroic character which the gentleman imports. The usual words, +however, must be respected: they will be found to contain the root of +the matter. The point of distinction in all this class of names, as +courtesy, chivalry, fashion, and the like, is, that the flower and +fruit, not the grain of the tree, are contemplated. It is beauty which +is the aim this time, and not worth. The result is now in question, +although our words intimate well enough the popular feeling, that the +appearance supposes a substance. The gentleman is a man of truth, lord +of his own actions, and expressing that lordship in his behavior, not +in any manner dependent and servile either on persons, or opinions, or +possessions. Beyond this fact of truth and real force, the word +denotes good-nature and benevolence: manhood first, and then +gentleness. The popular notion certainly adds a condition of ease and +fortune; but that is a natural result of personal force and love, that +they should possess and dispense the goods of the world. In times of +violence, every eminent person must fall in with many opportunities to +approve his stoutness and worth; therefore every man's name that +emerged at all from the mass in the feudal ages,[379] rattles in our +ear like a flourish of trumpets. But personal force never goes out of +fashion. That is still paramount to-day, and, in the moving crowd of +good society, the men of valor and reality are known, and rise to +their natural place. The competition is transferred from war to +politics and trade, but the personal force appears readily enough in +these new arenas. + +4. Power first, or no leading class. In politics and in trade, +bruisers and pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks. +God knows[380] that all sorts of gentlemen knock at the door; but +whenever used in strictness, and with any emphasis, the name will be +found to point at original energy. It describes a man standing in his +own right, and working after untaught methods. In a good lord, there +must first be a good animal, at least to the extent of yielding the +incomparable advantage of animal spirits.[381] The ruling class must +have more, but they must have these, giving in every company the sense +of power,[382] which makes things easy to be done which daunt the +wise. The society of the energetic class, in their friendly and +festive meetings, is full of courage, and of attempts, which +intimidate the pale scholar. The courage which girls exhibit is like a +battle of Lundy's Lane,[383] or a sea-fight. The intellect relies on +memory to make some supplies to face these extemporaneous squadrons. +But memory is a base mendicant with basket and badge, in the presence +of these sudden masters. The rulers of society must be up to the work +of the world, and equal to their versatile office: men of the right +Caesarian pattern,[384] who have great range of affinity. I am far from +believing the timid maxim[385] of Lord Falkland,[386] ("That for +ceremony there must go two to it; since a bold fellow will go through +the cunningest forms,") and am of opinion that the gentleman is the +bold fellow whose forms are not to be broken through; and only that +plenteous nature is rightful master, which is the complement of +whatever person it converses with. My gentleman gives the law where he +is; he will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the +field, and outshine all courtesy in the hall. He is good company for +pirates, and good with academicians; so that it is useless to fortify +yourself against him; he has the private entrance to all minds, and I +could as easily exclude myself as him. The famous gentlemen of Asia +and Europe have been of this strong type: Saladin,[387] Sapor,[388] +the Cid,[389] Julius Caesar,[390] Scipio,[391] Alexander,[392] +Pericles,[393] and the lordliest personages. They sat very carelessly +in their chairs, and were too excellent themselves to value any +condition at a high rate. + +5. A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the popular judgment, +to the completion of this man of the world: and it is a material deputy +which walks through the dance which the first has led. Money is not +essential, but this wide affinity is, which transcends the habits of +clique and caste, and makes itself felt by men of all classes. If the +aristocrat is only valid in fashionable circles, and not with truckmen, +he will never be a leader in fashion; and if the man of the people +cannot speak on equal terms with the gentleman, so that the gentleman +shall perceive that he is already really of his own order, he is not to +be feared. Diogenes,[394] Socrates,[395] and Epaminondas[396] are +gentlemen of the best blood, who have chosen the condition of poverty, +when that of wealth was equally open to them. I use these old names, but +the men I speak of are my contemporaries.[397] Fortune will not supply +to every generation one of these well-appointed knights, but every +collection of men furnishes some example of the class: and the politics +of this country, and the trade of every town, are controlled by these +hardy and irresponsible doers, who have invention to take the lead, and +a broad sympathy which puts them in fellowship with crowds, and makes +their action popular. + +6. The manners of this class are observed and caught with devotion by +men of taste. The association of these masters with each other, and +with men intelligent of their merits, is mutually agreeable and +stimulating. The good forms, the happiest expressions of each, are +repeated and adopted. By swift consent, everything superfluous is +dropped, everything graceful is renewed. Fine manners[398] show +themselves formidable to the uncultivated man. They are a subtler +science of defence to parry and intimidate; but once matched by the +skill of the other party, they drop the point of the sword,--points +and fences disappear, and the youth finds himself in a more +transparent atmosphere, wherein life is a less troublesome game, and +not a misunderstanding rises between the players. Manners aim to +facilitate life, to get rid of impediments, and bring the man pure to +energize. They aid our dealing and conversation, as a railway aids +traveling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the road, +and leaving nothing to be conquered but pure space. These forms very +soon become fixed, and a fine sense of propriety is cultivated with +more heed, that it becomes a badge of social and civil distinctions. +Thus grows up Fashion, an equivocal semblance, the most puissant, the +most fantastic and frivolous, the most feared and followed, and which +morals and violence assault in vain. + +7. There exists a strict relation between the class of power, and the +exclusive and polished circles. The last are always filled or filling +from the first. The strong men usually give some allowance even to the +petulances of fashion, for that affinity they find in it. +Napoleon,[399] child of the revolution, destroyer of the old +noblesse,[400] never ceased to court the Faubourg St. Germain:[401] +doubtless with the feeling, that fashion is a homage to men of his +stamp. Fashion, though in a strange way, represents all manly virtue. +It is a virtue gone to seed: it is a kind of posthumous honor. It does +not often caress the great, but the children of the great: it is a +hall of the Past. It usually sets its face against the great of this +hour. Great men are not commonly in its halls: they are absent in the +field: they are working, not triumphing. Fashion is made up of their +children; of those, who, through the value and virtue of somebody, +have acquired lustre to their name, marks of distinction, means of +cultivation and generosity, and, in their physical organization, a +certain health and excellence, which secures to them, if not the +highest power to work, yet high power to enjoy. The class of power, +the working heroes, the Cortez,[402] the Nelson,[403] the Napoleon, +see that this is the festivity and permanent celebration of such as +they; that fashion is funded talent; is Mexico,[404] Marengo,[405] and +Trafalgar[406][407] beaten out thin; that the brilliant names of +fashion run back to just such busy names as their own, fifty or sixty +years ago. They are the sowers, their sons shall be the reapers, and +_their_ sons, in the ordinary course of things, must yield the +possession of the harvest, to new competitors with keener eyes and +stronger frames. The city is recruited from the country. In the year +1805, it is said, every legitimate monarch in Europe was imbecile. The +city would have died out, rotted, and exploded, long ago, but that it +was reinforced from the fields. It is only country which came to town +day before yesterday, that is city and court to-day. + +8. Aristocracy and fashion are certain inevitable results. These +mutual selections are indestructible. If they provoke anger in the +least favored class, and the excluded majority revenge themselves on +the excluding minority, by the strong hand, and kill them, at once a +new class finds itself at the top, as certainly as cream rises in a +bowl of milk: and if the people should destroy class after class, +until two men only were left, one of these would be the leader, and +would be involuntarily served and copied by the other. You may keep +this minority out of sight and out of mind, but it is tenacious of +life, and is one of the estates of the realm.[408] I am the more +struck with this tenacity, when I see its work. It respects the +administration of such unimportant matters, that we should not look +for any durability in its rule. We sometimes meet men under some +strong moral influence, as a patriotic, a literary, a religious +movement, and feel that the moral sentiment rules man and nature. We +think all other distinctions and ties will be slight and fugitive, +this of caste or fashion, for example; yet come from year to year, and +see how permanent that is, in this Boston or New York life of man, +where, too, it has not the lease countenance from the law of the land. +Not in Egypt or in India a firmer or more impassable line. Here are +associations whose ties go over, and under, and through it, a meeting +of merchants, a military corps, a college-class, a fire-club, a +professional association, a political, a religious convention;--the +persons seem to draw inseparably near; yet that assembly once +dispersed, its members will not in the year meet again. Each returns +to his degree in the scale of good society, porcelain remains +porcelain, and earthen earthen. The objects of fashion may be +frivolous, or fashion may be objectless, but the nature of this union +and selection can be neither frivolous nor accidental. Each man's rank +in that perfect graduation depends on some symmetry in his structure, +or some agreement in his structure to the symmetry of society. Its +doors unbar instantaneously to a natural claim of their own kind. A +natural gentleman finds his way in, and will keep the oldest patrician +out, who has lost his intrinsic rank. Fashion understands itself; +good-breeding and personal superiority of whatever country readily +fraternize with those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have +distinguished themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their +tournure.[409] + +9. To say what good of fashion we can,--it rests on reality, and hates +nothing so much as pretenders;--to exclude and mystify pretenders, and +send them into everlasting "Coventry,"[410] is its delight. We +contemn, in turn, every other gift of men of the world; but the habit, +even in little and the least matters, of not appealing to any but our +own sense of propriety, constitutes the foundation of all chivalry. +There is almost no kind of self-reliance, so it be sane and +proportioned, which fashion does not occasionally adopt, and give it +the freedom of its saloons. A sainted soul is always elegant, and, if +it will, passes unchallenged into the most guarded ring. But so will +Jock the teamster pass, in some crisis that brings him thither, and +find favor, as long as his head is not giddy with the new +circumstance, and the iron shoes do not wish to dance in waltzes and +cotillions. For there is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of +behavior yield to the energy of the individual. The maiden at her +first ball, the countryman at a city dinner, believes that there is a +ritual according to which every act and compliment must be performed, +or the failing party must be cast out of this presence. Later, they +learn that good sense and character make their own forms every moment, +and speak or abstain, to take wine or refuse it, stay or go, sit in a +chair or sprawl with children on the floor, or stand on their head, or +what else soever, in a new and aboriginal way: and that strong will is +always in fashion, let who will be unfashionable. All that fashion +demands is composure, and self-content. A circle of men perfectly +well-bred would be a company of sensible persons, in which every man's +native manners and character appear. If the fashionist have not this +quality, he is nothing. We are such lovers of self-reliance, that we +excuse in man many sins, if he will show us a complete satisfaction in +his position, which asks no leave to be of mine, or any man's good +opinion. But any deference to some eminent man or woman of the world, +forfeits all privilege of nobility. He is an underling: I have nothing +to do with him; I will speak with his master. A man should not go +where he cannot carry his whole sphere or society with him,--not +bodily, the whole circle of his friends, but atmospherically. He +should preserve in a new company the same attitude of mind and reality +of relation, which his daily associates draw him to, else he is shorn +of his best beams, and will be an orphan in the merriest club. "If you +could see Vich Ian Vohr with his tail on![411]--" But Vich Ian Vohr +must always carry his belongings in some fashion, if not added as +honor, then severed as disgrace. + +10. There will always be in society certain persons who are +mercuries[412] of its approbation, and whose glance will at any time +determine for the curious their standing in the world. These are the +chamberlains of the lesser gods. Accept their coldness as an omen of +grace with the loftier deities, and allow them all their privilege. +They are clear in their office, nor could they be thus formidable, +without their own merits. But do not measure the importance of this +class by their pretension, or imagine that a fop can be the dispenser +of honor and shame. They pass also at their just rate; for how can +they otherwise, in circles which exist as a sort of herald's +office[413] for the sifting of character? + +11. As the first thing man requires of man is reality, so that appears +in all the forms of society. We pointedly, and by name, introduce the +parties to each other. Know you before all heaven and earth, that this +is Andrew, and this is Gregory;--they look each other in the eye; they +grasp each other's hand, to identify and signalize each other. It is a +great satisfaction. A gentleman never dodges; his eyes look straight +forward, and he assures the other party, first of all, that he has +been met. For what is it that we seek, in so many visits and +hospitalities? Is it your draperies, pictures, and decorations? Or, do +we not insatiably ask. Was a man in the house? I may easily go into a +great household where there is much substance, excellent provision for +comfort, luxury, and taste, and yet not encounter there any +Amphitryon,[414] who shall subordinate these appendages. I may go into +a cottage, and find a farmer who feels that he is the man I have come +to see, and fronts me accordingly. It was therefore a very natural +point of old feudal etiquette, that a gentleman who received a visit, +though it were of his sovereign, should not leave his roof, but should +wait his arrival at the door of his house. No house, though it were +the Tuileries,[415] or the Escurial,[416] is good for anything without +a master. And yet we are not often gratified by this hospitality. +Everybody we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, +conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to +interpose between himself and his guests. Does it not seem as if man +was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a +full renconter front to front with his fellow? It were unmerciful, I +know, quite to abolish the use of these screens, which are of eminent +convenience, whether the guest is too great, or too little. We call +together many friends who keep each other in play, or by luxuries and +ornaments we amuse the young people, and guard our retirement. Or if, +perchance, a searching realist comes to our gate, before whose eyes we +have no care to stand, then again we run to our curtain, and hide +ourselves as Adam[417] at the voice of the Lord God in the garden. +Cardinal Caprara,[418] the Pope's[419] legate at Paris, defended +himself from the glances of Napoleon, by an immense pair of green +spectacles. Napoleon remarked them, and speedily managed to rally them +off: and yet Napoleon, in his turn, was not great enough, with eight +hundred thousand troops at his back, to face a pair of free-born eyes, +but fenced himself with etiquette, and within triple barriers of +reserve: and, as all the world knows from Madame de Stael,[420] was +wont, when he found himself observed, to discharge his face of all +expression. But emperors and rich men are by no means the most +skillful masters of good manners. No rent roll nor army-list can +dignify skulking and dissimulations: and the first point of courtesy +must always be truth, as really all forms of good-breeding point that +way. + +12. I have just been reading, in Mr. Hazlitt's[421] translation, +Montaigne's[422] account of his journey into Italy, and am struck with +nothing more agreeably than the self-respecting fashions of the time. +His arrival in each place, the arrival of a gentleman of France, is an +event of some consequence. Wherever he goes, he pays a visit to +whatever prince or gentleman of note resides upon his road, as a duty +to himself and to civilization. When he leaves any house in which he +has lodged for a few weeks, he causes his arms to be painted and hung +up as a perpetual sign to the house, as was the custom of gentlemen. + +13. The complement of this graceful self-respect, and that of all the +points of good breeding I most require and insist upon, is deference. +I like that every chair should be a throne, and hold a king. I prefer +a tendency to stateliness, to an excess of fellowship. Let the +incommunicable objects of nature and the metaphysical isolation of man +teach us independence. Let us not be too much acquainted. I would have +a man enter his house through a hall filled with heroic and sacred +sculptures, that he might not want the hint of tranquillity and +self-poise.[423] We should meet each morning, as from foreign +countries, and spending the day together, should depart at night, as +into foreign countries. In all things I would have the island of a man +inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all +round Olympus. No degree of affection need invade this religion. This +is myrrh and rosemary to keep the other sweet. Lovers should guard +their strangeness. If they forgive too much, all slides into confusion +and meanness. It is easy to push this deference to a Chinese +etiquette;[424] but coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate +fine qualities. A gentleman makes no noise: a lady is serene +Proportionate is our disgust at those invaders who fill a studious +house with blast and running, to secure some paltry convenience. Not +less I dislike a low sympathy of each with his neighbors's needs. Must +we have a good understanding with one another's palates? as foolish +people who have lived long together, know when each wants salt or +sugar. I pray my companion, if he wishes for bread, to ask me for +bread, and if he wishes for sassafras or arsenic, to ask me for them, +and not to hold out his plate, as if I knew already. Every natural +function can be dignified by deliberation and privacy. Let us leave +hurry to slaves. The compliments and ceremonies of our breeding should +recall,[425] however remotely, the grandeur of our destiny. + +14. The flower of courtesy does not very well bide handling, but if we +dare to open another leaf, and explore what parts go to its +conformation, we shall find also an intellectual quality. To the +leaders of men, the brain as well as the flesh and the heart must +furnish a proportion. Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine +perceptions. Men are too coarsely made for the delicacy of beautiful +carriage and customs. It is not quite sufficient to good breeding, a +union of kindness and independence. We imperatively require a +perception of, and a homage to, beauty in our companions. Other +virtues are in request in the field and work yard, but a certain +degree of taste is not to be spared in those we sit with. I could +better eat with one who did not respect the truth or the laws, than +with a sloven and unpresentable person. Moral qualities rule the +world, but at short distances the senses are despotic. The same +discrimination of fit and fair runs out, if with less rigor, into all +parts of life. The average spirit of the energetic class is good +sense, acting under certain limitations and to certain ends. It +entertains every natural gift. Social in its nature, it respects +everything which tends to unite men. It delights in measure.[426] The +love of beauty is mainly the love of measure or proportion. The person +who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat, +puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved, love +measure. You must have genius, or a prodigious usefulness, if you will +hide the want of measure. This perception comes in to polish and +perfect the parts of the social instrument. Society will pardon much +to genius and special gifts, but, being in its nature a convention, it +loves what is conventional, or what belongs to coming together. That +makes the good and bad of manners, namely, what helps or hinders +fellowship. For, fashion is not good sense absolute, but relative; not +good sense private, but good sense entertaining company. It hates +corners and sharp points of character, hates quarrelsome, egotistical, +solitary, and gloomy people; hates whatever can interfere with total +blending of parties; whilst it values all peculiarities as in the +highest degree refreshing, which can consist with good fellowship. And +besides the general infusion of wit to heighten civility, the direct +splendor of intellectual power is ever welcome in fine society as the +costliest addition to its rule and its credit. + +15. The dry light must shine in to adorn our festival, but it must be +tempered and shaded, or that will also offend. Accuracy is essential +to beauty, and quick perceptions to politeness, but not too quick +perceptions. One may be too punctual and too precise. He must leave +the omniscience of business at the door, when he comes into the palace +of beauty. Society loves creole natures,[427] and sleepy, languishing +manners, so that they cover sense, grace, and good-will: the air of +drowsy strength, which disarms criticism; perhaps, because such a +person seems to reserve himself for the best of the game, and not +spend himself on surfaces; an ignoring eye, which does not see the +annoyances, shifts, and inconveniences, that cloud the brow and +smother the voice of the sensitive. + +16. Therefore, besides personal force and so much perception as +constitutes unerring taste, society demands in its patrician class, +another element already intimated, which it significantly terms +good-nature, expressing all degrees of generosity, from the lowest +willingness and faculty to oblige, up to the heights of magnanimity +and love. Insight we must have, or we shall run against one another, +and miss the way to our food; but intellect is selfish and barren. The +secret of success in society, is a certain heartiness and sympathy. A +man who is not happy in the company, cannot find any word in his +memory that will fit the occasion. All his information is a little +impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds in every turn of the +conversation equally lucky occasions for the introduction of that +which he has to say. The favorites of society, and what it calls +_whole souls_, are able men, and of more spirit than wit, who have no +uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and the company, +contented and contenting, at a marriage or a funeral, a ball or a +jury, a water-party or a shooting-match. England, which is rich in +gentlemen, furnished, in the beginning of the present century, a good +model of that genius which the world loves, in Mr. Fox,[428] who +added to his great abilities the most social disposition, and real +love of men. Parliamentary history has few better passages than the +debate, in which Burke[429] and Fox separated in the House of Commons; +when Fox urged on his old friend the claims of old friendship with +such tenderness, that the house was moved to tears. Another anecdote +is so close to my matter, that I must hazard the story. A tradesman +who had long dunned him for a note of three hundred guineas, found him +one day counting gold, and demanded payment. "No," said Fox, "I owe +this money to Sheridan[430]: it is a debt of honor: if an accident +should happen to me, he has nothing to show." "Then," said the +creditor, "I change my debt into a debt of honor," and tore the note +in pieces. Fox thanked the man for his confidence, and paid him, +saying, "his debt was of older standing, and Sheridan must wait." +Lover of liberty, friend of the Hindoo, friend of the African slave, +he possessed a great personal popularity; and Napoleon said of him on +the occasion of his visit to Paris, in 1805, "Mr. Fox will always hold +the first place in an assembly at the Tuileries." + +17. We may easily seem ridiculous in our eulogy of courtesy, whenever +we insist on benevolence as its foundation. The painted phantasm +Fashion rises to cast a species of derision on what we say. But I will +neither be driven from some allowance to Fashion as a symbolic +institution, nor from the belief that love is the basis of courtesy. +"We must obtain _that_, if we can; but by all means we must affirm +_this_. Life owes much of its spirit to these sharp contrasts. Fashion +which affects to be honor, is often, in all men's experience, only a +ballroom code. Yet, so long as it is the highest circle, in the +imagination of the best heads on the planet, there is something +necessary and excellent in it; for it is not to be supposed that men +have agreed to be the dupes of anything preposterous; and the respect +which these mysteries inspire in the most rude and sylvan characters, +and the curiosity with which details of high life are read, betray the +universality of the love of cultivated manners. I know that a comic +disparity would be felt, if we should enter the acknowledged 'first +circles,' and apply these terrific standards of justice, beauty, and +benefit, to the individuals actually found there. Monarchs and heroes, +sages and lovers, these gallants are not. Fashion has many classes and +many rules of probation and admission; and not the best alone. There +is not only the right of conquest, which genius pretends,--the +individual, demonstrating his natural aristocracy best of the +best;--but less claims will pass for the time; for Fashion loves +lions, and points, like Circe,[431] to her horned company. This +gentleman is this afternoon arrived from Denmark; and that is my Lord +Ride, who came yesterday from Bagdad; here is Captain Friese, from +Cape Turnagain, and Captain Symmes,[432] from the interior of the +earth; and Monsieur Jovaire, who came down this morning in a balloon; +Mr. Hobnail, the reformer; and Reverend Jul Bat, who has converted +the whole torrid zone in his Sunday school; and Signer Torre del +Greco, who extinguished Vesuvius by pouring into it the Bay of Naples; +Spahr, the Persian ambassador; and Tul Wil Shan, the exiled nabob of +Nepaul, whose saddle is the new moon.--But these are monsters of one +day, and to-morrow will be dismissed to their holes and dens; for, in +these rooms every chair is waited for. The artist, the scholar, and, +in general, the clerisy,[433] wins its way up into these places, and +gets represented here, somewhat on this footing of conquest. Another +mode is to pass through all the degrees, spending a year and a day in +St. Michael's Square,[434] being steeped in Cologne water,[435] and +perfumed, and dined, and introduced, and properly grounded in all the +biography, and politics, and anecdotes of the boudoirs. + +18. Yet these fineries may have grace and wit. Let there be grotesque +sculpture about the gates and offices of temples. Let the creed and +commandments even have the saucy homage of parody. The forms of +politeness universally express benevolence in superlative degrees. +What if they are in the mouths of selfish men, and used as means of +selfishness? What if the false gentleman almost bows the true out of +the world? What if the false gentleman contrives so to address his +companion, as civilly to exclude all others from his discourse, and +also to make them feel excluded? Real service will not lose its +nobleness. All generosity is not merely French and sentimental; nor is +it to be concealed, that living blood and a passion of kindness does +at last distinguish God's gentleman from Fashion's. The epitaph of Sir +Jenkin Grout is not wholly unintelligible to the present age. "Here +lies Sir Jenkin Grout, who loved his friend, and persuaded his enemy: +what his mouth ate, his hand paid for: what his servants robbed, he +restored: if a woman gave him pleasure, he supported her in pain: he +never forgot his children: and whoso touched his finger, drew after it +his whole body." Even the line of heroes is not utterly extinct. There +is still ever some admirable person in plain clothes, standing on the +wharf, who jumps in to rescue a drowning man; there is still some +absurd inventor of charities; some guide and comforter of runaway +slaves; some friend of Poland;[436] some Philhellene;[437] some +fanatic who plants shade-trees for the second and third generation, +and orchards when he is grown old; some well-concealed piety; some +just man happy in an ill-fame; some youth ashamed of the favors of +fortune, and impatiently casting them on other shoulders. And these +are the centers of society, on which it returns for fresh impulses. +These are the creators of Fashion, which is an attempt to organize +beauty of behavior. The beautiful and the generous are in the theory, +the doctors and apostles of this church: Scipio, and the Cid, and Sir +Philip Sidney, and Washington, and every pure and valiant heart, who +worshiped Beauty by word and by deed. The persons who constitute the +natural aristocracy, are not found in the actual aristocracy, or only +on its edge; as the chemical energy of the spectrum is found to be +greatest just outside of the spectrum. Yet that is the infirmity of +the seneschals, who do not know their sovereign, when he appears. The +theory of society supposes the existence and sovereignty of these. It +divines afar off their coming. It says with the elder gods,-- + + "As Heaven and Earth are fairer far[438] + Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs; + And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth, + In form and shape compact and beautiful; + So, on our heels a fresh perfection treads; + A power, more strong in beauty, born of us, + And fated to excel us, as we pass + In glory that old Darkness: + ... for, 'tis the eternal law, + That first in beauty shall be first in might." + +19. Therefore, within the ethnical circle of good society, there is a +narrower and higher circle, concentration of its light, and flower of +courtesy, to which there is always a tacit appeal of pride and +reference, as to its inner and imperial court, the parliament of love +and chivalry. And this is constituted of those persons in whom heroic +dispositions are native, with the love of beauty, the delight in +society, and the power to embellish the passing day. If the +individuals who compose the purest circles of aristocracy in Europe, +the guarded blood of centuries, should pass in review, in such manner +as that we could, leisurely and critically, inspect their behavior, we +might find no gentleman, and no lady; for although excellent specimens +of courtesy and high-breeding would gratify us in the assemblage, in +the particulars, we should detect offense. Because, elegance comes of +no breeding, but of birth. There must be romance of character, or the +most fastidious exclusion of impertinencies will not avail. It must be +genius which takes that direction: it must be not courteous, but +courtesy. High behavior is as rare in fiction as it is in fact. Scott +is praised for the fidelity with which he painted the demeanor and +conversation of the superior classes. Certainly, kings and queens, +nobles and great ladies, had some right to complain of the absurdity +that had been put in their mouths, before the days of Waverley;[439] +but neither does Scott's dialogue bear criticism. His lords brave each +other in smart epigrammatic speeches, but the dialogue is in costume, +and does not please on the second reading; it is not warm with life. +In Shakespeare alone, the speakers do not strut and bridle, the +dialogue is easily great, and he adds to so many titles that of being +the best-bred man in England, and in Christendom. Once or twice in a +lifetime we are permitted to enjoy the charm of noble manners, in the +presence of a man or woman who have no bar in their nature, but whose +character emanates freely in their word and gesture. A beautiful form +is better than a beautiful face: a beautiful behavior is better than a +beautiful form: it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; +it is the finest of the fine arts. A man is but a little thing in the +midst of the objects of nature, yet, by the moral quality radiating +from his countenance, he may abolish all considerations of magnitude, +and in his manners equal the majesty of the world. I have seen an +individual whose manners though wholly within the conventions of +elegant society, were never learned there, but were original and +commanding, and held out protection and prosperity; one who did not +need the aid of a court-suit, but carried the holiday in his eye; who +exhilarated the fancy by flinging wide the doors of new modes of +existence; who shook off the captivity of etiquette, with happy, +spirited bearing, good-natured and free as Robin Hood;[440] yet with +the port of an emperor,--if need be, calm, serious, and fit to stand +the gaze of millions. + +20. The open air and the fields, the street and public chambers, are +the places where Man executes his will; let him yield or divide the +scepter at the door of the house. Woman, with her instinct of +behavior, instantly detects in man a love of trifles, any coldness or +imbecility, or, in short, any want of that large, flowing, and +magnanimous deportment, which is indispensable as an exterior in the +hall. Our American institutions have been friendly to her, and at this +moment I esteem it a chief felicity of this country, that it excels in +women. A certain awkward consciousness of inferiority in the men, may +give rise to the new chivalry in behalf of Woman's Rights. Certainly, +let her be as much better placed in the laws and in social forms, as +the most zealous reformer can ask, but I confide so entirely in her +inspiring and musical nature, that I believe only herself can show us +how she shall be served. The wonderful generosity of her sentiments +raises her at times into heroical and godlike regions, and verifies +the pictures of Minerva,[441] Juno,[442] or Polymnia;[443] and, by the +firmness with which she treads her upward path, she convinces the +coarsest calculators that another road exists than that which their +feet know. But besides those who make good in our imagination the +place of muses and of Delphic Sibyls,[444] are there not women who +fill our vase with wine and roses to the brim, so that the wine runs +over and fills the house with perfume; who inspire us with courtesy; +who unloose our tongues, and we speak; who anoint our eyes, and we +see? We say things we never thought to have said; for once, our walls +of habitual reserve vanished, and left us at large; we were children +playing with children in a wide field of flowers. Steep us, we cried, +in these influences, for days, for weeks, and we shall be sunny poets, +and will write out in many-colored words the romance that you are. Was +it Hafiz[445] or Firdousi[446] that said of his Persian Lilla, "She +was an elemental force, and astonished me by her amount of life, when +I saw her day after day radiating, every instant, redundant joy and +grace on all around her.[447] She was a solvent powerful to reconcile +all heterogeneous persons into one society; like air or water, an +element of such a great range of affinities, that it combines readily +with a thousand substances. Where she is present, all others will be +more than they are wont. She was a unit and whole, so that whatsoever +she did, became her. She had too much sympathy and desire to please, +than that you could say, her manners were marked with dignity, yet no +princess could surpass her clear and erect demeanor on each occasion. +She did not study the Persian grammar, nor the books of the seven +poets, but all the poems of the seven seemed to be written upon her. +For, though the bias of her nature was not to thought, but to +sympathy, yet was she so perfect in her own nature, as to meet +intellectual persons by the fullness of her heart, warming them by her +sentiments; believing, as she did, that by dealing nobly with all, all +would show themselves noble." + +21. I know that this Byzantine[448] pile of chivalry of Fashion, which +seems so fair and picturesque to those who look at the contemporary +facts for science or for entertainment, is not equally pleasant to all +spectators. The constitution of our society makes it a giant's castle +to the ambitious youth who have not found their names enrolled in its +Golden Book,[449] and whom it has excluded from its coveted honors and +privileges. They have yet to learn that its seeming grandeur is +shadowy and relative: it is great by their allowance: its proudest +gates will fly open at the approach of their courage and virtue. For +the present distress, however, of those who are predisposed to suffer +from the tyrannies of this caprice, there are easy remedies. To remove +your residence a couple of miles, or at most four, will commonly +relieve the most extreme susceptibility. For, the advantages which +fashion values are plants which thrive in very confined localities, +in a few streets, namely. Out of this precinct, they go for nothing; +are of no use in the farm, in the forest, in the market, in war, in +the nuptial society, in the literary or scientific circle, at sea, in +friendship, in the heaven of thought or virtue. + +22. But we have lingered long enough in these painted courts. The +worth of the thing signified must vindicate our taste for the emblem. +Everything that is called fashion and courtesy humbles itself before +the cause and fountain of honor, creator of titles and dignities, +namely, the heart of love. This is the royal blood, this the fire, +which, in all countries and contingencies, will work after its kind +and conquer ind expand all that approaches it. This gives new meanings +to every fact. This impoverishes the rich, suffering no grandeur but +its own. What _is_ rich? Are you rich enough to help anybody? to +succor the unfashionable and the eccentric? rich enough to make the +Canadian in his wagon, the itinerant with his consul's paper which +commends him "To the charitable," the swarthy Italian with his few +broken words of English, the lame pauper hunted by overseers from town +to town, even the poor insane or besotted wreck of man or woman, feel +the noble exception of your presence and your house, from the general +bleakness and stoniness; to make such feel that they were greeted with +a voice which made them both remember and hope? What is vulgar, but to +refuse the claim on acute and conclusive reasons? What is gentle, but +to allow it, and give their heart and yours lone holiday from the +national caution? Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar. +The king of Schiraz[450] could not afford to be so bountiful as the +poor Osman[451] who dwelt at his gate. Osman had a humanity so broad +and deep, that although his speech was so bold and free with the +Koran[452] as to disgust all the dervishes, yet was there never a poor +outcast, eccentric, or insane man, some fool who had cut off his +beard, or who had been mutilated under a vow, or had a pet madness in +his brain, but fled at once to him,--that great heart lay there so +sunny and hospitable in the center of the country,--that it seemed as +if the instinct of all sufferers drew them to his side. And the +madness which he harbored, he did not share. Is not this to be rich? +this only to be rightly rich? + +23. But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, +and talk of that which I do not well understand. It is easy to see, +that what is called by distinction society and fashion, has good laws +as well as bad, has much that is necessary, and much that is absurd. +Too good for banning, and too bad for blessing, it reminds us of a +tradition of the pagan mythology, in any attempt to settle its +character. "I overheard Jove,[453] one day," said Silenus,[454] +"talking of destroying the earth; he said, it had failed; they were +all rogues and vixens, who went from bad to worse, as fast as the days +succeeded each other. Minerva said, she hoped not; they were only +ridiculous little creatures, with this odd circumstance, that they had +a blur, or indeterminate aspect, seen far or seen near; if you called +them bad, they would appear so; if you called them good, they would +appear so; and there was no one person or action among them, which +would not puzzle her owl,[455] much more all Olympus, to know whether +it was fundamentally bad or good." + + + + +GIFTS[456] + + Gifts of one who loved me-- + 'Twas high time they came; + When he ceased to love me, + Time they stopped for shame. + + +1. It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the +world owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into +chancery,[457] and be sold. I do not think this general insolvency, +which involves in some sort all the population, to be the reason of +the difficulty experienced at Christmas and New Year, and other times, +in bestowing gifts; since it is always so pleasant to be generous, +though very vexatious to pay debts. But the impediment lies in the +choosing. If, at any time, it comes into my head that a present is due +from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity +is gone. Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because +they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the +utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat +stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of +a work-house. Nature does not cocker us:[458] we are children, not +pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or +favor, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look +like the frolic and interference of love and beauty. Men use to tell +us that we love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, +because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted. +Something like that pleasure, the flowers give us: what am I to whom +these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable gifts,[459] +because they are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic +values being attached to them. If a man should send to me to come a +hundred miles to visit him, and should set before me a basket of fine +summer-fruit, I should think there was some proportion between the +labor and the reward. + +2. For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty every day, +and one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option, since if the +man at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you +could procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a +man eat bread or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is +always a great satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity +does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it +seems heroic to let the petitioner[460] be the judge of his necessity, +and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience. If it be +a fantastic desire, it is better to leave to others the office of +punishing him. I can think of many parts I should prefer playing to +that of the Furies.[461] Next to things of necessity, the rule for a +gift, which one of my friends prescribed, is that we might convey to +some person that which properly belonged to his character, and was +easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment +and love are for the most part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are +not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of +thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; +the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the +sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a +handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it +restores society in so far to its primary basis, when a man's +biography[462] is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an +index of his merit. But it is a cold lifeless business when you go to +the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and +talent, but a goldsmith's. That is fit for kings, and rich men who +represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of +gold and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering,[463] or +payment of blackmail.[464] + +3. The law of benefits is a difficult channel, which requires careful +sailing, or rude boats. It is not the office of a man to receive +gifts. How dare you give them? We wish to be self-sustained. We do not +quite forgive a forgiver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of +being bitten. We can receive anything from love, for that is a way of +receiving it from ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to +bestow. We sometimes hate the meat which we eat, because there seems +something of degrading dependence in living by it. + + "Brother, if Jove[465] to thee a present make, + Take heed that from his hands thou nothing take." + +We ask the whole. Nothing less will content us. We arraign society, if +it do not give us besides earth, and fire, and water, opportunity, +love, reverence, and objects of veneration. + +4. He is a good man, who can receive a gift well. We are either glad +or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. Some violence, I +think, is done, some degradation borne, when I rejoice or grieve at a +gift. I am sorry when my independence is invaded, or when a gift comes +from such as do not know my spirit, and so the act is not supported; +and if the gift pleases me overmuch, then I should be ashamed that the +donor should read my heart, and see that I love his commodity, and not +him. The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, +correspondent to my flowing unto him. When the waters are at level, +then my goods pass to him, and his to me. All his are mine, all mine +his. I say to him, How can you give me this pot of oil, or this flagon +of wine, when all your oil and wine is mine, which belief of mine this +gift seems to deny? Hence the fitness of beautiful, not useful things +for gifts. This giving is flat usurpation, and therefore when the +beneficiary is ungrateful, as all beneficiaries hate all Timons,[466] +not at all considering the value of the gift, but looking back to the +greater store it was taken from, I rather sympathize with the +beneficiary, than with the anger of my lord, Timon. For, the +expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually punished by the +total insensibility of the obliged person. It is a great happiness to +get off without injury and heart-burning, from one who has had the ill +luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business,[467] this of +being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap. A +golden text for these gentlemen is that which I admire in the +Buddhist,[468] who never thanks, and who says, "Do not flatter your +benefactors." + +5. The reason of these discords I conceive to be, that there is no +commensurability between a man and any gift. You cannot give anything +to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts +you in debt by his magnanimity. The service a man renders his friend +is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend +stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve +his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my +friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small. +Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so +incidental and at random, that we can seldom hear the acknowledgments +of any person who would thank us for a benefit, without some shame and +humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct stroke, but must be content +with an oblique one; we seldom have the satisfaction of yielding a +direct benefit, which is directly received. But rectitude scatters +favors on every side without knowing it, and receives with wonder the +thanks of all people. + +6. I fear to breathe any treason against the majesty of love, which is +the genius and god of gifts, and to whom we must not affect to +prescribe. Let him give kingdoms or flower-leaves indifferently. There +are persons from whom we always expect fairy tokens; let us not cease +to expect them. This is prerogative, and not to be limited by our +municipal rules. For the rest, I like to see that we cannot be bought +and sold. The best of hospitality and of generosity is also not in the +will, but in fate. I find that I am not much to you; you do not need +me; you do not feel me; then am I thrust out of doors, though you +proffer me house and lands. No services are of any value, but only +likeness. When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, +it proved an intellectual trick--no more. They eat your service like +apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel for you, and +delight in you all the time. + + + + +NATURE[469] + + The rounded world is fair to see, + Nine times folded in mystery: + Though baffled seers cannot impart + The secret of its laboring heart, + Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast, + And all is clear from east to west. + Spirit that lurks each form within + Beckons to spirit of its kin; + Self-kindled every atom glows, + And hints the future which it owes. + + +1. There are days[470] which occur in this climate, at almost any +season of the year, wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the +air, the heavenly bodies, and the earth, make a harmony, as if nature +would indulge her offspring; when, in these bleak upper sides of the +planet, nothing is to desire that we have heard of the happiest +latitudes, and we bask in the shining hours of Florida and Cuba; when +everything that has life gives sign of satisfaction, and the cattle +that lie on the ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts. These +halcyons[471] may be looked for with a little more assurance in that +pure October weather, which we distinguish by the name of Indian +Summer.[472] The day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills +and warm wide fields. To have lived through all its sunny hours, +seems longevity enough. The solitary places do not seem quite lonely. +At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced +to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish. The +knapsack of custom falls off his back with the first step he makes +into these precincts. Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and +reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be the +circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a +god all men that come to her. We have crept out of our close and +crowded houses into the night and morning, and we see what majestic +beauties daily wrap us in their bosom. How willingly we would escape +the barriers which render them comparatively impotent, escape the +sophistication and second thought, and suffer nature to entrance us. +The tempered light of the woods is like a perpetual morning, and is +stimulating and heroic. The anciently reported spells of these places +creep on us. The stems of pines, hemlocks, and oaks, almost gleam like +iron on the excited eye. The incommunicable trees begin to persuade us +to live with them, and quit our life of solemn trifles. Here no +history, or church, or state, is interpolated on the divine sky and +the immortal year. How easily we might walk onward into opening +landscape, absorbed by new pictures, and by thoughts fast succeeding +each other, until by degrees the recollection of home was crowded out +of the mind, all memory obliterated by the tyranny of the present, +and we were led in triumph by nature. + +2. These enchantments are medicinal, they sober and heal us. These are +plain pleasures, kindly and native to us. We come to our own, and make +friends with matter, which the ambitious chatter of the schools would +persuade us to despise. We never can part with it; the mind loves its +old home: as water to our thirst, so is the rock, the ground, to our +eyes, and hands, and feet. It is firm water: it is cold flame: what +health, what affinity! Ever an old friend, ever like a dear friend and +brother, when we chat affectedly with strangers, comes in this honest +face, and takes a grave liberty with us, and shames us out of our +nonsense. Cities give not the human senses room enough. We go out +daily and nightly to feed the eyes on the horizon, and require so much +scope, just as we need water for our bath. There are all degrees of +natural influence, from these quarantine powers of nature, up to her +dearest and gravest ministrations to the imagination and the soul. +There is the bucket of cold water from the spring, the wood-fire to +which the chilled traveler rushes for safety,--and there is the +sublime moral of autumn and of noon. We nestle in nature, and draw our +living as parasites from her roots and grains, and we receive glances +from the heavenly bodies, which call us to solitude, and foretell the +remotest future. The blue zenith is the point in which romance and +reality meet. I think, if we should be rapt away into all that we +dream of heaven, and should converse with Gabriel[473] and Uriel,[474] +the upper sky would be all that would remain of our furniture. + +3. It seems as if the day was not wholly profane, in which we have +given heed to some natural object. The fall of snowflakes in a still +air, preserving to each crystal its perfect form; the blowing of sleet +over a wide sheet of water, and over plains; the waving rye-fields; +the mimic waving of acres of houstonia, whose innumerable florets +whiten and ripple before the eye; the reflections of trees and flowers +in glassy lakes; the musical steaming odorous south wind, which +converts all trees to wind-harps;[475] the crackling and spurting of +hemlock in the flames; or of pine-logs, which yield glory to the walls +and faces in the sitting-room,--these are the music and pictures of +the most ancient religion. My house stands in low land, with limited +outlook, and on the skirt of the village.[476] But I go with my +friend[477] to the shore of our little river,[478] and with one stroke +of the paddle, I leave the village politics and personalities, yes, +and the world of villages and personalities behind, and pass into a +delicate realm of sunset and moonlight, too bright almost for spotted +man to enter without novitiate and probation.[479] We penetrate bodily +this incredible beauty: we dip our hands in this painted element: our +eyes are bathed in these lights and forms. A holiday, a +villeggiatura,[480] a royal revel, the proudest, most heart-rejoicing +festival that valor and beauty, power and taste, ever decked and +enjoyed, establishes itself on the instant. These sunset clouds, these +delicately emerging stars, with their private and ineffable glances, +signify it and proffer it. I am taught the poorness of our invention, +the ugliness of towns and palaces. Art and luxury have early learned +that they must work as enhancement and sequel to this original beauty. +I am overinstructed for my return. Henceforth I shall be hard to +please. I cannot go back to toys. I am grown expensive and +sophisticated. I can no longer live without elegance: but a countryman +shall be my master of revels. He who knows the most, he who knows what +sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the +heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal +man. Only as far as masters of the world have called in nature to +their aid, can they reach the height of magnificence. This is the +meaning of their hanging-gardens,[481] villas, garden-houses, islands, +parks, and preserves, to back their faulty personality with these +strong accessories. I do not wonder that the landed interest should be +invincible in the state with these dangerous auxiliaries. These bribe +and invite; not kings, not palaces, not men, not women, but these +tender and poetic stars, eloquent of secret promises. We heard what +the rich man said, we knew of his villa, his grove, his wine, and his +company, but the provocation and point of the invitation came out of +these beguiling stars. In their soft glances, I see what men strove to +realize in some Versailles,[482] or Paphos,[483] or Ctesiphon.[484] +Indeed, it is the magical lights of the horizon, and the blue sky for +the background, which save all our works of art, which were otherwise +baubles. When the rich tax the poor with servility and obsequiousness, +they should consider the effect of man reputed to be the possessors of +nature, on imaginative minds. Ah! if the rich were rich as the poor +fancy riches! A boy hears a military band play on the field at night, +and he has kings and queens, and famous chivalry palpably before him. +He hears the echoes of a horn in a hill country, in the Notch +Mountains,[485] for example, which converts the mountains into an +AEolian harp,[486] and this supernatural _tiralira_ restores to him the +Dorian[487] mythology, Apollo,[488] Diana,[489] and all divine hunters +and huntresses. Can a musical note be so lofty, so haughtily +beautiful! To the poor young poet, thus fabulous is his picture of +society; he is loyal; he respects the rich; they are rich for the sake +of his imagination; how poor his fancy would be, if they were not +rich! That they have some high-fenced grove, which they call a park; +that they live in larger and better-garnished saloons than he has +visited, and go in coaches, keeping only the society of the elegant, +to watering-places, and to distant cities, are the groundwork from +which he has delineated estates of romance, compared with which their +actual possessions are shanties and paddocks. The muse herself betrays +her son, and enhances the gift of wealthy and well-born beauty, by a +radiation out of the air, and clouds, and forests that skirt the +road,--a certain haughty favor, as if from patrician genii to +patricians, a kind of aristocracy in nature, a prince of the power of +the air. + +4. The moral sensibility which makes Edens[490] and Tempes[491] so +easily, may not be always found, but the material landscape is never +far off. We can find these enchantments without visiting the Como +Lake,[492] or the Madeira Islands.[493] We exaggerate the praises of +local scenery. In every landscape, the point of astonishment is the +meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the first +hillock as well as from the top of the Alleghanies. The stars at night +stoop down over the brownest, homeliest common,[494] with all the +spiritual magnificence which they shed on the Campagna,[495] or on the +marble deserts of Egypt. The uprolled clouds and the colors of morning +and evening, will transfigure maples and alders. The difference +between landscape and landscape is small, but there is great +difference in the beholders. There is nothing so wonderful in any +particular landscape, as the necessity of being beautiful under which +every landscape lies. Nature cannot be surprised in undress. Beauty +breaks in everywhere. + +5. But it is very easy to outrun the sympathy of readers on this +topic, which school-men called _natura naturata_, or nature passive. +One can hardly speak directly of it without excess. It is as easy to +broach in mixed companies what is called "the subject of religion." A +susceptible person does not like to indulge his tastes in this kind, +without the apology of some trivial necessity: he goes to see a +wood-lot, or to look at the crops, or to fetch a plant or a mineral +from a remote locality, or he carries a fowling-piece, or a +fishing-rod. I suppose this shame must have a good reason. A +dilettantism[496] in nature is barren and unworthy. The fop of fields +is no better than his brother of Broadway. Men are naturally hunters +and inquisitive of woodcraft and I suppose that such a gazetteer as +wood-cutters and Indians should furnish facts for would take place in +the most sumptuous drawing-rooms of all the "Wreaths" and "Flora's +chaplets"[497] of the book-shops; yet ordinarily, whether we are too +clumsy for so subtle a topic, or from whatever cause, as soon as men +begin to write on nature, they fall into euphuism. Frivolity is a most +unfit tribute to Pan,[498] who ought to be represented in the +mythology as the most continent of gods. I would not be frivolous +before the admirable reserve and prudence of time, yet I cannot +renounce the right of returning often to this old topic. The multitude +of false churches[499] accredits the true religion. Literature, +poetry, science, are the homage of man to this unfathomed secret, +concerning which no sane man can affect an indifference or +incuriosity. Nature is loved by what is best in us. It is loved as the +city of God, although, or rather because there is no citizen. The +sunset is unlike anything that is underneath it: it wants men. And the +beauty of nature must always seem unreal and mocking, until the +landscape has human figures, that are as good as itself. If there +were good men, there would never be this rapture in nature. If the +king is in the palace nobody looks at the walls. It is when he is +gone, and the house is filled with grooms and gazers, that we turn +from the people, to find relief in the majestic men that are suggested +by the pictures and architecture. The critics who complain of the +sickly separation of the beauty of nature from the thing to be done, +must consider that our hunting of the picturesque is inseparable from +our protest against false society. Man is fallen; nature is erect, and +serves as a differential thermometer, detecting the presence or +absence of the divine sentiment in man. By fault of our dulness and +selfishness, we are looking up to nature, but when we are +convalescent, nature will look up to us. We see the foaming brook with +compunction; if our own life flowed with the right energy, we should +shame the brook. The stream of zeal sparkles with real fire, and not +with reflex rays of sun and moon. Nature may be as selfishly studied +as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, +mesmerism (with intent to show where our spoons are gone); and anatomy +and physiology become phrenology and palmistry. + +6. But taking timely warning, and leaving many things unsaid on this +topic, but not longer omit our homage to the Efficient Nature, _natura +naturans_, the quick cause, before which all forms flee as the driven +snows, itself secret, its works driven before it in flocks and +multitudes, (as the ancient represented nature by Proteus,[500] a +shepherd), and in undescribable variety. It publishes itself in +creatures, reaching from particles and spicula, through transformation +on transformation to the highest symmetries, arriving at consummate +results without a shock or a leap. A little heat, that is, a little +motion, is all that differences the bald, dazzling white, and deadly +cold poles of the earth from the prolific tropical climates. All changes +pass without violence, by reason of the two cardinal conditions of +boundless space and boundless time. Geology has initiated us into the +secularity of nature, and taught us to disuse our dame-school measures, +and exchange our Mosaic[501] and Ptolemaic schemes[502] for her large +style. We know nothing rightly, for want of perspective. Now we learn +what patient periods must round themselves before the rock is formed, +then before the rock is broken, and the first lichen race has +disintegrated the thinnest external plate into soil, and opened the door +for the remote Flora,[503] Fauna,[504] Ceres,[505] and Pomona,[506] to +come in. How far off yet is the trilobite! how far the quadruped! how +inconceivably remote is man! All duly arrive,[507] and then race after +race of men. It is a long way from granite to the oyster; farther yet to +Plato,[508] and the preaching of the immortality of the soul. Yet all +must come, as surely as the first atom has two sides. + +7. Motion or change, and identity or rest, are the first and second +secrets of nature: Motion and Rest. The whole code of her laws may be +written on the thumb-nail, or the signet of a ring. The whirling +bubble on the surface of a brook, admits us to the secret of the +mechanics of the sky. Every shell on the beach is a key to it. A +little water made to rotate in a cup explains the formation of the +simpler shells; the addition of matter from year to year, arrives at +last at the most complex forms; and yet so poor is nature with all her +craft, that, from the beginning to the end of the universe, she has +but one stuff,--but one stuff with its two ends, to serve up all her +dream-like variety. Compound it how she will, star, sand, fire, water, +tree, man, it is still one stuff, and betrays the same properties. + +8. Nature is always consistent, though she feigns to contravene her +own laws. She keeps her laws, and seems to transcend them. She arms +and equips an animal to find its place and living in the earth, and, +at the same time, she arms and equips another animal to destroy it. +Space exists to divide creatures; but by clothing the sides of a bird +with a few feathers, she gives him a petty omnipresence. The direction +is forever onward, but the artist still goes back for materials, and +begins again with the first elements on the most advanced stage: +otherwise, all goes to ruin. If we look at her work, we seem to catch +a glance of a system in transition. Plants are the young of the world, +vessels of health and vigor; but they grope ever upward toward +consciousness; the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their +imprisonment, rooted in the ground. The animal is the novice and +probationer of a more advanced order. The men, though young, having +tasted the first drop from the cup of thought, are already dissipated: +the maples and ferns are still uncorrupt; yet no doubt, when they come +to consciousness, they too will curse and swear. Flowers so strictly +belong to youth, that we adult men soon come to feel, that their +beautiful generations concern not us: we have had our day; now let the +children have theirs. The flowers jilt us, and we are old bachelors +with our ridiculous tenderness. + +9. Things are so strictly related, that according to the skill of the +eye, from any one object the parts and properties of any other may be +predicted. If we had eyes to see it, a bit of stone from the city wall +would certify us of the necessity that man must exist, as readily as +the city. That identity makes us all one, and reduces to nothing great +intervals on our customary scale. We talk of deviations from natural +life, as if artificial life were not also natural. The smoothest +curled courtier in the boudoirs of a palace has an animal nature, rude +and aboriginal as a white bear, omnipotent to its own ends, and is +directly related, there amid essences and billets-doux, to Himalaya +mountain-chains[509] and the axis of the globe. If we consider how +much we are nature's, we need not be superstitious about towns, as if +that terrific or benefic force did not find us there also, and fashion +cities. Nature, who made the mason, made the house. We may easily hear +too much of rural influences. The cool, disengaged air of natural +objects, makes them enviable to us, chafed and irritable creatures +with red faces, and we think we shall be as grand as they, if we camp +out and eat roots, but let us be men instead of wood-chucks, and the +oak and the elm shall gladly serve us, though we sit in chairs of +ivory on carpets of silk. + +10. This guiding identity runs through all the surprises and contrasts +of the piece, and characterizes every law. Man carries the world in +his head, the whole astronomy and chemistry suspended in a thought. +Because the history of nature is charactered in his brain, therefore +is he the prophet and discoverer of her secrets. Every known fact in +natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it +was actually verified. A man does not tie his shoe without recognizing +laws which bind the farthest regions of nature: moon, plant, gas, +crystal, are concrete geometry and numbers. Common sense knows its +own, and recognizes the fact at first sight in chemical experiment. +The common sense of Franklin,[510] Dalton,[511] Davy[512] and +Black,[513] is the same common sense which made the arrangements which +now it discovers. + +11. If the identity expresses organized rest, the counter action runs +also into organization. The astronomers said,[514] "Give us matter, +and a little motion, and we will construct the universe. It is not +enough that we should have matter, we must also have a single impulse, +one shove to launch the mass, and generate the harmony of the +centrifugal and centripetal[515] forces. Once heave the ball from the +hand, and we can show how all this mighty order grew." "A very +unreasonable postulate," said the metaphysicians, "and a plain begging +of the question. Could you not prevail to know the genesis of +projection, as well as the continuation of it?" Nature, meanwhile, had +not waited for the discussion, but, right or wrong, bestowed the +impulse, and the balls rolled. It was no great affair, a mere push, +but the astronomers were right in making much of it, for there is no +end of the consequences of the act. That famous aboriginal push +propagates itself through all the balls of the system, and through +every atom of every ball, through all the races of creatures, and +through the history and performances of every individual. Exaggeration +is in the course of things. Nature sends no creature, no man into the +world, without adding a small excess of his proper quality. Given the +planet, it is still necessary to add the impulse; so, to every +creature nature added a little violence of direction in its proper +path, a shove to put it on its way; in every instance, a slight +generosity, a drop too much. Without electricity the air would rot, +and without this violence of direction which men and women have, +without a spice of bigot and fanatic, no excitement, no efficiency. We +aim above the mark, to hit the mark. Every act hath some falsehood of +exaggeration in it. And when now and then comes along some sad, +sharp-eyed man, who sees how paltry a game is played, and refuses to +play, but blabs the secret;--how then? is the bird flown? O no, the +wary Nature sends a new troop of fairer forms, of lordlier youths, +with a little more excess of direction to hold them fast to their +several aims; makes them a little wrongheaded in that direction in +which they are rightest, and on goes the game again with new whirl, +for a generation or two more. The child with his sweet pranks, the +fool of his senses, commanded by every sight and sound, without any +power to compare and rank his sensations, abandoned to a whistle or a +painted chip, to a lead dragoon, or a ginger-bread dog, +individualizing everything, generalizing nothing, delighted with every +new thing, lies down at night overpowered by the fatigue, which this +day of continual petty madness has incurred. But Nature has answered +her purpose with the curly, dimpled lunatic. She has tasked every +faculty, and has secured the symmetrical growth of the bodily frame, +by all these attitudes and exertions,--an end of the first importance, +which could not be trusted to any care less perfect than her own. This +glitter, this opaline luster plays round the top of every toy to his +eye, to insure his fidelity, and he is deceived to his good. We are +made alive and kept alive by the same arts. Let the Stoics[516] say +what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because +the meat is savory and the appetite is keen. The vegetable life does +not content itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single +seed, but it fills the air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, +that if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves, that +hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity, that, at least, +one may replace the parent. All things betray the same calculated +profusion. The excess of fear with which the animal frame is hedged +round, shrinking from cold, starting at sight of a snake, or a sudden +noise, protects us, through a multitude of groundless alarms, from +some one real danger at last. The lover seeks in marriage his private +felicity and perfection, with no prospective end; and nature hides in +his happiness her own end, namely, progeny, or the perpetuity of the +race. + +12. But the craft with which the world is made runs also into the mind +and character of men. No man is quite sane; each has a vein of folly in +his composition, a slight determination of blood to the head, to make +sure of holding him hard to some one point which nature had taken to +heart. Great causes are never tried on their merits; but the cause is +reduced to particulars to suit the size of the partisans, and the +contention is ever hottest on minor matters. Not less remarkable is the +overfaith of each man in the importance of what he has to do or say. The +poet, the prophet, has a higher value for what he utters than any +hearer, and therefore it gets spoken. The strong, self-complacent +Luther[517] declares with an emphasis, not to be mistaken, that "God +himself cannot do without wise men." Jacob Behmen[518] and George +Fox[519] betray their egotism in the pertinacity of their controversial +tracts, and James Naylor[520] once suffered himself to be worshiped as +the Christ. Each prophet comes presently to identify himself with his +thought, and to esteem his hat and shoes sacred. However this may +discredit such persons with the judicious, it helps them with the +people, as it gives heat, pungency, and publicity to their words. A +similar experience is not infrequent in private life. Each young and +ardent person writes a diary, in which, when the hours of prayer and +penitence arrive, he inscribes his soul. The pages thus written are, to +him, burning and fragrant: he reads them on his knees by midnight and by +the morning star; he wets them with his tears: they are sacred; too good +for the world, and hardly yet to be shown to the dearest friend. This is +the man-child that is born to the soul, and her life still circulates in +the babe. The umbilical cord has not yet been cut. After some time has +elapsed, he begins to wish to admit his friend to this hallowed +experience, and with hesitation, yet with firmness, exposes the pages to +his eye. Will they not burn his eyes? The friend coldly turns them +over, and passes from the writing to conversation, with easy transition, +which strikes the other party with astonishment and vexation. He cannot +suspect the writing itself. Days and nights of fervid life, of communion +with angels of darkness and of light, have engraved their shadowy +characters on that tear-stained book. He suspects the intelligence or +the heart of his friend. Is there then no friend? He cannot yet credit +that one may have impressive experience, and yet may not know how to put +his private fact into literature; and perhaps the discovery that wisdom +has other tongues and ministers than we, that though we should hold our +peace, the truth would not the less be spoken, might check injuriously +the flames of our zeal. A man can only speak, so long as he does not +feel his speech to be partial and inadequate. It is partial, but he does +not see it to be so, whilst he utters it. As soon as he is released from +the instinctive and particular, and sees its partiality, he shuts his +mouth in disgust. For, no man can write anything, who does not think +that what he writes is for the time the history of the world; or do +anything well, who does not esteem his work to be of importance. My work +may be of none, but I must not think it is of none, or I shall not do it +with impunity. + +13. In like manner, there is throughout nature something mocking, +something that leads us on and on, but arrives nowhere, keeps no faith +with us. All promise outruns the performance. We live in a system of +approximations. Every end is prospective of some other end, which is +also temporary; a round and final success nowhere. We are encamped in +nature, not domesticated. Hunger and thirst lead us on to eat and to +drink; but bread and wine, mix and cook them how you will, leave us +hungry and thirsty, after the stomach is full. It is the same with all +our arts and performances. Our music, our poetry, our language itself +are not satisfactions, but suggestions. The hunger for wealth, which +reduces the planet to a garden, fools the eager pursuer. What is the +end sought? Plainly to secure the ends of good sense and beauty, from +the intrusion of deformity or vulgarity of any kind. But what an +operose[521] method! What a train of means to secure a little +conversation! This palace of brick and stone, these servants, this +kitchen, these stables, horses and equipage, this bank-stock, and file +of mortgages; trade to all the world, country-house and cottage by the +water-side, all for a little conversation, high, clear, and spiritual! +Could it not be had as well by beggars on the highway? No, all these +things came from successive efforts of these beggars to remove +friction from the wheels of life, and give opportunity. Conversation, +character, were the avowed ends; wealth was good as it appeased the +animal cravings, cured the smoky chimney, silenced the creaking door, +brought friends together in a warm and quiet room, and kept the +children and the dinner-table in a different apartment. Thought, +virtue, beauty, were the ends; but it was known that men of thought +and virtue sometimes had the headache, or wet feet, or could lose good +time, whilst the room was getting warm in winter days. Unluckily, in +the exertions necessary to remove these inconveniences, the main +attention has been diverted to this object; the old aims have been +lost sight of, and to remove friction has come to be the end. That is +the ridicule of rich men, and Boston, London, Vienna, and now the +governments generally of the world, are cities and governments of the +rich, and the masses are not men, but _poor men_, that is, men who +would be rich; this is the ridicule of the class, that they arrive +with pains and sweat and fury nowhere; when all is done, it is for +nothing. They are like one who has interrupted the conversation of a +company to make his speech, and now has forgotten what he went to say. +The appearance strikes the eye everywhere of an aimless society, of +aimless nations. Were the ends of nature so great and cogent, as to +exact this immense sacrifice of men? + +14. Quite analogous to the deceits in life, there is, as might be +expected, a similar effect on the eye from the face of external +nature. There is in woods and waters a certain enticement and +flattery, together with a failure to yield a present satisfaction. +This disappointment is felt in every landscape. I have seen the +softness and beauty of the summer clouds floating feathery overhead, +enjoying, as it seemed, their height and privilege of motion, whilst +yet they appeared not so much the drapery of this place and hour, as +fore-looking to such pavilions and gardens of festivity beyond. It is +an odd jealousy; but the poet finds himself not near enough to this +object. The pine tree, the river, the bank of flowers before him, does +not seem to be nature. Nature is still elsewhere. This or this is but +outskirt and far-off reflection[522] and echo of the triumph that has +passed by, and is now at its glancing splendor and heyday, perchance +in the neighboring fields, or, if you stand in the field, then in the +adjacent woods. The present object shall give you this sense of +stillness that follows a pageant which has just gone by. What splendid +distance, what recesses of ineffable pomp and loveliness in the +sunset! But who can go where they are, or lay his hand or plant his +foot thereon? Off they fall from the round world forever and ever. It +is the same among men and women as among the silent trees; always a +referred existence, an absence, never a presence and satisfaction. Is +it, that beauty can never be grasped? in persons and in landscapes is +equally inaccessible? The accepted and betrothed lover has lost the +wildest charm of his maiden in her acceptance of him. She was heaven +whilst he pursued her as a star: she cannot be heaven, if she stoops +to such a one as he. + +15. What shall we say of this omnipresent appearance of that first +projectile impulse, of this flattery and balking of so many +well-meaning creatures? Must we not suppose somewhere in the universe +a slight treachery and derision? Are we not engaged to a serious +resentment of this use that is made of us? Are we tickled trout, and +fools of nature? One looks at the face of heaven and earth lays all +petulance at rest, and soothes us to wiser convictions. To the +intelligent, nature converts itself into a vast promise, and will not +be rashly explained. Her secret is untold. Many and many an +Oedipus[523] arrives: he has the whole mystery teeming in his brain. +Alas! the same sorcery has spoiled his skill; no syllable can he shape +on his lips. Her mighty orbit vaults like the fresh rainbow into the +deep, but no archangel's wing was yet strong enough to follow it, and +report of the return of the curve. But it also appears, that our +actions are seconded and disposed to greater conclusions than we +designed. We are escorted on every hand through life by spiritual +agents, and a beneficent purpose lies in wait for us. We cannot bandy +words with nature, or deal with her as we deal with persons. If we +measure our individual forces against hers, we may easily feel as if +we were the sport of an insuperable destiny. But if, instead of +identifying ourselves with the work, we feel that the soul of the +workman streams through us, we shall find the peace of the morning +dwelling first in our hearts, and the fathomless powers of gravity and +chemistry, and, over them, of life preexisting within us in their +highest form. + +16. The uneasiness which the thought of our helplessness in the chain +of causes occasions us, results from looking too much at one condition +of nature, namely, Motion. But the drag is never taken from the wheel. +Wherever the impulse exceeds the Rest or Identity insinuates its +compensation. All over the wide fields of earth grows the +prunella[524] or self-heal. After every foolish day we sleep off the +fumes and furies of its hours; and though we are always engaged with +particulars, and often enslaved to them, we bring with us to every +experiment the innate universal laws. These, while they exist in the +mind as ideas, stand around us in nature forever embodied, a present +sanity to expose and cure the insanity of men. Our servitude to +particulars betrays us into a hundred foolish expectations. We +anticipate a new era from the invention of a locomotive, or a balloon; +the new engine brings with it the old checks. They say that by +electro-magnetism, your salad shall be grown from the seed whilst your +fowl is roasting for dinner: it is a symbol of our modern aims and +endeavors,--of our condensation and acceleration of objects: but +nothing is gained: nature cannot be cheated: man's life is but seventy +salads long, grow they swift or grow they slow. In these checks and +impossibilities, however, we find our advantage, not less than in +impulses. Let the victory fall where it will, we are on that side. And +the knowledge that we traverse the whole scale of being, from the +center to the poles of nature, and have some stake in every +possibility, lends that sublime luster to death, which philosophy and +religion have too outwardly and literally striven to express in the +popular doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The reality is more +excellent than the report. Here is no ruin, no discontinuity, no spent +ball. The divine circulations never rest nor linger. Nature is the +incarnation of a thought, and turns to a thought again, as ice becomes +water and gas. The world is mind precipitated, and the volatile +essence is forever escaping again into the state of free thought. +Hence the virtue and pungency of the influence on the mind, of natural +objects, whether inorganic or organized. Man imprisoned, man +crystallized, man vegetative, speaks to man impersonated. That power +which does not respect quantity, which makes the whole and the +particle its equal channel, delegates its smile to the morning, and +distills its essence into every drop of rain. Every moment instructs +and every object: for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been +poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as +pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of +cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence, until after a long +time. + + + + +SHAKSPEARE;[525] OR, THE POET + +[Transcriber's Note: Shakspeare is spelled as "Shakspeare" as well as +"Shakespeare" in this book. The original spellings have been retained.] + + +1. Great men are more distinguished by range and extent, than by +originality. If we require the originality which consists in weaving, +like a spider, their web from their own bowels; in finding clay, and +making bricks, and building the house; no great men are original. Nor +does valuable originality consist in unlikeness to other men. The hero +is in the press of knights, and the thick of events; and, seeing what +men want, and sharing their desire, he adds the needful length of +sight and of arm, to come to the desired point. The greatest genius is +the most indebted man. A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes +uppermost and, because he says everything, saying, at last, something +good; but a heart in unison with his time and country. There is +nothing whimsical and fantastic in his production, but sweet and sad +earnest, freighted with the weightiest convictions, and pointed with +the most determined aim which any man or class knows of in his times. + +2. The Genius[526] of our life is jealous of individuals and will not +have any individual great, except through the general. There is no +choice to genius. A great man does not wake up on some fine morning, +and say, "I am full of life, I will go to sea, and find an Antarctic +continent: to-day I will square the circle: I will ransack botany, and +find a new food for man: I have a new architecture in my mind: I +foresee a new mechanic power:" no, but he finds himself in the river +of the thoughts and events, forced onward by the ideas and necessities +of his contemporaries. He stands where all the eyes of men look one +way, and their hands all point in the direction in which he should go. +The church has reared him amidst rites and pomps, and he carries out +the advice which her music gave him, and builds a cathedral needed by +her chants and processions. He finds a war raging: it educates him, by +trumpet, in barracks, and he betters the instruction. He finds two +counties groping to bring coal, or flour, or fish, from the place of +production to the place of consumption, and he hits on a railroad. +Every master has found his materials collected, and his power lay in +his sympathy with his people, and in his love of the materials he +wrought in. What an economy of power! and what a compensation for the +shortness of life! All is done to his hand. The world has brought him +thus far on his way. The human race has gone out before him, sunk the +hills, filled the hollows, and bridged the rivers. Men, nations, +poets, artisans, women, all have worked for him, and he enters into +their labors. Choose any other thing, out of the line of tendency, out +of the national feeling and history, and he would have all to do for +himself: his powers would be expended in the first preparations. Great +genial power, one would almost say, consists in not being original at +all; in being altogether receptive; in letting the world do all, and +suffering the spirit of the hour to pass unobstructed through the +mind. + +3. Shakspeare's youth[527] fell in a time when the English people were +importunate for dramatic entertainments. The court took offense easily +at political allusions, and attempted to suppress them. The +Puritans,[528] a growing and energetic party and the religious among +the Anglican Church,[529] would suppress them. But the people wanted +them. Inn-yards, houses without roofs, and extemporaneous inclosures +at country fairs, were the ready theaters of strolling players. The +people had tasted this new joy; and, as we could not hope to suppress +newspapers now,--no, not by the strongest party,--neither then could +king, prelate, or puritan,--alone or united, suppress an organ, which +was ballad, epic, newspaper, caucus, lecture, Punch,[530] and library, +at the same time. Probably king, prelate, and puritan, all found their +own account in it. It had become, by all causes, a national +interest,--by no means conspicuous, so that some great scholar would +have thought of treating it in an English history,--but not a whit +less considerable, because it was cheap, and of no account, like a +baker's shop. The best proof of its vitality is the crowd of writers +which suddenly broke into this field; Kyd, Marlow, Greene,[531] +Jonson, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Peele, Ford, +Massinger, Beaumont, and Fletcher. + +4. The secure possession, by the stage, of the public mind, is of the +first importance to the poet who works for it. He loses no time in +idle experiments. Here is audience and expectation prepared. In the +case of Shakspeare there is much more. At the time when[532] he left +Stratford, and went up to London, a great body of stage-plays, of all +dates and writers, existed in manuscript, and were in turn produced on +the boards. Here is the Tale of Troy,[533] which the audience will +bear hearing some part of, every week; the Death of Julius Caesar,[534] +and other stories out of Plutarch,[535] which they never tire of; a +shelf full of English history, from the chronicles of Brut[536] and +Arthur,[537] down to the royal Henries,[538] which men hear eagerly; +and a string of doleful tragedies, merry Italian tales,[539] and +Spanish voyages,[540] which all the London prentices know. All the +mass has been treated, with more or less skill, by every playwright, +and the prompter has the soiled and tattered manuscripts. It is now no +longer possible to say who wrote them first. They have been the +property of the Theater so long, and so many rising geniuses have +enlarged or altered them, inserting a speech, or a whole scene, or +adding a song, that no man can any longer claim copyright in this work +of numbers. Happily, no man wishes to. They are not yet desired in +that way. We have few readers, many spectators and hearers. They had +best lie where they are. + +5. Shakspeare, in common with his comrades, esteemed the mass of old +plays, waste stock, in which any experiment could be freely tried. +Had the _prestige_[541] which hedges about a modern tragedy existed, +nothing could have been done. The rude warm blood of the living +England circulated in the play, as in street-ballads, and gave body +which he wanted to his airy and majestic fancy. The poet needs a +ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, +may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the +people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so +much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full +strength for the audacities of his imagination. In short, the poet +owes to his legend what sculpture owed to the temple. Sculpture in +Egypt, and in Greece, grew up in subordination to architecture. It was +the ornament of the temple wall: at first, a rude relief carved on +pediments, then the relief became bolder, and a head or arm was +projected from the wall, the groups being still arranged with +reference to the building, which serves also as a frame to hold the +figures; and when, at last, the greatest freedom of style and +treatment was reached, the prevailing genius of architecture still +enforced a certain calmness and continence in the statue. As soon as +the statue was begun for itself, and with no reference to the temple +or palace, the art began to decline: freak, extravagance, and +exhibition, took the place of the old temperance. This balance-wheel, +which the sculptor found in architecture, the perilous irritability of +poetic talent found in the accumulated dramatic materials to which the +people were already wonted, and which had a certain excellence which +no single genius,[542] however extraordinary, could hope to create. + +6. In point of fact, it appears that Shakspeare did owe debts in all +directions, and was able to use whatever he found; and the amount of +indebtedness may be inferred from Malone's[543] laborious computations +in regard to the First, Second, and Third parts of Henry VI., in +which, "out of 6043 lines, 1771 were written by some author preceding +Shakspeare; 2373 by him, on the foundation laid by his predecessors; +and 1899 were entirely his own." And the proceeding investigation +hardly leaves a single drama of his absolute invention. Malone's +sentence is an important piece of external history. In Henry VIII, I +think I see plainly the cropping out of the original rock on which his +own finer stratum was laid. The first play was written by a superior, +thoughtful man, with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, and know +well their cadence. See Wolsey's soliloquy,[544] and the following +scene from Cromwell,[545] where,--instead of the meter of Shakspeare, +whose secret is, that the thought constructs the tune, so that reading +for the sense will best bring out the rhythm,--here the lines are +constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit +eloquence. But the play contains, through all its length, unmistakable +traits of Shakspeare's hand, and some passages, as the account of the +coronation,[546] are like autographs. What is odd, the compliment to +Queen Elizabeth[547] is in bad rhythm.[548] + +7. Shakspeare knew that tradition supplies a better fable than any +invention can. If he lost any credit of design, he augmented his +resources; and, at that day, our petulant demand for originality was +not so much pressed. There was no literature for the million. The +universal reading, the cheap press, were unknown. A great poet, who +appears in illiterate times, absorbs into his sphere all the light +which is anywhere radiating. Every intellectual jewel, every flower of +sentiment, it is his fine office to bring to his people; and he comes +to value his memory[549] equally with his invention. He is therefore +little solicitous whence his thoughts have been derived; whether +through translation, whether through tradition, whether by travel in +distant countries, whether by inspiration; from whatever source, they +are equally welcome to his uncritical audience. Nay, he borrows very +near home. Other men say wise things as well as he; only they say a +good many foolish things, and do not know when they have spoken +wisely. He knows the sparkle of the true stone, and puts it in high +place, wherever he finds it. Such is the happy position of Homer,[550] +perhaps; of Chaucer,[551] of Saadi.[552] They felt that all wit was +their wit. And they are librarians and historiographers, as well as +poets. Each romancer was heir and dispenser of all the hundred tales +of the world,-- + + "Presenting Thebes'[553] and Pelops' line + And the tale of Troy divine." + +The influence of Chaucer is conspicuous in all our early literature; +and, more recently, not only Pope[554] and Dryden[555] have been +beholden to him, but, in the whole society of English writers, a large +unacknowledged debt is easily traced. One is charmed with the opulence +which feeds so many pensioners. But Chaucer is a huge borrower.[556] +Chaucer, it seems, drew continually, through Lydgat[557] and +Caxton,[558] from Guido di Colonna,[559] whose Latin romance of the +Trojan war was in turn a compilation from Dares Phrygius,[560] +Ovid,[561] and Statius.[562] Then Petrarch,[563] Boccaccio,[564] and +the Provencal poets,[565] and his benefactors: the Romaunt of the +Rose[566] is only judicious translation from William of Lorris and +John of Meung: Troilus and Creseide,[567] from Lollius of Urbino: The +Cock and the Fox,[568] from the _Lais_ of Marie: The House of +Fame,[569] from the French or Italian: and poor Gower[570] he uses as +if he were only a brick-kiln or stone-quarry, out of which to build +his house. He steals by this apology,--that what he takes has no worth +where he finds it, and the greatest where he leaves it. It has come to +be practically a sort of rule in literature, that a man, having once +shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to +steal from the writings of others at discretion. Thought is the +property of him who can entertain it; and of him who can adequately +place it. A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; +but, as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our +own. + +8. Thus, all originality is relative. Every thinker is retrospective. +The learned member of the legislature, at Westminister,[571] or at +Washington, speaks and votes for thousands. Show us the constituency, +and the now invisible channels by which the senator is made aware of +their wishes, the crowd of practical and knowing men, who, by +correspondence or conversation, are feeding him with evidence, +anecdotes, and estimates, and it will bereave his fine attitude and +resistance of something of their impressiveness. As Sir Robert +Peel[572] and Mr. Webster[573] vote, so Locke[574] and Rousseau[575] +think for thousands; and so there were foundations all around +Homer,[576] Menu,[577] Saada,[578] or Milton,[579] from which they +drew; friends, lovers, books, traditions, proverbs,--all +perished,--which, if seen, would go to reduce the wonder. Did the bard +speak with authority? Did he feel himself overmatched by any +companion? The appeal is to the consciousness of the writer. Is there +at last in his breast a Delphi[580] whereof to ask concerning any +thought or thing whether it be verily so, yea or nay? and to have +answer, and rely on that? All the debts which such a man could +contract to other wit, would never disturb his consciousness of +originality: for the ministrations of books, and of other minds, are a +whiff of smoke to that most private reality with which he has +conversed. + +9. It is easy to see that what is best written or done by genius, in +the world, was no man's work, but came by wide social labor, when a +thousand wrought like one, sharing the same impulse. Our English +Bible[581] is a wonderful specimen of the strength and music of the +English language. But it was not made by one man, or at one time; but +centuries and churches brought it to perfection. There never was a +time when there was not some translation existing. The Liturgy,[582] +admired for its energy and pathos, is an anthology of the piety of +ages and nations, a translation of the prayers and forms of the +Catholic church,--these collected, too, in long periods, from the +prayers and meditations of every saint and sacred writer all over the +world. Grotius[583] makes the like remark in respect to the Lord's +Prayer, that the single clauses of which it is composed were already +in use, in the time of Christ, in the rabbinical forms.[584] He picked +out the grains of gold. The nervous language of the Common Law,[585] +the impressive forms of our courts, and the precision and substantial +truth of the legal distinctions, are the contribution of all the +sharp-sighted, strong-minded men who have lived in the countries where +these laws govern. The translation of Plutarch gets its excellence by +being translation on translation. There never was a time when there +was none. All the truly idiomatic and national phrases are kept, and +all others successively picked out, and thrown away. Something like +the same process had gone on, long before, with the originals of these +books. The world takes liberties with world-books. Vedas,[586] AEsop's +Fables,[587] Pilpay,[588] Arabian Nights,[589] Cid,[590] Iliad,[591] +Robin Hood,[592] Scottish Minstrelsy,[593] are not the work of single +men. In the composition of such works, the time thinks, the market +thinks, the mason, the carpenter, the merchant, the farmer, the fop, +all think for us. Every book supplies its time with one good word; +every municipal law, every trade, every folly of the day, and the +generic catholic genius who is not afraid or ashamed to owe his +originality to the originality of all, stands with the next age as the +recorder and embodiment of his own. + +10. We have to thank the researches of antiquaries, and the Shakspeare +Society,[594] for ascertaining the steps of the English drama, from +the Mysteries[595] celebrated in churches and by churchmen, and the +final detachment from the church, and the completion of secular plays, +from Ferrex and Porrex,[596] and Gammer Gurton's Needle,[597] down to +the possession of the stage by the very pieces which Shakspeare +altered, remodelled, and finally made his own. Elated with success, +and piqued by the growing interest of the problem, they have left no +book-stall unsearched, no chest in a garret unopened, no file of old +yellow accounts to decompose in damp and worms, so keen was the hope +to discover whether the boy Shakspeare poached[598] or not, whether he +held horses at the theater-door, whether he kept school, and why he +left in his will only his second-best bed to Ann Hathaway, his wife. + +11. There is somewhat touching in the madness with which the passing +age mischooses the object on which all candles shine, and all eyes are +turned; the care with which it registers every trifle touching Queen +Elizabeth,[599] and King James,[600] and the Essexes,[601] +Leicesters,[602] Burleighs,[603] and Buckinghams;[604] and lets pass +without a single valuable note the founder of another dynasty, which +alone will cause the Tudor dynasty[605] to be remembered,--the man who +carries the Saxon race in him by the inspiration which feeds him, and +on whose thoughts the foremost people of the world are now for some +ages to be nourished, and minds to receive this and not another bias. +A popular player,--nobody suspected he was the poet of the human race; +and the secret was kept as faithfully from poets and intellectual men, +as from courtiers and frivolous people. Bacon,[606] who took the +inventory of the human understanding for his times, never mentioned +his name. Ben Jonson,[607] though we have strained his few words of +regard and panegyric, had no suspicion of the elastic fame whose first +vibrations he was attempting. He no doubt thought the praise he has +conceded to him generous, and esteemed himself, out of all question, +the better poet of the two. + +12. If it need wit to know wit, according to the proverb, Shakspeare's +time should be capable of recognizing it. Sir Henry Wotton[608] was +born four years after Shakspeare, and died twenty-three years after +him; and I find, among his correspondents and acquaintances, the +following persons:[609] Theodore Beza, Isaac Casaubon, Sir Philip +Sidney, Earl of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, +Sir Henry Vane, Isaac Walton, Dr. Donne, Abraham Cowley, Berlarmine, +Charles Cotton, John Pym, John Hales, Kepler, Vieta, Albericus +Gentilis, Paul Sarpi, Arminius; with all of whom exists some token of +his having communicated, without enumerating many others, whom +doubtless[610] he saw,--Shakspeare, Spenser, Jonson, Beaumont, +Massinger, two Herberts, Marlow, Chapman and the rest. Since the +constellation of great men who appeared in Greece in the time of +Pericles,[611] there was never any such society;--yet their genius +failed them to find out the best head in the universe. Our poet's mask +was impenetrable. You cannot see the mountain near. It took a century +to make it suspected; and not until two centuries had passed, after +his death, did any criticism which we think adequate begin to appear. +It was not possible to write the history of Shakspeare till now; for +he is the father of German literature: it was on the introduction of +Shakspeare into German, by Lessing,[612] and the translation of his +works by Wieland[613] and Schlegel,[614] that the rapid burst of +German literature was most intimately connected. It was not until the +nineteenth century, whose speculative genius is a sort of living +Hamlet,[615] that the tragedy of Hamlet could find such wondering +readers. Now, literature, philosophy, and thought, are Shakspearized. +His mind is the horizon beyond which, at present, we do not see. Our +ears are educated to music by his rhythm. Coleridge[616] and +Goethe[617] are the only critics who have expressed our convictions +with any adequate fidelity; but there is in all cultivated minds a +silent appreciation of his superlative power and beauty, which, like +Christianity, qualifies the period. + +[Transcriber's Note: Number runs from 12 to 14. Number 13 omitted] + +14. The Shakspeare Society have inquired in all directions, +advertised the missing facts, offered money for any information that +will lead to proof; and with what result? Beside some important +illustration of the history of the English stage, to which I have +adverted, they have gleaned a few facts touching the property, and +dealings in regard to property, of the poet. It appears that, from +year to year, he owned a larger share in the Blackfriars' +Theater:[618] its wardrobe and other appurtenances were his: and he +bought an estate in his native village, with his earnings, as writer +and shareholder; that he lived in the best house in Stratford;[619] +was intrusted by his neighbors with their commissions in London, as of +borrowing money, and the like; and he was a veritable farmer. About +the time when he was writing Macbeth,[620] he sues Philip Rogers, in +the borough-court of Stratford, for thirty-five shillings, ten pence, +for corn delivered to him at different times; and, in all respects, +appears as a good husband with no reputation for eccentricity or +excess. He was a good-natured sort of man, an actor and shareholder in +the theater, not in any striking manner distinguished from other +actors and managers. I admit the importance of this information. It is +well worth the pains that have been taken to procure it. + +15. But whatever scraps of information concerning his condition these +researches may have rescued, they can shed no light upon that infinite +invention which is the concealed magnet of his attraction for us. We +are very clumsy writers of history. We tell the chronicle of +parentage, birth, birth-place, schooling, schoolmates, earning of +money, marriage, publication of books, celebrity, death; and when we +have come to an end of this gossip no ray of relation appears between +it and the goddess-born; and it seems as if, had we dipped at random +into the "Modern Plutarch," and read any other life there, it would +have fitted the poems as well. It is the essence of poetry to spring, +like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish +the past, and refuse all history. Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and +Collier,[621] have wasted their oil. The famed theaters, Covent +Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont,[622] have vainly assisted. +Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready,[623] dedicate their +lives to this genius; him they crown, elucidate, obey, and express. +The genius knows them not. The recitation begins; one golden word +leaps out immortal from all this painted pedantry, and sweetly +torments us with invitations to its own inaccessible homes. I +remember, I went once to see the Hamlet of a famed performer,[624] the +pride of the English stage; and all I then heard, and all I now +remember, of the tragedian, was that in which the tragedian had no +part; simply, Hamlet's question to the ghost,-- + + "What may this mean,[625] + That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel + Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon?" + +That imagination which dilates the closet he writes in to the world's +dimension, crowds it with agents in rank and order, as quickly +reduces the big reality to be the glimpses of the moon. These tricks +of his magic spoil for us the illusions of the green-room. Can any +biography shed light on the localities into which the Midsummer +Night's Dream[626] admits me? Did Shakspeare confide to any notary or +parish recorder, sacristan, or surrogate, in Stratford, the genesis of +that delicate creation? The forest of Arden,[627] the nimble air of +Scone Castle,[628] the moonlight of Portia's villa,[629] "the antres +vast[630] and desarts idle," of Othello's captivity,--where is the +third cousin, or grand-nephew, the chancellor's file of accounts, or +private letter, that has kept one word of those transcendent secrets? +In fine, in this drama, as in all great works of art,--in the +Cyclopean architecture[631] of Egypt and India; in the Phidian +sculpture;[632] the Gothic ministers;[633] the Italian painting;[634] +the Ballads of Spain and Scotland,[635]--the Genius draws up the +ladder after him, when the creative age goes up to heaven, and gives +way to a new, which sees the works, and ask in vain for a history. + +16. Shakspeare is the only biographer of Shakspeare; and even he can +tell nothing, except to the Shakspeare in us; that is, to our most +apprehensive and sympathetic hour. He cannot step from off his +tripod,[636] and give us anecdotes of his inspirations. Read the antique +documents extricated, analyzed, and compared, by the assiduous Dyce and +Collier; and now read one of those skyey sentences,--aerolites,--which +seem to have fallen out of heaven, and which, not your experience, but +the man within the breast, has accepted, as words of fate; and tell me +if they match; if the former account in any manner for the latter; or, +which gives the most historical insight into the man. + +17. Hence, though our external history is so meager, yet, with +Shakspeare for biographer, instead of Aubrey[637] and Rowe,[638] we +have really the information which is material, that which describes +character and fortune, that which, if we were about to meet the man +and deal with him, would most import us to know. We have his recorded +convictions on those questions which knock for answer at every +heart,--on life and death, on love, on wealth and poverty, on the +prizes of life, and the ways whereby we come at them; on the +characters of men, and the influences, occult and open, which affect +their fortunes; and on those mysterious and demoniacal powers which +defy our science, and which yet interweave their malice and their gift +in our brightest hours. Who ever read the volume of the Sonnets, +without finding that the poet had there revealed, under masks that are +no masks to the intelligent, the lore of friendship and of love; the +confusion of sentiments in the most susceptible, and, at the same +time, the most intellectual of men? What trait of his private mind has +he hidden in his dramas? One can discern, in his ample pictures of the +gentleman and the king, what forms and humanities pleased him; his +delight in troops of friends, in large hospitality, in cheerful +giving. Let Timon,[639] let Warwick,[640] let Antonio[641] the +merchant, answer for his great heart. So far from Shakspeare's being +the least known, he is the one person, in all modern history, known to +us. What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of philosophy, of +religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not settled? What +mystery has he not signified his knowledge of? What office, or +function, or district of man's work, has he not remembered? What king +has he not taught state, as Talma[642] taught Napoleon? What maiden +has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not +out-loved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not +instructed in the rudeness of his behavior? + +18. Some able and appreciating critics think no criticism on +Shakspeare valuable, that does not rest purely on the dramatic merit; +that he is falsely judged as poet and philosopher. I think as highly +as these critics of his dramatic merit, who still think it secondary. +He was a full man, who liked to talk; a brain exhaling thoughts and +images, which, seeking vent, found the drama next at hand. Had he been +less, we should have had to consider how well he filled his place, how +good a dramatist he was,--and he is the best in the world. But it +turns out, that what he has to say is of that weight, as to withdraw +some attention from the vehicle; and he is like some saint whose +history is to be rendered into all languages, into verse and prose, +into songs and pictures, and cut up into proverbs; so that the +occasion which gave the saint's meaning the form of a conversation, or +of a prayer, or of a code of laws, is immaterial, compared with the +universality of its application. So it fares with the wise Shakspeare +and his book of life. He wrote the airs for all our modern music: he +wrote the text of modern life; the text of manners: he drew the man of +England and Europe; the father of the man in America: he drew the man, +and described the day, and what is done in it: he read the hearts of +men and women, their probity, and their second thought, and wiles; the +wiles of innocence, and the transitions by which virtues and vices +slide into their contraries: he could divide the mother's part from +the father's part in the face of the child, or draw the fine +demarcations of freedom and of fate: he knew the laws of repression +which make the police of nature: and all the sweets and all the +terrors of human lot lay in his mind as truly but as softly as the +landscape lies on the eye. And the importance of this wisdom of life +sinks the form, as of Drama or Epic, out of notice. 'Tis like making a +question concerning the paper on which a king's message is written. + +19. Shakspeare is as much out of the category of eminent authors, as +he is out of the crowd. He is inconceivably wise; the others, +conceivably. A good reader can, in a sort, nestle into Plato's brain, +and think from thence; but not into Shakspeare's. We are still out of +doors. For executive faculty, for creation, Shakspeare is unique. No +man can imagine it better. He was the farthest reach of subtlety +compatible with an individual self,--the subtilest of authors, and +only just within the possibility of authorship. With this wisdom of +life, is the equal endowment of imaginative and of lyric power. He +clothed the creatures of his legend with form and sentiments, as if +they were people who had lived under his roof; and few real men have +left such distinct characters as these fictions. And they spoke in +language as sweet as it was fit. Yet his talents never seduced him +into an ostentation, nor did he harp on one string. An omnipresent +humanity[643] cooerdinates all his faculties. Give a man of talents a +story to tell, and his partiality will presently appear. He has +certain observations, opinions, topics, which have some accidental +prominence, and which he disposes all to exhibit. He crams this part, +and starves that other part, consulting not the fitness of the thing, +but his fitness and strength. But Shakspeare has no peculiarity, no +importunate topic; but all is duly given; no veins, no curiosities: no +cow-painter, no bird-fancier, no mannerist is he: he has no +discoverable egotism: the great he tells greatly; the small, +subordinately. He is wise without emphasis or assertion; he is strong, +as nature is strong, who lifts the land into mountain slopes without +effort, and by the same rule as she floats a bubble in the air, and +likes as well to do the one as the other. This makes that equality of +power in farce, tragedy, narrative, and love-songs; a merit so +incessant, that each reader is incredulous of the perception of other +readers. + +20. This power of expression, or of transferring the inmost truth of +things into music and verse, makes him the type of the poet, and has +added a new problem to metaphysics. This is that which throws him into +natural history, as a main production of the globe, and as announcing +new eras and ameliorations. Things were mirrored in his poetry without +loss or blur; he could paint the fine with precision, the great with +compass: the tragic and the comic indifferently, and without any +distortion or favor. He carried his powerful execution into minute +details, to a hair point; finishes an eyelash or a dimple as firmly as +he draws a mountain; and yet these, like nature's, will bear the +scrutiny of the solar microscope. + +21. In short, he is the chief example to prove that more or less of +production, more or fewer pictures, is a thing indifferent. He had the +power to make one picture. Daguerre[644] learned how to let one flower +etch its image on his plate of iodine; and then proceeds at leisure to +etch a million. There are always objects; but there was never +representation. Here is perfect representation, at last; and now let +the world of figures sit for their portraits. No recipe can be given +for the making of a Shakspeare; but the possibility of the translation +of things into song is demonstrated. + +22. His lyric power lies in the genius of the piece. The sonnets, +though their excellence is lost in the splendor of the dramas, are as +inimitable as they: and it is not a merit of lines, but a total merit +of the piece; like the tone of voice of some incomparable person, so +is this a speech of poetic beings, and any clause as unproducible now +as a whole poem. + +23. Though the speeches in the plays, and single lines, have a beauty +which tempts the ear to pause on them for their euphuism,[645] yet the +sentence is so loaded with meaning, and so linked with its foregoers +and followers, that the logician is satisfied. His means are as +admirable as his ends; every subordinate invention, by which he helps +himself to connect some irreconcilable opposites, is a poem too. He is +not reduced to dismount and walk, because his horses are running off +with him in some distant direction; he always rides. + +24. The finest poetry was first experienced: but the thought has +suffered a transformation since it was an experience. Cultivated men +often attain a good degree of skill in writing verses; but it is easy +to read, through their poems, their personal history: any one +acquainted with parties can name every figure: this is Andrew, and +that is Rachael. The sense thus remains prosaic. It is a caterpillar +with wings, and not yet a butterfly. In the poet's mind, the fact has +gone quite over into the new element of thought, and has lost all that +is exuvial. This generosity bides with Shakspeare. We say, from the +truth and closeness of his pictures, that he knows the lesson by +heart. Yet there is not a trace of egotism. + +25. One more royal trait properly belongs to the poet. I mean his +cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,--for beauty is his +aim. He loves virtue, not for its obligation, but for its grace: he +delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that +sparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds +over the universe. Epicurus[646] relates, that poetry hath such charms +that a lover might forsake his mistress to partake of them. And the +true bards have been noted for their firm and cheerful temper. Homer +lies in sunshine; Chaucer is glad and erect; and Saadi says, "It was +rumored abroad that I was penitent; but what had I to do with +repentance?" Not less sovereign and cheerful,--much more sovereign and +cheerful, is the tone of Shakspeare. His name suggests joy and +emancipation to the heart of men. If he should appear in any company +of human souls, who would not march in his troop? He touches nothing +that does not borrow health and longevity from his festal style. + +26. And now, how stands the account of man with this bard and +benefactor, when in solitude, shutting our ears to the reverberations +of his fame, we seek to strike the balance? Solitude has austere +lessons; it can teach us to spare both heroes and poets; and it weighs +Shakspeare also, and finds him to share the halfness and imperfection +of humanity. + +27. Shakspeare, Homer, Dante,[647] Chaucer, saw the splendor of +meaning that plays over the visible world; knew that a tree had +another use than for apples, and corn another than for meal, and the +ball of the earth, than for tillage and roads: that these things bore +a second and finer harvest to the mind, being emblems of its +thoughts, and conveying in all their natural history a certain mute +commentary on human life. Shakspeare employed them as colors to +compose his picture. He rested in their beauty; and never took the +step which seemed inevitable to such genius, namely, to explore the +virtue which resides in these symbols, and imparts this power,--what +is that which they themselves say? He converted the elements, which +waited on his command, into entertainments. He was master of the +revels[648] to mankind. Is it not as if one should have, through +majestic powers of science, the comets given into his hand, or the +planets and their moons, and should draw them from their orbits to +glare with the municipal fireworks on a holiday night, and advertise +in all towns, "very superior pyrotechny this evening!" Are the agents +of nature, and the power to understand them, worth no more than a +street serenade, or the breath of a cigar? One remembers again the +trumpet-text in the Koran,[649]--"The heavens and the earth, and all +that is between them, think ye we have created them in jest?" As long +as the question is of talent and mental power, the world of men has +not his equal to show. But when the question is to life, and its +materials, and its auxiliaries, how does he profit me? What does it +signify? It is but a Twelfth Night,[650] or Midsummer Night's Dream, +or a Winter Evening's Tale: what signifies another picture more or +less? The Egyptian verdict[651] of the Shakspeare Societies comes to +mind, that he was a jovial actor and manager. I cannot marry this +fact to his verse. Other admirable men have led lives in some sort of +keeping with their thought; but this man, in wide contrast. Had he +been less, had he reached only the common measure of great authors, of +Bacon, Milton, Tasso,[652] Cervantes,[653] we might leave the fact in +the twilight of human fate: but, that this man of men, he who gave to +the science of mind a new and larger subject than had ever existed, +and planted the standard of humanity some furlongs forward into +Chaos,--that he should not be wise for himself,--it must even go into +the world's history, that the best poet led an obscure and profane +life, using his genius for the public amusement. + +28. Well, other men, priest and prophet, Israelite,[654] German,[655] +and Swede,[656] beheld the same objects: they also saw through them +that which was contained. And to what purpose? The beauty straightway +vanished; they read commandments, all-excluding mountainous duty; an +obligation, a sadness, as of piled mountains, fell on them, and life +became ghastly, joyless, a pilgrim's progress,[657] a probation, +beleaguered round with doleful histories, of Adam's fall[658] and +curse, behind us; with doomsdays and purgatorial[659] and penal fires +before us; and the heart of the seer and the heart of the listener +sank in them. + +29. It must be conceded that these are half-views of half-men. The +world still wants its poet-priest, a reconciler, who shall not trifle +with Shakspeare the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg +the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act, with equal +inspiration. For knowledge will brighten the sunshine; right is more +beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with +universal wisdom. + + + + +PRUDENCE.[660] + + +What right have I to write on Prudence, whereof I have little, and +that of the negative sort? My prudence consists in avoiding and going +without, not in the inventing of means and methods, not in adroit +steering, not in gentle repairing. I have no skill to make money spend +well, no genius in my economy, and whoever sees my garden discovers +that I must have some other garden. Yet I love facts, and hate +lubricity[661] and people without perception. Then I have the same +title to write on prudence that I have to write on poetry or holiness. +We write from aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. +We paint those qualities which we do not possess. The poet admires the +man of energy and tactics; the merchant breeds his son for the church +or the bar; and where a man is not vain and egotistic you shall find +what he has not by his praise. Moreover it would be hardly honest in +me not to balance these fine lyric words of Love and Friendship[662] +with words of coarser sound, and whilst my debt to my senses is real +and constant, not to own it in passing. + +Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of +appearances. It is the outmost action of the inward life. It is God +taking thought for oxen. It moves matter after the laws of matter. It +is content to seek health of body by complying with physical +conditions, and health of mind by the laws of the intellect. + +The world of the senses is a world of shows; it does not exist for +itself, but has a symbolic character; and a true prudence or law of +shows recognizes the co-presence of other laws and knows that its own +office is subaltern; knows that it is surface and not centre where it +works. Prudence is false when detached. It is legitimate when it is +the Natural History of the soul incarnate, when it unfolds the beauty +of laws within the narrow scope of the senses. + +There are all degrees of proficiency in knowledge of the world. It is +sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three. One class lives +to the utility of the symbol, esteeming health and wealth a final +good. Another class live above this mark of the beauty of the symbol, +as the poet and artist and the naturalist and man of science. A third +class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing +signified; these are wise men. The first class have common sense; the +second, taste; and the third, spiritual perception. Once in a long +time, a man traverses the whole scale, and sees and enjoys the symbol +solidly, then also has a clear eye for its beauty, and lastly, whilst +he pitches his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature, does not +offer to build houses and barns thereon reverencing the splendor of +the God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny. + +The world is filled with the proverbs[663] and acts and winkings of a +base prudence, which is a devotion to matter, as if we possessed no +other faculties than the palate, the nose, the touch, the eye and ear; +a prudence which adores the Rule of Three, which never subscribes, +which gives never, which seldom lends, and asks but one question of +any project,--Will it bake bread? This is a disease like a thickening +of the skin until the vital organs are destroyed. But culture, +revealing the high origin of the apparent world and aiming at the +perfection of the man as the end, degrades everything else, as health +and bodily life, into means. It sees prudence not to be a several +faculty, but a name for wisdom and virtue conversing with the body and +its wants. Cultivated men always feel and speak so as if a great +fortune, the achievement of a civil or social measure, great personal +influence, a graceful and commanding address, had their value as +proofs of the energy of the spirit. If a man lose his balance and +immerse himself in any trades or pleasures for their own sake, he may +be a good wheel or pin,[664] but he is not a cultivated man. + +The spurious prudence, making the senses final, is the god of sots and +cowards, and is the subject of all comedy. It is nature's joke, and +therefore literature's. The true prudence limits this sensualism by +admitting the knowledge of an internal and real world. This +recognition once made,--the order of the world and the distribution +of affairs and times being studied with the co-perception of their +subordinate place, will reward any degree of attention. For, our +existence, thus apparently attached in nature to the sun and the +returning moon and the periods which they mark; so susceptible to +climate and to country, so alive to social good and evil, so fond of +splendor and so tender to hunger and cold and debt,--reads all its +primary lessons out of these books. + +Prudence does not go behind nature and ask whence it is? It takes the +laws of the world whereby man's being is conditioned, as they are, and +keeps these laws that it may enjoy their proper good. It respects +space and time, climate, want, sleep, the law of polarity,[665] growth +and death. There revolve, to give bound and period to his being on all +sides, the sun and moon, the great formalists in the sky: here lies +stubborn matter, and will not swerve from its chemical routine. Here +is a planted globe, pierced and belted with natural laws and fenced +and distributed externally with civil partitions and properties which +impose new restraints on the young inhabitant. + +We eat of the bread which grows in the field. We live by the air which +blows around us and we are poisoned by the air that is too cold or too +hot, too dry or too wet. Time, which shows so vacant, indivisible and +divine in its coming, is slit and peddled into trifles and tatters. A +door is to be painted, a lock to be repaired. I want wood or oil, or +meal, or salt; the house smokes, or I have a headache; then the tax; +and an affair to be transacted with a man without heart or brains, and +the stinging recollection of an injurious or very awkward word,--these +eat up the hours. Do what we can, summer will have its flies.[666] If +we walk in the woods we must feed mosquitoes. If we go a-fishing we +must expect a wet coat. Then climate is a great impediment to idle +persons. We often resolve to give up the care of the weather, but +still we regard the clouds and the rain. + +We are instructed by these petty experiences which usurp the hours and +years. The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitant of the +northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the +fixed smile of the tropics. The islander may ramble all day at will. At +night he may sleep on a mat under the moon, and wherever a wild +date-tree grows, nature has, without a prayer even, spread a table for +his morning meal. The northerner is perforce a householder. He must +brew, bake, salt and preserve his food. He must pile wood and coal. But +as it happens that not one stroke can labor lay to without some new +acquaintance with nature; and as nature is inexhaustibly significant, +the inhabitants of these climates[667] have always excelled the +southerner in force. Such is the value of these matters that a man who +knows other things can never know too much of these. Let him have +accurate perceptions. Let him, if he have hands, handle; if eyes, +measure and discriminate; let him accept and hive every fact of +chemistry, natural history and economics; the more he has, the less is +he willing to spare any one. Time is always bringing the occasions that +disclose their value. Some wisdom comes out of every natural and +innocent action. The domestic man, who loves no music so well as his +kitchen clock and the airs which the logs sing to him as they burn on +the hearth, has solaces which others never dream of. The application of +means to ends ensures victory and the songs of victory not less in a +farm or a shop than in the tactics of party or of war. The good husband +finds method as efficient in the packing of fire-wood in a shed or in +the harvesting of fruits in the cellar, as in Peninsular campaigns[668] +or the files of the Department of State. In the rainy day he builds a +work-bench, or gets his tool-box set in the corner of the barn-chamber, +and stored with nails, gimlet, pincers, screwdriver and chisel. Herein +he tastes an old joy of youth and childhood, the cat-like love of +garrets, presses and corn-chambers, and of the conveniences of long +housekeeping. His garden or his poultry-yard--very paltry places it may +be--tells him many pleasant anecdotes. One might find argument for +optimism in the abundant flow of this saccharine element of pleasure in +every suburb and extremity of the good world. Let a man keep the +law--any law,--and his way will be strown with satisfactions. There is +more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount. + +On the other hand, nature punishes any neglect of prudence. If you +think the senses final, obey their law. If you believe in the soul, do +not clutch at sensual sweetness before it is ripe on the slow tree of +cause and effect. It is vinegar to the eyes to deal with men of loose +and imperfect perception. Dr. Johnson is reported to have +said,[669]--"If the child says he looked out of this window, when he +looked out of that,--whip him." Our American character is marked by a +more than average delight in accurate perception, which is shown by +the currency of the by-word, "No mistake." + +But the discomfort of unpunctuality, of confusion of thought about +facts, inattention to the wants of to-morrow, is of no nation. The +beautiful laws of time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude, +are holes and dens. If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, +instead of honey it will yield us bees. Our words and actions to be +fair must be timely. A gay and pleasant sound is the whetting of the +scythe in the mornings of June; yet what is more lonesome and sad than +the sound of a whetstone or mower's rifle[670] when it is too late in +the season to make hay? Scatter brained and "afternoon men" spoil much +more than their own affairs in spoiling the temper of those who deal +with them. I have seen a criticism on some paintings, of which I am +reminded when I see the shiftless and unhappy men who are not true to +their senses. The last Grand Duke of Weimar,[671] a man of superior +understanding, said: "I have sometimes remarked in the presence of +great works of art, and just now especially in Dresden, how much a +certain property contributes to the effect which gives life to the +figures, and to the life an irresistible truth. This property is the +hitting, in all the figures we draw, the right centre of gravity. I +mean the placing the figures firm upon their feet, making the hands +grasp, and fastening the eyes on the spot where they should look. Even +lifeless figures, as vessels and stools--let them be drawn ever so +correctly--lose all effect so soon as they lack the resting upon their +centre of gravity, and have a certain swimming and oscillating +appearance. The Raphael in the Dresden gallery[672] (the only great +affecting picture which I have seen) is the quietest and most +passionless piece you can imagine; a couple of saints who worship the +Virgin and child. Nevertheless it awakens a deeper impression than the +contortions of ten crucified martyrs. For, beside all the resistless +beauty of form, it possesses in the highest degree the property of the +perpendicularity of all the figures." This perpendicularity we demand +of all the figures in this picture of life. Let them stand on their +feet, and not float and swing. Let us know where to find them. Let +them discriminate between what they remember and what they dreamed. +Let them call a spade a spade.[673] Let them give us facts, and honor +their own senses with trust. + +But what man shall dare task another with imprudence? Who is prudent? +The men we call greatest are least in this kingdom. There is a certain +fatal dislocation in our relation to nature, distorting all our modes +of living and making every law our enemy, which seems at last to have +aroused all the wit and virtue in the world to ponder the question of +Reform. We must call the highest prudence to counsel, and ask why +health and beauty and genius should now be the exception rather than +the rule of human nature? We do not know the properties of plants and +animals and the laws of nature, through our sympathy with the same; +but this remains the dream of poets. Poetry and prudence should be +coincident. Poets should be lawgivers; that is, the boldest lyric +inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead +the civil code and the day's work. But now the two things seem +irreconcilably parted. We have violated law upon law until we stand +amidst ruins, and when by chance we espy a coincidence between reason +and the phenomena, we are surprised. Beauty should be the dowry of +every man and woman, as invariably as sensation; but it is rare. +Health or sound organization should be universal. Genius should be the +child of genius, and every child should be inspired; but now it is not +to be predicted of any child, and nowhere is it pure. We call partial +half lights, by courtesy, genius; talent which converts itself to +money; talent which glitters to-day that it may dine and sleep well +to-morrow; and society is officered by _men of parts_,[674] as they +are properly called, and not by divine men. These use their gifts to +refine luxury, not to abolish it. Genius is always ascetic; and piety, +and love. Appetite shows to the finer souls as a disease, and they +find beauty in rites and bounds that resist it. + +We have found out[675] fine names to cover our sensuality withal, but +no gifts can raise intemperance. The man of talent affects to call his +transgressions of the laws of the senses trivial and to count them +nothing considered with his devotion to his art. His art rebukes him. +That never taught him lewdness, nor the love of wine, nor the wish to +reap where he had not sowed. His art is less for every deduction from +his holiness, and less for every defect of common sense. On him who +scorned the world, as he said, the scorned world wreaks its revenge. +He that despiseth small things will perish by little and little. +Goethe's Tasso[676] is very likely to be a pretty fair historical +portrait, and that is true tragedy. It does not seem to me so genuine +grief when some tyrannous Richard III.[677] oppresses and slays a +score of innocent persons, as when Antonio and Tasso, both apparently +right, wrong each other. One living after the maxims of this world and +consistent and true to them, the other fired with all divine +sentiments, yet grasping also at the pleasures of sense, without +submitting to their law. That is a grief we all feel, a knot we cannot +untie. Tasso's is no infrequent case in modern biography. A man of +genius, of an ardent temperament, reckless of physical laws, +self-indulgent, becomes presently unfortunate, querulous, a +"discomfortable cousin," a thorn to himself and to others. + +The scholar shames us by his bifold[678] life. Whilst something higher +than prudence is active, he is admirable; when common sense is wanted, +he is an encumbrance. Yesterday, Caesar[679] was not so great; to-day, +Job[680] not so miserable. Yesterday, radiant with the light of an +ideal world in which he lives, the first of men, and now oppressed by +wants and by sickness, for which he must thank himself, none is so +poor to do him reverence. He resembles the opium eaters whom +travellers describe as frequenting the bazaars of Constantinople, who +skulk about all day, the most pitiful drivellers, yellow, emaciated, +ragged, sneaking; then at evening, when the bazaars are open, they +slink to the opium-shop, swallow their morsel and become tranquil, +glorious and great. And who has not seen the tragedy of imprudent +genius struggling for years with paltry pecuniary difficulties, at +last sinking, chilled, exhausted and fruitless, like a giant +slaughtered by pins? + +Is it not better that a man should accept the first pains and +mortifications of this sort, which nature is not slack in sending him, +as hints that he must expect no other good than the just fruit of his +own labor and self-denial? Health, bread, climate, social position, +have their importance, and he will give them their due. Let him esteem +Nature a perpetual counsellor, and her perfections the exact measure +of our deviations. Let him make the night night, and the day day. Let +him control the habit of expense. Let him see that as much wisdom may +be expended on a private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom +may be drawn from it. The laws of the world are written out for him on +every piece of money in his hand. There is nothing he will not be the +better for knowing, were it only the wisdom of Poor Richard,[681] or +the State-street[682] prudence of buying by the acre to sell by the +foot; or the thrift of the agriculturist, to stick[683] in a tree +between whiles, because it will grow whilst he sleeps; or the prudence +which consists in husbanding little strokes of the tool, little +portions of time, particles of stock and small gains. The eye of +prudence may never shut. Iron, if kept at the ironmonger's, will rust; +beer, if not brewed in the right state of the atmosphere, will sour; +timber of ships will rot at sea, or if laid up high and dry, will +strain, warp and dry-rot. Money, if kept by us, yields no rent and is +liable to loss; if invested, is liable to depreciation of the +particular kind of stock. Strike, says the smith, the iron is white. +Keep the rake, says the haymaker, as nigh the scythe as you can, and +the cart as nigh the rake. Our Yankee trade is reputed to be very much +on the extreme of this prudence. It saves itself by its activity. It +takes bank notes,--good, bad, clean, ragged, and saves itself by the +speed with which it passes them off. Iron cannot rust, nor beer sour, +nor timber rot, nor calicoes go out of fashion, nor money stocks +depreciate, in the few swift moments in which the Yankee suffers any +one of them to remain in his possession. In skating over thin ice our +safety is in our speed. + +Let him learn a prudence of a higher strain. Let him learn that +everything in nature, even motes and feathers, go by law and not by +luck, and that what he sows he reaps. By diligence and self-command +let him put the bread he eats at his own disposal, and not at that of +others, that he may not stand in bitter and false relations to other +men; for the best good of wealth is freedom. Let him practise the +minor virtues.[684] How much of human life is lost in waiting! Let him +not make his fellow creatures wait. How many words and promises are +promises of conversation! Let his be words of fate. When he sees a +folded and sealed scrap of paper float around the globe in a pine ship +and come safe to the eye for which it was written, amidst a swarming +population, let him likewise feel the admonition to integrate his +being across all these distracting forces, and keep a slender human +word among the storms, distances and accidents that drive us hither +and thither, and, by persistency, make the paltry force of one man +reappear to redeem its pledge after months and years in the most +distant climates. + +We must not try to write the laws of any one virtue, looking at that +only. Human nature loves no contradictions, but is symmetrical. The +prudence which secures an outward well-being is not to be studied by +one set of men, whilst heroism and holiness are studied by another, +but they are reconcilable. Prudence concerns the present time, +persons, property and existing forms. But as every fact hath its roots +in the soul, and, if the soul were changed, would cease to be, or +would become some other thing, therefore the proper administration of +outward things will always rest on a just apprehension of their cause +and origin; that is, the good man will be the wise man, and the +single-hearted the politic man. Every violation of truth is not only a +sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human +society. On the most profitable lie the course of events presently +lays a destructive tax; whilst frankness proves to be the best +tactics, for it invites frankness, puts the parties on a convenient +footing and makes their business a friendship. Trust men and they will +be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves +great, though they make an exception in your favor to all their rules +of trade. + +So, in regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does not +consist in evasion or in flight, but in courage. He who wishes to walk +in the most peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw +himself up to resolution. Let him front the object of his worst +apprehension, and his stoutness will commonly make his fears +groundless. The Latin proverb says,[685] "in battles the eye is first +overcome." The eye is daunted and greatly exaggerates the perils of +the hour. Entire self-possession may make a battle very little more +dangerous to life than a match at foils or at football. Examples are +cited by soldiers of men who have seen the cannon pointed and the fire +given to it, and who have stepped aside from the path of the ball. The +terrors of the storm are chiefly confined to the parlor and the cabin. +The drover, the sailor, buffets it all day, and his health renews +itself at as vigorous a pulse under the sleet as under the sun of +June. + +In the occurrence of unpleasant things among neighbors, fear comes +readily to heart and magnifies the consequence of the other party; but +it is a bad counsellor. Every man is actually weak and apparently +strong. To himself he seems weak; to others formidable. You are afraid +of Grim; but Grim also is afraid of you. You are solicitous of the +good will of the meanest person, uneasy at his ill will. But the +sturdiest offender of your peace and of the neighborhood, if you rip +up _his_ claims, is as thin and timid as any; and the peace of society +is often kept, because, as children say, one is afraid and the other +dares not. Far off, men swell, bully and threaten: bring them hand to +hand, and they are a feeble folk. + +It is a proverb that "courtesy costs nothing"; but calculation might +come to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be blind, but +kindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an +eye-water. If you meet a sectary or a hostile partisan, never +recognize the dividing lines, but meet on what common ground +remains,--if only that the sun shines and the rain rains for +both,--the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it, the +boundary mountains on which the eye had fastened have melted into air. +If he set out to contend,[686] almost St. Paul will lie, almost St. +John will hate. What low, poor, paltry, hypocritical people an +argument on religion will make of the pure and chosen souls. Shuffle +they will and crow, crook and hide, feign to confess here, only that +they may brag and conquer there, and not a thought has enriched either +party, and not an emotion of bravery, modesty, or hope. So neither +should you put yourself in a false position to your contemporaries by +indulging a vein of hostility and bitterness. Though your views are in +straight antagonism[687] to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, +assume that you are saying precisely that which all think, and in the +flow of wit and love roll out your paradoxes in solid column, with not +the infirmity of a doubt. So at least shall you get an adequate +deliverance. The natural emotions of the soul are so much better than +the voluntary ones that you will never do yourself justice in dispute. +The thought is not then taken hold of by the right handle, does not +show itself proportioned and in its true bearings, but bears extorted, +hoarse, and half witness. But assume a consent and it shall presently +be granted, since really and underneath their all external +diversities, all men are of one heart and mind. + +Wisdom will never let us stand with any man or men on an unfriendly +footing. We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if we waited +for some better sympathy and intimacy to come. But whence and when? +To-morrow will be like to-day. Life wastes itself whilst we are +preparing to live. Our friends and fellow-workers die off from us. +Scarcely can we say we see new men, new women, approaching us. We are +too old to regard fashion, too old to expect patronage of any greater +or more powerful. Let us suck the sweetness of those affections and +consuetudes[688] that grow near us. These old shoes are easy to the +feet. Undoubtedly we can easily pick faults in our company, can easily +whisper names prouder and that tickle the fancy more. Every man's +imagination hath its friends; and pleasant would life be with such +companions. But if you cannot have them on good mutual terms, you +cannot have them. If not the Deity but our ambition hews and shapes +the new relations, their virtue escapes, as strawberries lose their +flavor in garden beds. + +Thus truth, frankness, courage, love, humility, and all the virtues +range themselves on the side of prudence, or the art of securing a +present well-being. I do not know if all matter will be found to be +made of one element, as oxygen or hydrogen, at last, but the world of +manners and actions is wrought of one stuff, and begin where we +will[689] we are pretty sure in a short space to be mumbling our ten +commandments. + + + + +CIRCLES.[690] + + +The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; +and throughout nature this primary picture is repeated without end. It +is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine[691] +described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere +and its circumference nowhere. We are all our lifetime reading the +copious sense of this first of forms. One moral we have already +deduced in considering the circular or compensatory character of every +human action. Another analogy we shall now trace, that every action +admits of being outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth +that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in +nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another +dawn risen on mid-noon,[692] and under every deep a lower deep opens. + +This fact, as far as it symbolizes the moral fact of the Unattainable, +the flying Perfect, around which the hands of man can never meet, at +once the inspirer and the condemner of every success, may conveniently +serve us to connect many illustrations of human power in every +department. + +There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. +Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a +transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and +holds its fluid. Our culture is the predominance of an idea which +draws after it all this train of cities and institutions. Let us rise +into another idea; they will disappear. The Greek sculpture[693] is +all melted away, as if it had been statues of ice: here and there a +solitary figure or fragment remaining, as we see flecks and scraps of +snow left in cold dells and mountain clefts in June and July. For the +genius that created it creates now somewhat else. The Greek +letters[694] last a little longer, but are already passing under the +same sentence and tumbling into the inevitable pit which the creation +of new thought opens for all that is old. The new continents are built +out of the ruins of an old planet; the new races fed out of the +decomposition of the foregoing. New arts destroy the old.[695] See the +investment of capital in aqueducts, made useless by hydraulics; +fortifications, by gunpowder; roads and canals, by railways; sails, by +steam; steam, by electricity. + +You admire this tower of granite, weathering the hurts of so many +ages. Yet a little waving hand built this huge wall, and that which +builds is better than that which is built. The hand that built can +topple it down much faster. Better than the hand and nimbler was the +invisible thought which wrought through it; and thus ever, behind the +coarse effect, is a fine cause, which, being narrowly seen, is itself +the effect of a finer cause. Everything looks permanent until its +secret is known. A rich estate appears to women and children a firm +and lasting fact; to a merchant, one easily created out of any +materials, and easily lost. An orchard, good tillage, good grounds, +seem a fixture, like a gold mine, or a river, to a citizen; but to a +large farmer, not much more fixed than the state of the crop. Nature +looks provokingly stable and secular, but it has a cause like all the +rest; and when once I comprehend that, will these fields stretch so +immovably wide, these leaves hang so individually considerable? +Permanence is a word of degrees. Every thing is medial. Moons are no +more bounds to spiritual power than bat-balls. + +The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, +he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his +facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea +which commands his own. The life of man is a self-evolving circle,[696] +which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to +new and larger circles, and that without end. The extent to which this +generation of circles, wheel without wheel, will go, depends on the +force or truth of the individual soul. For it is the inert effort of +each thought, having formed itself into a circular wave of circumstance, +as for instance an empire, rules of an art, a local usage, a religious +rite, to heap itself on that ridge and to solidify and hem in the life. +But if the soul is quick and strong it bursts over that boundary on all +sides and expands another orbit on the great deep, which also runs up +into a high wave, with attempt again to stop and to bind. But the heart +refuses to be imprisoned;[697] in its first and narrowest pulses it +already tends outward with a vast force and to immense and innumerable +expansions. + +Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series. Every general +law only a particular fact of some more general law presently to +disclose itself. There is no outside, no inclosing wall, no +circumference to us. The man finishes his story,--how good! how final! +how it puts a new face on all things! He fills the sky. Lo, on the +other side rises also a man and draws a circle around the circle we +had just pronounced the outline of the sphere. Then already is our +first speaker not man, but only a first speaker. His only redress is +forthwith to draw a circle outside of his antagonist. And so men do by +themselves. The result of to-day, which haunts the mind and cannot be +escaped will presently be abridged into a word, and the principle that +seemed to explain nature will itself be included as one example of a +bolder generalization. In the thought of to-morrow there is a power to +upheave all thy creed, all the creeds, all the literatures of the +nations, and marshal thee to a heaven which no epic dream has yet +depicted. Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a +suggestion of that he should be. Men walk as prophecies of the next +age. + +Step by step we scale this mysterious ladder; the steps are actions, +the new prospect is power. Every several result is threatened and +judged by that which follows. Every one seems to be contradicted by +the new; it is only limited by the new. The new statement is always +hated by the old, and, to those dwelling in the old, comes like an +abyss of scepticism. But the eye soon gets wonted to it, for the eye +and it are effects of one cause; then its innocency and benefit +appear, and presently, all its energy spent, it pales and dwindles +before the revelation of the new hour. + +Fear not the new generalization. Does the fact look crass[698] and +material, threatening to degrade thy theory of spirit? Resist it not; +it goes to refine and raise thy theory of matter just as much. + +There are no fixtures to men, if we appeal to consciousness. Every man +supposes himself not to be fully understood; and if there is any truth +in him, if he rests at last on the divine soul, I see not how it can +be otherwise. The last chamber, the last closet, he must feel was +never opened; there is always a residuum unknown, unanalyzable. That +is, every man believes that he has a greater possibility. + +Our moods do not believe in each other. To-day I am full of thoughts +and can write what I please. I see no reason why I should not have the +same thought, the same power of expression, to-morrow. What I write, +whilst I write it, seems the most natural thing in the world: but +yesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now I see +so much; and a month hence, I doubt not, I shall wonder who he was +that wrote so many continuous pages. Alas for this infirm faith, this +will not strenuous, this vast ebb of a vast flow! I am God in nature; +I am a weed by the wall. + +The continual effort to raise himself above himself,[699] to work a +pitch above his last height, betrays itself in a man's relations. We +thirst for approbation, yet cannot forgive the approver. The sweet of +nature is love; yet if I have a friend I am tormented by my +imperfections. The love of me accuses the other party. If he were high +enough[700] to slight me, then could I love him, and rise by my +affection to new heights. A man's growth is seen in the successive +choirs of his friends. For every friend whom he loses for truth, he +gains a better. I thought as I walked in the woods and mused on any +friends, why should I play with them this game of idolatry? I know and +see too well, when not voluntarily blind, the speedy limits of persons +called high and worthy. Rich, noble and great they are by the +liberality of our speech, but truth is sad. O blessed Spirit, whom I +forsake for these, they are not thee! Every personal consideration +that we allow costs us heavenly state. We sell the thrones of angels +for a short and turbulent pleasure. + +How often must we learn this lesson? Men cease to interest us when we +find their limitations. The only sin is limitation. As soon as you +once come up with a man's limitations, it is all over with him. Has +he talents? has he enterprises? has he knowledge? It boots not. +Infinitely alluring and attractive was he to you yesterday, a great +hope, a sea to swim in; now, you have found his shores, found it a +pond, and you care not if you never see it again. + +Each new step we take in thought reconciles twenty seemingly +discordant facts, as expressions of one law. Aristotle and Plato[701] +are reckoned the respective heads of two schools. A wise man will see +that Aristotle platonizes. By going one step farther back in thought, +discordant opinions are reconciled by being seen to be two extremes of +one principle, and we can never go so far back as to preclude a still +higher vision. + +Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then +all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out +in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. +There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; +there is not any literary reputation, not the so-called eternal names +of fame, that may not be revised and condemned. The very hopes of man, +the thoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and +morals of mankind are all at the mercy of a new generalization. +Generalization is always a new influx of the divinity into the mind. +Hence the thrill that attends it. + +Valor consists in the power of self-recovery, so that a man cannot +have his flank turned, cannot be out-generalled, but put him where you +will, he stands. This can only be by his preferring truth to his past +apprehension of truth, and his alert acceptance of it from whatever +quarter; the intrepid conviction that his laws, his relations to +society, his Christianity, his world, may at any time be superseded +and decease. + +There are degrees in idealism. We learn first to play with it +academically, as the magnet was once a toy. Then we see in the heyday +of youth and poetry that it may be true, that it is true in gleams and +fragments. Then, its countenance waxes stern and grand, and we see +that it must be true. It now shows itself ethical and practical. We +learn that God is; that he is in me; and that all things are shadows +of him. The idealism of Berkeley[702] is only a crude statement of the +idealism of Jesus, and that again is a crude statement of the fact +that all nature is the rapid efflux of goodness executing and +organizing itself. Much more obviously is history and the state of the +world at any one time directly dependent on the intellectual +classification then existing in the minds of men. The things which are +dear to men at this hour are so on account of the ideas which have +emerged on their mental horizon, and which cause the present order of +things, as a tree bears its apples. A new degree of culture would +instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits. + +Conversation is a game of circles. In conversation we pluck up the +_termini_[703] which bound the common of silence on every side. The +parties are not to be judged by the spirit they partake and even +express under this Pentecost.[704] To-morrow they will have receded +from this high-water mark. To-morrow you shall find them stooping +under the old pack-saddles. Yet let us enjoy the cloven flame whilst +it glows on our walls. When each new speaker strikes a new light, +emancipates us from the oppression of the last speaker to oppress us +with the greatness and exclusiveness of his own thought, then yields +us to another redeemer, we seem to recover our rights, to become men. +O, what truths profound and executable only in ages and orbs, are +supposed in the announcement of every truth! In common hours, society +sits cold and statuesque. We all stand waiting, empty,--knowing, +possibly, that we can be full, surrounded by mighty symbols which are +not symbols to us, but prose and trivial toys. Then cometh the god and +converts the statues into fiery men, and by a flash of his eye burns +up the veil which shrouded all things, and the meaning of the very +furniture, of cup and saucer, of chair and clock and tester, is +manifest. The facts which loomed so large in the fogs of +yesterday,--property, climate, breeding, personal beauty and the like, +have strangely changed their proportions. All that we reckoned settled +shakes and rattles; and literatures, cities, climates, religions, +leave their foundations and dance before our eyes. And yet here again +see the swift circumscription! Good as is discourse, silence is +better, and shames it. The length of the discourse indicates the +distance of thought betwixt the speaker and the hearer. If they were +at a perfect understanding in any part, no words would be necessary +thereon. If at one in all parts, no words would be suffered. + +Literature is a point outside of our hodiernal[705] circle through +which a new one may be described. The use of literature is to afford +us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a +purchase by which we may move it. We fill ourselves with ancient +learning, install ourselves the best we can in Greek, in Punic,[706] +in Roman houses, only that we may wiselier see French, English and +American houses and modes of living. In like manner[707] we see +literature best from the midst of wild nature, or from the din of +affairs, or from a high religion. The field cannot be well seen from +within the field. The astronomer must have his diameter of the earth's +orbit as a base to find the parallax of any star. + +Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is +not in the encyclopaedia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body +of Divinity, but in the sonnet or the play. In my daily work I incline +to repeat my old steps, and do not believe in remedial force, in the +power of change and reform. But some Petrarch[708] or Ariosto,[709] +filled with the new wine of his imagination, writes me an ode or a +brisk romance, full of daring thought and action. He smites and +arouses me with his shrill tones, breaks up my whole chain of habits, +and I open my eye on my own possibilities. He claps wings to the sides +of all the solid old lumber of the world, and I am capable once more +of choosing a straight path in theory and practice. + +We have the same need to command a view of the religion of the world. +We can never see Christianity from the catechism:--from the pastures, +from a boat in the pond, from amidst the songs of wood-birds we +possibly may. Cleansed by the elemental light and wind, steeped in the +sea of beautiful forms which the field offers us, we may chance to +cast a right glance back upon biography. Christianity is rightly dear +to the best of mankind; yet was there never a young philosopher whose +breeding had fallen into the Christian church by whom that brave text +of Paul's was not specially prized, "Then shall also the Son be +subject unto Him who put all things under him, that God may be all in +all."[710] Let the claims and virtues of persons be never so great and +welcome, the instinct of man presses eagerly onward to the impersonal +and illimitable, and gladly arms itself against the dogmatism of +bigots with this generous word out of the book itself. + +The natural world may be conceived of as a system of concentric +circles, and we now and then detect in nature slight dislocations +which apprize us that this surface on which we now stand is not fixed, +but sliding. These manifold tenacious qualities,[711] this chemistry +and vegetation, these metals and animals, which seem to stand there +for their own sake, are means and methods only, are words of God, and +as fugitive as other words. Has the naturalist or chemist learned his +craft, who has explored the gravity of atoms and the elective +affinities, who has not yet discerned the deeper law whereof this is +only a partial or approximate statement, namely that like draws to +like, and that the goods which belong to you gravitate to you and need +not be pursued with pains and cost? Yet is that statement approximate +also, and not final. Omnipresence is a higher fact. Not through subtle +subterranean channels need friend and fact be drawn to their +counterpart, but, rightly considered, these things proceed from the +eternal generation of the soul. Cause and effect are two sides of one +fact. + +The same law of eternal procession ranges all that we call the +virtues, and extinguishes each in the light of a better. The great man +will not be prudent in the popular sense; all his prudence will be so +much deduction from his grandeur. But it behooves each to see, when he +sacrifices prudence, to what god he devotes it; if to ease and +pleasure, he had better be prudent still; if to a great trust, he can +well spare his mule and panniers who has a winged chariot instead. +Geoffrey draws on his boots to go through the woods, that his feet may +be safer from the bite of snakes; Aaron never thinks of such a peril. +In many years neither is harmed by such an accident. Yet it seems to +me that with every precaution you take against such an evil you put +yourself into the power of the evil. I suppose that the highest +prudence is the lowest prudence. Is this too sudden a rushing from +the centre to the verge of our orbit? Think how many times we shall +fall back into pitiful calculations before we take up our rest in the +great sentiment, or make the verge of to-day the new centre. Besides, +your bravest sentiment is familiar to the humblest men. The poor and +the low have their way of expressing the last facts of philosophy as +well as you. "Blessed be nothing" and "The worse things are, the +better they are" are proverbs which express the transcendentalism of +common life. + +One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's +ugliness; one man's wisdom another's folly; as one beholds the same +objects from a higher point of view. One man thinks justice consists +in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who +is very remiss in this duty and makes the creditor wait tediously. But +that second man has his own way of looking at things; asks himself +which debt must I pay first, the debt to the rich, or the debt to the +poor? the debt of money, or the debt of thought to mankind, of genius +to nature? For you, O broker, there is no other principle but +arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth +of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I +detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my +forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. Let me live onward; you +shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will +liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a +man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this be +injustice? Owes he no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be +postponed to a landlord's or a banker's? + +There is no virtue which is final; all are initial. The virtues of +society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery +that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed +such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices. + + Forgive his crimes, forgive his virtues too, + Those smaller faults, half converts to the right.[712] + +It is the highest power of divine moments that they abolish our +contritions also. I accuse myself of sloth and unprofitableness day by +day; but when these waves of God flow into me I no longer reckon lost +time. I no longer poorly compute my possible achievement by what +remains to me of the month or the year; for these moments confer a +sort of omnipresence and omnipotence which asks nothing of duration, +but sees that the energy of the mind is commensurate with the work to +be done, without time. + +And thus, O circular philosopher, I hear some reader exclaim, you have +arrived at a fine pyrrhonism,[713] at an equivalence and indifferency +of all actions, and would fain teach us that _if we are true_, +forsooth, our crimes may be lively stones out of which we shall +construct the temple of the true God. + +I am not careful to justify myself. I own I am gladdened[714] by +seeing the predominance of the saccharine principle throughout +vegetable nature, and not less by beholding in morals that +unrestrained inundation of the principle of good into every chink and +hole that selfishness has left open, yea into selfishness and sin +itself; so that no evil is pure, nor hell itself without its extreme +satisfactions. But lest I should mislead any when I have my own head +and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an +experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least +discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as +true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none +are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no Past at my +back. + +Yet this incessant movement and progression which all things partake +could never become sensible to us but by contrast to some principle of +fixture or stability in the soul. Whilst the eternal generation of +circles proceeds, the eternal generator abides. That central life is +somewhat superior to creation, superior to knowledge and thought, and +contains all its circles. For ever it labors to create a life and +thought as large and excellent as itself; but in vain; for that which +is made instructs how to make a better. + +Thus there is no sleep, no pause, no preservation, but all things +renew, germinate and spring. Why should we import rags and relics into +the new hour? Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only +disease: all others run into this one. We call it by many +names,--fever, intemperance, insanity, stupidity and crime: they are +all forms of old age: they are rest, conservatism, appropriation, +inertia; not newness, not the way onward. We grizzle every day. I see +no need of it. Whilst we converse with what is above us, we do not +grow old, but grow young. Infancy, youth, receptive, aspiring, with +religious eye looking upward, counts itself nothing and abandons +itself to the instruction flowing from all sides. But the man and +woman of seventy assume to know all; throw up their hope; renounce +aspiration; accept the actual for the necessary and talk down to the +young. Let them then become organs of the Holy Ghost; let them be +lovers; let them behold truth; and their eyes are uplifted, their +wrinkles smoothed, they are perfumed again with hope and power. This +old age ought not to creep on a human mind. In nature every moment is +new; the past is always swallowed and forgotten; the coming only is +sacred. Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit. +No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher +love. No truth so sublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light +of new thoughts. People wish to be settled: only as far as they are +unsettled is there any hope for them. + +Life is a series of surprises. We do not guess to-day the mood, the +pleasure, the power of to-morrow, when we are building up our being. +Of lower states,--of acts of routine and sense, we can tell somewhat, +but the masterpieces of God, the total growths and universal movements +of the soul, he hideth; they are incalculable. I can know that truth +is divine and helpful; but how it shall help me I can have no guess, +for _so to be_ is the sole inlet of _so to know_. The new position of +the advancing man has all the powers of the old, yet has them all new. +It carries in its bosom all the energies of the past, yet is itself an +exhalation of the morning. I cast away in this new moment all my once +hoarded knowledge, as vacant and vain. Now for the first time seem I +to know any thing rightly. The simplest words,--we do not know what +they mean except when we love and aspire. + +The difference between talents and character is adroitness to keep the +old and trodden round, and power and courage to make a new road to new +and better goals. Character makes an overpowering present, a cheerful, +determined hour, which fortifies all the company by making them see +that much is possible and excellent that was not thought of. Character +dulls the impression of particular events. When we see the conqueror +we do not think much of any one battle or success. We see that we had +exaggerated the difficulty. It was easy to him. The great man is not +convulsible or tormentable. He is so much that events pass over him +without much impression. People say sometimes, "See what I have +overcome; see how cheerful I am; see how completely I have triumphed +over these black events." Not if they still remind me of the black +event,--they have not yet conquered. Is it conquest to be a gay and +decorated sepulchre, or a half-crazed widow, hysterically laughing? +True conquest is the causing the black event to fade and disappear as +an early cloud of insignificant result in a history so large and +advancing. + +The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget +ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our +sempiternal[715] memory and to do something without knowing how or +why; in short to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved +without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful. It is by +abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of +performance through the strength of ideas, as the works of genius and +religion. "A man," said Oliver Cromwell,[716] "never rises so high as +when he knows not whither he is going." Dreams and drunkenness, the +use of opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this +oracular genius, and hence their dangerous attraction for men. For the +like reason they ask the aid of wild passions, as in the gaming and +war, ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart. + + + + +NOTES + +THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR + + +[Footnote 1: Games of strength. The public games of Greece were +athletic and intellectual contests of various kinds. There were four +of importance: the Olympic, held every four years; the Pythian, held +every third Olympic year; and the Nemean and Isthmian, held alternate +years between the Olympic periods. These great national festivals +exercised a strong influence in Greece. They were a secure bond of +union between the numerous independent states and did much to help the +nation to repel its foreign invaders. In Greece the accomplished +athlete was reverenced almost as a god, and cases have been recorded +where altars were erected and sacrifices made in his honor. The +extreme care and cultivation of the body induced by this national +spirit is one of the most significant features of Greek culture, and +one which might wisely be imitated in the modern world.] + +[Footnote 2: Troubadours. In southern France during the eleventh +century, wandering poets went from castle to castle reciting or +singing love-songs, composed in the old Provencal dialect, a sort of +vulgarized Latin. The life in the great feudal chateaux was so dull +that the lords and ladies seized with avidity any amusement which +promised to while away an idle hour. The troubadours were made much of +and became a strong element in the development of the Southern spirit. +So-called Courts of Love were formed where questions of an amorous +nature were discussed in all their bearings; learned opinions were +expressed on the most trivial matters, and offenses were tried. + +Some of the Provencal poetry is of the highest artistic significance, +though the mass of it is worthless high-flown trash.] + +[Footnote 3: At the time this oration was delivered (1837), many of +the authors who have since given America a place in the world's +literature were young men writing their first books. "We were," says +James Russell Lowell, "still socially and intellectually moored to +English thought, till Emerson cut the cable and gave us a chance at +the dangers and glories of blue water."] + +[Footnote 4: Pole-star. Polaris is now the nearest conspicuous star to +the north pole of the celestial equator. Owing to the motion of the +pole of the celestial equator around that of the ecliptic, this star +will in course of time recede from its proud position, and the +brilliant star Vega in the constellation Harp will become the +pole-star.] + +[Footnote 5: It is now a well-recognized fact in the development of +animal life that as any part of the body falls into disuse it in time +disappears. Good examples of this are the disappearance of powerful +fangs from the mouth of man, the loss of power in the wings of +barnyard fowls; and, _vice versa_, as new uses for a member arise, its +structure changes to meet the new needs. An example of this is the +transformation from the hoof of a horse through the cloven hoofs of +the cow to the eventual development of highly expert fingers in the +monkey and man. Emerson assumed the doctrine of evolution to be +sufficiently established by the anatomical evidence of gradual +development. In his own words: "Man is no up-start in the creation. +His limbs are only a more exquisite organization--say rather the +finish--of the rudimental forms that have been already sweeping the +sea and creeping in the mud. The brother of his hand is even now +cleaving the arctic sea in the fin of the whale, and innumerable ages +since was pawing the marsh in the flipper of the saurian." A view +afterwards condensed into his memorable couplet: + + "Striving to be man, the worm + Mounts through all the spires of form." +] + +[Footnote 6: Stint. A prescribed or allotted task, a share of labor.] + +[Footnote 7: Ridden. Here used in the sense of dominated.] + +[Footnote 8: Monitory pictures. Instructive warning pictures.] + +[Footnote 9: The Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus is the author of +this saying, not "the old oracle." It occurs in the Encheiridion, or +manual, a work put together by a pupil of Epictetus. The original +saying of Epictetus is as follows: "Every thing has two handles, the +one by which it may be borne, the other by which it may not. If your +brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold of the act by that handle +wherein he acts unjustly, for this is the handle which cannot be +borne: but lay hold of the other, that he is your brother, that he was +nurtured with you, and you will lay hold of the thing by that handle +by which it can be borne."] + +[Footnote 10: Every day, the sun (shines).] + +[Footnote 11: Beholden. Emerson here uses this past participle with +its original meaning instead of in its present sense of "indebted."] + +[Footnote 12: Here we have a reminder of Emerson's pantheism. He means +the inexplicable continuity "of what I call God, and fools nature," as +Browning expressed it.] + +[Footnote 13: His expanding knowledge will become a creator.] + +[Footnote 14: Know thyself. Plutarch ascribes this saying to Plato. It +is also ascribed to Pythagoras, Chilo, Thales, Cleobulus, Bias, and +Socrates; also to Phemonie, a mythical Greek poetess of the +ante-Homeric period. Juvenal (Satire XI. 27) says that this precept +descended from heaven. "Know thyself" and "Nothing too much" were +inscribed upon the Delphic oracle. + + "Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; + The proper study of mankind is man." + +] + +[Footnote 15: Observe the brisk movement of these sentences. How they +catch and hold the attention, giving a new impulse to the reader's +interest!] + +[Footnote 16: Nature abhors a vacuum.] + +[Footnote 17: Noxious. Harmful.] + +[Footnote 18: John Locke (1632-1704), an English philosopher whose +work was of especial significance in the development of modern +philosophy. The work he is best known by is the exhaustive "Essay on +the Human Understanding," in which he combated the theory of +Descartes, that every man has certain "innate ideas." The innate-idea +theory was first proved by the philosopher Descartes in this way. +Descartes began his speculations from a standpoint of absolute doubt. +Then he said, "I think, therefore I am," and from this formula he +built up a number of ideas innate to the human mind, ideas which we +cannot but hold. Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding" did much +to discredit Descartes' innate ideas, which had been very generally +accepted in Europe before.] + +[Footnote 19: Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount Saint Alban's +(1561-1626), a famous English statesman and philosopher. He occupied +high public offices, but in 1621 was convicted of taking bribes in his +office of Lord Chancellor. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to +imprisonment and a fine of forty thousand pounds. Both these sentences +were remitted, however. In the seventeenth century, judicial +corruption was so common that Bacon's offence was not considered so +gross as it would now be. As a philosopher Bacon's rank has been much +disputed. While some claim that to his improved method of studying +nature are chiefly to be attributed the prodigious strides taken by +modern science, others deny him all merit in this respect. His best +known works are: "The Novum Organum," a philosophical treatise; "The +Advancement of Learning," a remarkable argument in favor of +scholarship; and the short essays on subjects of common interest, +usually printed under the simple title "Bacon's Essays."] + +[Footnote 20: Third Estate. The thirteenth century was the age when +the national assemblies of most European countries were putting on +their definite shape. In most of them the system of _estates_ +prevailed. These in most countries were three--nobles, clergy, and +commons, the commons being the third estate. During the French +Revolution the Third Estate, or Tiers Etat, asserted its rights and +became a powerful factor in French politics, choosing its own leaders +and effecting the downfall of its oppressors.] + +[Footnote 21: Restorers of readings. Men who spend their lives trying +to improve and correct the texts of classical authors, by comparing +the old editions with each other and picking out the version which +seem most in accordance with the authors' original work.] + +[Footnote 22: Emendators. The same as restorers of readings.] + +[Footnote 23: Bibliomaniacs. Men with a mania for collecting rare and +beautiful books. Not a bad sort of mania, though Emerson never had any +sympathy for it.] + +[Footnote 24: To many readers Emerson's own works richly fulfill this +obligation. He himself lived continually in such a lofty mental +atmosphere that no one can come within the circle of his influence +without being stimulated and elevated.] + +[Footnote 25: Genius, the possession of a thoroughly active soul, +ought not to be the special privilege of favorites of fortune, but the +right of every sound man.] + +[Footnote 26: They stunt my mental growth. A man should not accept +another man's conclusions, but merely use them as steps on his upward +path.] + +[Footnote 27: If you do not employ such talent as you have in original +labor, in bearing the mental fruit of which you are capable, then you +do not vindicate your claim to a share in the divine nature.] + +[Footnote 28: Disservice. Injury.] + +[Footnote 29: In original composition of any sort our efforts +naturally flow in the channels worn for us by the first dominating +streams of early genius. The conventional is the continual foe of all +true art.] + +[Footnote 30: Emerson is continually stimulating us to look at things +in new ways. Here, for instance, at once the thought comes: "Is it not +perhaps possible that the transcendent genius of Shakespeare has been +rather noxious than beneficent in its influence on the mind of the +world? Has not the all-pervading Shakespearian influence flooded and +drowned out a great deal of original genius?"] + +[Footnote 31: That is,--when in his clear, seeing moments he can +distil some drops of truth from the world about him, let him not waste +his time in studying other men's records of what they have seen.] + +[Footnote 32: While Emerson's verse is frequently unmusical, in his +prose we often find passages like this instinct with the fairest +poetry.] + +[Footnote 33: Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400). The father of English +poetry. Chaucer's chief work is the "Canterbury Tales," a series of +stories told by pilgrims traveling in company to Canterbury. +Coleridge, the poet, wrote of Chaucer: "I take unceasing delight in +Chaucer; his manly cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my +old age. How exquisitely tender he is, yet how free from the least +touch of sickly melancholy or morbid drooping." Chaucer's poetry is +above all things fresh. It breathes of the morning of literature. Like +Homer he had at his command all the riches of a new language undefiled +by usage from which to choose. + + "Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, + On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled." + +] + +[Footnote 34: Andrew Marvell (1620-1678). An eminent English patriot +and satirist. As a writer he is chiefly known by his "Rehearsal +Transposed," written in answer to a fanatical defender of absolute +power. When a young man he was assistant to the poet Milton, who was +then Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell. Marvell's wit and +distinguished abilities rendered him formidable to the corrupt +administration of Charles II., who attempted without success to buy +his friendship. Emerson's literary perspective is a bit unusual when +he speaks of Marvell as "one of the great English poets." Marvell +hardly ranks with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton.] + +[Footnote 35: John Dryden (1631-1700). A celebrated English poet. +Early in life he wrote almost entirely for the stage and achieved +great success. In the latter part of his life, however, according to +Macaulay, he "turned his powers in a new direction with success the +most splendid and decisive. The first rank in poetry was beyond his +reach, but he secured the most honorable place in the second.... With +him died the secret of the old poetical diction of England,--the art +of producing rich effects by familiar words."] + +[Footnote 36: Plato (429-347 B.C.). One of the most illustrious +philosophers of all time. Probably no other philosopher has +contributed so much as Plato to the moral and intellectual training of +the human race. This pre-eminence is due not solely to his +transcendent intellect, but also in no small measure to his poetic +power and to that unrivaled grace of style which led the ancients to +say that if Jove should speak Greek he would speak like Plato. He was +a remarkable example of that universal culture of body and mind which +characterized the last period of ancient Greece. He was proficient in +every branch of art and learning and was such a brilliant athlete that +he contended in the Isthmian and Pythian games.] + +[Footnote 37: Gowns. The black gown worn occasionally in America and +always in England at the universities; the distinctive academic dress +is a cap and gown.] + +[Footnote 38: Pecuniary foundations. Gifts of money for the support of +institutions of learning.] + +[Footnote 39: Wit is here used in its early sense of intellect, good +understanding.] + +[Footnote 40: Valetudinarian. A person of a weak, sickly +constitution.] + +[Footnote 41: Mincing. Affected.] + +[Footnote 42: Preamble. A preface or introduction.] + +[Footnote 43: Dumb abyss. That vast immensity of the universe about us +which we can never understand.] + +[Footnote 44: I comprehend its laws; I lose my fear of it.] + +[Footnote 45: Silkworms feed on mulberry-leaves. Emerson describes +what science calls "unconscious cerebration."] + +[Footnote 46: Ripe fruit. Emerson's ripe fruit found its way into his +diary, where it lay until he needed it in the preparation of some +lecture or essay.] + +[Footnote 47: I. Corinthians xv. 53.] + +[Footnote 48: Empyrean. The region of pure light and fire; the ninth +heaven of ancient astronomy. + + "The deep-domed empyrean + Rings to the roar of an angel onset." + +] + +[Footnote 49: Ferules. According to the methods of education fifty +years ago, it was quite customary for the teacher to punish a +school-child with his ferule or ruler.] + +[Footnote 50: Oliver Wendell Holmes cites this last sentence as the +most extreme development of the distinctively Emersonian style. Such +things must be read not too literally but rapidly, with alert +attention to what the previous train of thought has been.] + +[Footnote 51: Savoyards. The people of Savoy, south of Lake Geneva in +Switzerland.] + +[Footnote 52: Emerson's style is characterized by the frequent use of +pithy epigrams like this.] + +[Footnote 53: Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). A great English +philosopher and mathematician. He is famous as having discovered the +law of gravitation.] + +[Footnote 54: Unhandselled. Uncultivated, without natural advantages. +A handsel is a gift.] + +[Footnote 55: Druids. The ancient priesthood of the Britons in Caesar's +time. They had immense power among these primitive peoples. They were +the judges as well as the priests and decided all questions. It is +believed that they made human sacrifices to their gods in the depths +of the primeval forest, but not much is known of their rites.] + +[Footnote 56: Berserkers. Berserker was a redoubtable hero in +Scandinavian mythology, the grandson of the eight-handed Starkodder +and the beautiful Alfhilde. He had twelve sons who inherited the +wild-battle frenzy, or berserker rage. The sagas, the great +Scandinavian epics, are full of stories of heroes who are seized with +this fierce longing for battle, murder, and sudden death. The name +means bear-shirt and has been connected with the old _were-wolf_ +tradition, the myth that certain people were able to change into +man-devouring wolves with a wolfish mad desire to rend and kill.] + +[Footnote 57: Alfred, surnamed the Great (848-901), king of the West +Saxons in England. When he ascended the throne his country was in a +deplorable condition from the repeated inroads of northern invaders. +He eventually drove them out and established a secure government. +England owes much to the efforts of Alfred. He not only fought his +country's battles, but also founded schools, translated Latin books +into his native tongue, and did much for the intellectual improvement +of his people.] + +[Footnote 58: The hoe and the spade. "In spite of Emerson's habit of +introducing the names of agricultural objects into his writing ('Hay, +corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool, and wood' is a line from one of +his poems), his familiarity therewith is evidently not so great as he +would lead one to imagine. 'Take care, papa,' cried his little son, +seeing him at work with a spade, 'you will dig your leg.'"] + +[Footnote 59: John Flamsteed (1646-1719). An eminent English +astronomer. He appears to have been the first to understand the theory +of the equation of time. He passed his life in patient observation and +determined the position of 2884 stars.] + +[Footnote 60: Sir William Herschel (1738-1822). One of the greatest +astronomers that any age or nation has produced. Brought up to the +profession of music, it was not until he was thirty years old that he +turned his attention to astronomy. By rigid economy he obtained a +telescope, and in 1781 discovered the planet Uranus. This great +discovery gave him great fame and other substantial advantages. He was +made private astronomer to the king and received a pension. His +discoveries were so far in advance of his time, they had so little +relation with those of his predecessors, that he may almost be said +to have created a new science by revealing the immensity of the scale +on which the universe is constructed.] + +[Footnote 61: Nebulous. In astronomy a nebula is a luminous patch in +the heavens far beyond the solar system, composed of a mass of stars +or condensed gases.] + +[Footnote 62: Fetich. The word seems to have been applied by +Portuguese sailors and traders on the west coast of Africa to objects +worshiped by the natives, which were regarded as charms or talismans. +Of course the word here means an object of blind admiration and +devotion.] + +[Footnote 63: Cry up, to praise, extol.] + +[Footnote 64: Ancient and honorable. Isaiah ix. 15.] + +[Footnote 65: Complement. What is needed to complete or fill up some +quantity or thing.] + +[Footnote 66: Signet. Seal. Emerson is not always felicitous in his +choice of metaphors.] + +[Footnote 67: Macdonald. In Cervantes' "Don Quixote," Sancho Panza, +the squire to the "knight of the metaphysical countenance," tells a +story of a gentleman who had asked a countryman to dine with him. The +farmer was pressed to take his seat at the head of the table, and when +he refused out of politeness to his host, the latter became impatient +and cried: "Sit there, clod-pate, for let me sit wherever I will, that +will still be the upper end, and the place of worship to thee." This +saying is commonly attributed to Rob Roy, but Emerson with his usual +inaccuracy in such matters places it in the mouth of Macdonald,--which +Macdonald is uncertain.] + +[Footnote 68: Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778). A great Swedish botanist. +He did much to make botany the orderly science it now is.] + +[Footnote 69: Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829). The most famous of English +chemists. The most important to mankind of his many discoveries was +the safety-lamp to be used in mines where there is danger of explosion +from fire-damp.] + +[Footnote 70: Baron George Cuvier (1769-1832). An illustrious French +philosopher, statesman, and writer who made many discoveries in the +realm of natural history, geology and philosophy.] + +[Footnote 71: The moon. The tides are caused by the attraction of the +moon and the sun. The attraction of the moon for the water nearest the +moon is somewhat greater than the attraction of the earth's center. +This causes a slight bulging of the water toward the moon and a +consequent high tide.] + +[Footnote 72: Emerson frequently omits the principal verb of his +sentences as here: "In a century _there may exist_ one or two men."] + +[Footnote 73: This obscurely constructed sentence means: "For their +acquiescence in a political and social inferiority the poor and low +find some compensation in the immense moral capacity thereby gained."] + +[Footnote 74: "They" refers to the hero or poet mentioned some twenty +lines back.] + +[Footnote 75: Comprehendeth. Here used in the original sense _to +include_. The perfect man should be so thoroughly developed at every +point that he will possess a share in the nature of every man.] + +[Footnote 76: By the Classic age is generally meant the age of Greece +and Rome; and by the Romantic is meant the middle ages.] + +[Footnote 77: Introversion. Introspection is the more usual word to +express the analytic self-searching so common in these days.] + +[Footnote 78: Second thoughts. Emerson uses the word here in the same +sense as the French _arriere-pensee_, a mental reservation.] + +[Footnote 79: + + "And thus the native hue of resolution + Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." + _Hamlet_, Act III, Sc. 1. + +] + +[Footnote 80: Movement. The French Revolution.] + +[Footnote 81: Let every common object be credited with the diviner +attributes which will class it among others of the same importance.] + +[Footnote 82: Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774). An eminent English poet +and writer. He is best known by the comedy "She Stoops to Conquer," +the poem "The Deserted Village," and the "Vicar of Wakefield." "Of all +romances in miniature," says Schlegel, the great German critic, "the +'Vicar of Wakefield' is the most exquisite." It is probably the most +popular English work of fiction in Germany.] + +[Footnote 83: Robert Burns (1759-1796). A celebrated Scottish poet. +The most striking characteristics of Burns' poetry are simplicity and +intensity, in which he is scarcely, if at all, inferior to any of the +greatest poets that have ever lived.] + +[Footnote 84: William Cowper (1731-1800). One of the most popular of +English poets. His poem "The Task" was probably more read in his day +than any poem of equal length in the language. Cowper also made an +excellent translation of Homer.] + +[Footnote 85: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). The most +illustrious name in German literature; a great poet, dramatist, +novelist, philosopher, and critic. The Germans regard Goethe with the +same veneration we accord to Shakespeare. The colossal drama "Faust" +is the most splendid product of his genius, though he wrote a large +number of other plays and poems.] + +[Footnote 86: William Wordsworth (1770-1850). By many considered the +greatest of modern English poets. His descriptions of the ever-varying +moods of nature are the most exquisite in the language. Matthew Arnold +in his essay on Emerson says: "As Wordsworth's poetry is, in my +judgment, the most important work done in verse in our language during +the present century, so Emerson's 'Essays' are, I think, the most +important work done in prose."] + +[Footnote 87: Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). A famous English essayist, +historian, and speculative philosopher. It is scarcely too much to say +that no other author of this century has exerted a greater influence +not merely upon the literature but upon the mind of the English nation +than Carlyle. Emerson was an intimate friend of Carlyle, and during +the greater part of his life maintained a correspondence with the +great Englishman. An interesting description of their meeting will be +found among the "Critical Opinions" at the beginning of the work.] + +[Footnote 88: Alexander Pope (1688-1744). The author of the "Essay on +Criticism," "Rape of the Lock," the "Essay on Man," and other famous +poems. Pope possessed little originality or creative imagination, but +he had a vivid sense of the beautiful and an exquisite taste. He owed +much of his popularity to the easy harmony of his verse and the +keenness of his satire.] + +[Footnote 89: Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). One of the eminent writers +of the eighteenth century. He wrote "Lives of the Poets," poems, and +probably the most remarkable work of the kind ever produced by a +single person, an English dictionary.] + +[Footnote 90: Edward Gibbon (1737-1794). One of the most distinguished +of English historians. His great work is the "Decline and Fall of the +Roman Empire." Carlyle called Gibbon, "the splendid bridge from the +old world to the new."] + +[Footnote 91: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). A great Swedish +theologian, naturalist, and mathematician, and the founder of a +religious sect which has since his death become prominent among the +philosophical schools of Christianity.] + +[Footnote 92: Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827). A Swiss teacher +and educational reformer of great influence in his time.] + + +COMPENSATION + +[Footnote 93: These lines are printed under the title of +_Compensation_ in Emerson's collected poems. He has also another poem +of eight lines with the same title.] + +[Footnote 94: Documents, data, facts.] + +[Footnote 95: This doctrine, which a little observation would confute, +is still taught by some.] + +[Footnote 96: Doubloons, Spanish and South American gold coins of the +value of about $15.60 each.] + +[Footnote 97: Polarity, that quality or condition of a body by virtue +of which it exhibits opposite or contrasted properties in opposite or +contrasted directions.] + +[Footnote 98: Systole and diastole, the contraction and dilation of +the heart and arteries.] + +[Footnote 99: They are increased and consequently want more.] + +[Footnote 100: Intenerate, soften.] + +[Footnote 101: White House, the popular name of the presidential +mansion at Washington.] + +[Footnote 102: Explain the phrase _eat dust_.] + +[Footnote 103: Overlook, oversee, superintend.] + +[Footnote 104: Res nolunt, etc. Translated in the previous sentence.] + +[Footnote 105: The world ... dew. Explain the thought. What gives the +earth its shape?] + +[Footnote 106: The microscope ... little. This statement is not in +accordance with the facts, if we are to understand _perfect_ in the +sense which the next sentence would suggest.] + +[Footnote 107: Emerson has been considered a pantheist.] + +[Footnote 108: _[Greek: Hoi kyboi]_, etc. The translation follows in +the text. This old proverb is quoted by Sophocles, (Fragm. LXXIV.2) in +the form: + + [Greek: Aei gar eu piptousin oi Dios kyboi], + +Emerson uses it in _Nature_ in the form "Nature's dice are always +loaded."] + +[Footnote 109: Amain, with full force, vigorously.] + +[Footnote 110: The proverb is quoted by Horace, Epistles, I, X.24: + + "Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret." + +A similar thought is expressed by Juvenal, Seneca, Cicero, and +Aristophanes.] + +[Footnote 111: Augustine, Confessions, B. I.] + +[Footnote 112: Jupiter, the supreme god of the Romans, the Zeus of the +Greeks.] + +[Footnote 113: Tying up the hands. The expression is used +figuratively, of course.] + +[Footnote 114: The supreme power in England is vested in Parliament.] + +[Footnote 115: Prometheus stole fire from heaven to benefit the race +of men. In punishment for this Jupiter chained him to a rock and set +an eagle to prey upon his liver. Some unknown and terrible danger +threatened Jupiter, the secret of averting which only Prometheus knew. +For this secret Jupiter offered him his freedom.] + +[Footnote 116: Minerva, goddess of wisdom, who sprang full-armed from +the brain of Jupiter. The secret which she held is told in the +following lines.] + +[Footnote 117: Aurora, goddess of the dawn. Enamored of Tithonus, she +persuaded Jupiter to grant him immortality, but forgot to ask for him +immortal youth. Read Tennyson's poem on _Tithonus_.] + +[Footnote 118: Achilles, the hero of Homer's _Iliad_. His mother +Thetis, to render him invulnerable, plunged him into the waters of the +Styx. The heel by which she held him was not washed by the waters and +remained vulnerable. Here he received a mortal wound.] + +[Footnote 119: Siegfried, hero of the Nibelungenlied, the old German +epic poem. Having slain a dragon, he bathed in its blood and became +covered with an invulnerable horny hide, only one small spot between +his shoulders which was covered by a leaf remaining vulnerable. Into +this spot the treacherous Hagen plunged his lance.] + +[Footnote 120: Nemesis, a Greek female deity, goddess of retribution, +who visited the righteous anger of the gods upon mortals.] + +[Footnote 121: The Furies or Eumenides, stern and inexorable ministers +of the vengeance of the gods.] + +[Footnote 122: Ajax and Hector, Greek and Trojan heroes in the Trojan +War. See Homer's _Iliad_. Achilles slew Hector and, lashing him to his +chariot with the belt which Ajax had given Hector, dragged him round +the walls of Troy. Ajax committed suicide with the sword which Hector +had presented to him.] + +[Footnote 123: Thasians, inhabitants of the island of Thasus. The +story here told of the rival of the athlete Theagenes is found in +Pausanias' _Description of Greece_, Book VI. chap. XI.] + +[Footnote 124: Shakespeare, the greatest of English writers, seems to +have succeeded entirely or almost entirely in removing the personal +element from his writings.] + +[Footnote 125: Hellenic, Greek.] + +[Footnote 126: Tit for tat, etc. This paragraph is composed of a +series of proverbs.] + +[Footnote 127: Edmund Burke (1729?-1797), illustrious Irish statesman, +orator, and author.] + +[Footnote 128: Pawns, the pieces of lowest rank in chess.] + +[Footnote 129: What is the meaning of _obscene_ here? Compare the +Latin.] + +[Footnote 130: Polycrates, a tyrant of Samos, who was visited with +such remarkable prosperity that he was advised by a friend to break +the course of it by depriving himself of some valued possession. In +accordance with this advice he cast into the sea an emerald ring which +he considered his rarest treasure. A few days later a fisherman +presented the monarch with a large fish inside of which the ring was +found. Soon after this Polycrates fell into the power of an enemy and +was nailed to a cross.] + +[Footnote 131: Scot and lot, "formerly, a parish assessment laid on +subjects according to their ability. Now, a phrase for obligations of +every kind regarded collectively." (Webster.)] + +[Footnote 132: Read Emerson's essay on _Gifts_.] + +[Footnote 133: Worm worms, breed worms.] + +[Footnote 134: Compare the old proverb "Murder will out." See Chaucer, +_N.P.T._, 232 and 237, and _Pr. T._, 124.] + +[Footnote 135: + +"Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum." + HORACE, _EPIST._, I. XVIII. 65. + +] + +[Footnote 136: Stag in the fable. See _AEsop_, LXVI. 184, _Cerva et +Leo_; Phaedrus I. 12. _Cervus ad fontem_; La Fontaine, vi. 9, _Le Cerf +se Voyant dans l'eau_.] + +[Footnote 137: See the quotation from St. Bernard farther on.] + +[Footnote 138: Withholden, old participle of _withhold_, now +_withheld_.] + +[Footnote 139: What is the etymology of the word _mob_?] + +[Footnote 140: Optimism and Pessimism. The meanings of these two +opposites are readily made out from the Latin words from which they +come.] + +[Footnote 141: St. Bernard de Clairvaux (1091-1153), French +ecclesiastic.] + +[Footnote 142: Jesus. Holmes writes of Emerson: "Jesus was for him a +divine manifestation, but only as other great human souls have been in +all ages and are to-day. He was willing to be called a Christian just +as he was willing to be called a Platonist.... If he did not worship +the 'man Christ Jesus' as the churches of Christendom have done, he +followed his footsteps so nearly that our good Methodist, Father +Taylor, spoke of him as more like Christ than any man he had known."] + +[Footnote 143: The first _his_ refers to Jesus, the second to +Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 144: Banyan. What is the characteristic of this tree that +makes it appropriate for this figure?] + + +SELF-RELIANCE + +[Footnote 145: Ne te, etc. "Do not seek for anything outside of +thyself." From Persius, _Sat._ I. 7. Compare Macrobius, _Com. in Somn. +Scip._, I. ix. 3, and Boethius, _De Consol. Phil._, IV. 4.] + +[Footnote 146: _Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's +Fortune_.] + +[Footnote 147: These lines appear in Emerson's _Quatrains_ under the +title _Power_.] + +[Footnote 148: Genius. See the paragraph on genius in Emerson's +lecture on _The Method of Nature_, one sentence of which runs: "Genius +is its own end, and draws its means and the style of its architecture +from within, going abroad only for audience, and spectator."] + +[Footnote 149: "The man that stands by himself, the universe stands by +him also."--EMERSON, _Behavior_.] + +[Footnote 150: Plato (429-347 B.C.), (See note 36.)] + +[Footnote 151: Milton (1608-1674), the great English epic poet, author +of _Paradise Lost._ + + "O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies, + O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity, + God-gifted organ-voice of England, + Milton, a name to resound for ages."--TENNYSON. + +] + +[Footnote 152: "The great poet makes feel our own wealth."--EMERSON, +_The Over-Soul_.] + +[Footnote 153: Then most when, most at the time when.] + +[Footnote 154: "The imitator dooms himself to hopeless +mediocrity."--EMERSON, _Address to the Senior Class in Divinity +College, Cambridge_.] + +[Footnote 155: + + "For words, like Nature, half reveal + And half conceal the soul within." + TENNYSON, _In Memoriam_, V. I. + +] + +[Footnote 156: Trust thyself. This is the theme of the present essay, +and is a lesson which Emerson is never tired of teaching. In _The +American Scholar_ he says: + +"In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended." In the essay on +_Greatness_: + +"Self-respect is the early form in which greatness appears.... Stick +to your own.... Follow the path your genius traces like the galaxy of +heaven for you to walk in." + +Carlyle says: + + "The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself." + +] + +[Footnote 157: Chaos ([Greek: Chaos]), the confused, unorganized +condition in which the world was supposed to have existed before it +was reduced to harmony and order; hence, utter confusion and +disorder.] + +[Footnote 158: These, _i.e._, children, babes, and brutes.] + +[Footnote 159: Four or five. Supply the noun.] + +[Footnote 160: Nonchalance, a French word meaning _indifference_, +_coolness_.] + +[Footnote 161: Pit in the playhouse, formerly, the seats on the floor +below the level of the stage. These cheap seats were occupied by a +class who did not hesitate to express their opinions of the +performances.] + +[Footnote 162: Eclat, a French word meaning _brilliancy of success_, +_striking effect_.] + +[Footnote 163: "Lethe, the river of oblivion."--_Paradise Lost_. +Oblivion, forgetfulness.] + +[Footnote 164: Who. What is the construction?] + +[Footnote 165: Nonconformist, one who does not conform to established +usages or opinions. Emerson considers conformity and consistency as +the two terrors that scare us from self-trust. (See note 182.)] + +[Footnote 166: Explore if it be goodness, investigate for himself and +see if it be really goodness. + + "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." + PAUL, _I. Thes._ v. 21. + +] + +[Footnote 167: Suffrage, approval. + + "What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted? + Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just; + And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, + Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted." + SHAKESPEARE, _II. Henry VI._, III. 2. + +] + +[Footnote 168: "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking +makes it so." _Hamlet_, II. 2.] + +[Footnote 169: Barbadoes, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, one of the +Lesser Antilles. The negroes, composing by far the larger part of the +population, were formerly slaves.] + +[Footnote 170: He had rather have his actions ascribed to whim and +caprice than to spend the day in explaining them.] + +[Footnote 171: Diet and bleeding, special diet and medical care, used +figuratively, of course.] + +[Footnote 172: Read Emerson's essay on _Greatness_.] + +[Footnote 173: The precise man, precisely what kind of man.] + +[Footnote 174: "By their fruits ye shall know them."--_Matthew_, vii. +16 and 20.] + +[Footnote 175: With, notwithstanding, in spite of.] + +[Footnote 176: Of the bench, of an impartial judge.] + +[Footnote 177: Bound their eyes with ... handkerchief, in this game of +blindman's-buff.] + +[Footnote 178: "Pin thy faith to no man's sleeve; hast thou not two +eyes of thy own?"--CARLYLE.] + +[Footnote 179: Give examples of men who have been made to feel the +displeasure of the world for their nonconformity.] + +[Footnote 180: "Nihil tam incertum nec tam inaestimabile est quam animi +multitudinis."--LIVY, xxxi. 34. + + "Mobile mutatur semper cum principe vulgus." + CLAUDIANUS, _De IV. Consul. Honorii_, 302. + +] + +[Footnote 181: _The other terror._ The first, conformity, has just +been treated.] + +[Footnote 182: Consistency. Compare, on the other hand, the well-known +saying, "Consistency, thou art a jewel."] + +[Footnote 183: Orbit, course in life.] + +[Footnote 184: Somewhat, something.] + +[Footnote 185: See _Genesis_, xxxix. 12.] + +[Footnote 186: Pythagoras (fl. about 520 B.C.), a Greek philosopher. +His society was scattered and persecuted by the fury of the populace.] + +[Footnote 187: Socrates (470?-399 B.C.), the great Athenian +philosopher, whose teachings are the subject of most of Plato's +writings, was accused of corrupting the youth, and condemned to drink +hemlock.] + +[Footnote 188: Martin Luther (1483-1546) preached against certain +abuses of the Roman Catholic Church and was excommunicated by the +Pope. He became the leader of the Protestant Reformation.] + +[Footnote 189: Copernicus (1473-1543) discovered the error of the old +Ptolemaic system of astronomy and showed that the sun is the centre of +our planetary system. Fearing the persecution of the church, he +hesitated long to publish his discovery, and it was many years after +his death before the world accepted his theory.] + +[Footnote 190: Galileo (1564-1642), the famous Italian astronomer and +physicist, discoverer of the satellites of Jupiter and the rings of +Saturn, was thrown into prison by the Inquisition.] + +[Footnote 191: Sir Isaac Newton. (See note 53.)] + +[Footnote 192: Andes, the great mountain system of South America.] + +[Footnote 193: Himmaleh, Himalaya, the great mountain system of Asia.] + +[Footnote 194: Alexandrian stanza. The Alexandrian line consists of +twelve syllables (iambic hexameter). Neither the acrostic nor the +Alexandrine has the property assigned to it here. A palindrame reads +the same forward as backward, as: + + "Madam, I'm Adam"; + "Signa te signa; temere me tangis et angis"; + +or the inscription on the church of St. Sophia, Constantinople: + + [Greek: "Nipson anomemata me monan opsin,"] + +] + +[Footnote 195: The reference is to sailing vessels, of course.] + +[Footnote 196: Scorn eyes, scorn observers.] + +[Footnote 197: Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), +this distinguished statesman and orator. He became very popular as a +statesman and was known as "The Great Commoner."] + +[Footnote 198: Adams. The reference is presumably to Samuel Adams +(1722-1803), a popular leader and orator in the cause of American +freedom. He was a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of +the Declaration of Independence. Emerson may have in mind, however, +John Adams (1735-1826), second president of the United States.] + +[Footnote 199: Spartan. The ancient Spartans were noted for their +courage and fortitude.] + +[Footnote 200: Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.), the great Roman general, +statesman, orator, and author.] + +[Footnote 201: St. Anthony (251-356), Egyptian founder of monachism, +the system of monastic seclusion.] + +[Footnote 202: George Fox (1624-1691), English founder of the Society +of Friends or Quakers.] + +[Footnote 203: John Wesley (1703-1791), English founder of the +religious sect known as Methodists.] + +[Footnote 204: Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846), English philanthropist and +abolitionist.] + +[Footnote 205: Scipio (235-184 B.C.), the great Roman general who +defeated Hannibal and decided the fate of Carthage. The quotation is +from _Paradise Lost_, Book IX., line 610.] + +[Footnote 206: In the story of _Abou Hassan_ or _The Sleeper Awakened_ +in the _Arabian Nights_ Abou Hassan awakes and finds himself treated +in every respect as the Caliph Haroun Al-raschid. Shakespeare has made +use of a similar trick in _Taming of the Shrew_, where Christopher Sly +is put to bed drunk in the lord's room and on awaking is treated as a +lord.] + +[Footnote 207: Alfred the Great (849-901), King of the West Saxons. He +was a wise king, a great scholar, and a patron of learning.] + +[Footnote 208: Scanderbeg, George Castriota (1404-1467), an Albanian +chief who embraced Christianity and carried on a successful war +against the Turks.] + +[Footnote 209: Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632), King of Sweden, the hero +of Protestantism in the Thirty Years' War.] + +[Footnote 210: Hieroglyphic, a character in the picture-writing of the +ancient Egyptian priests; hence, hidden sign.] + +[Footnote 211: Parallax, an angle used in astronomy in calculating the +distance of a heavenly body. The parallax decreases as the distance of +the body increases.] + +[Footnote 212: The child has the advantage of the experience of all +his ancestors. Compare Tennyson's line in _Locksley Hall_: + + "I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time." + +] + +[Footnote 213: "Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, +or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded +wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also."--EMERSON, _Introd. to Nature, +Addresses, etc._] + +[Footnote 214: Explain the thought in this sentence.] + +[Footnote 215: Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.] + +[Footnote 216: Agent, active, acting.] + +[Footnote 217: An allusion to the Mohammedan custom of removing the +shoes before entering a mosque.] + +[Footnote 218: Of a truth, men are mystically united; a mystic bond of +brotherhood makes all men one.] + +[Footnote 219: Thor and Woden. Woden or Odin was the chief god of +Scandinavian mythology. Thor, his elder son, was the god of thunder. +From these names come the names of the days Wednesday and Thursday.] + +[Footnote 220: Explain the meaning of this sentence.] + +[Footnote 221: You, or you, addressing different persons.] + +[Footnote 222: "The truth shall make you free."--_John_, viii. 32.] + +[Footnote 223: Antinomianism, the doctrine that the moral law is not +binding under the gospel dispensation, faith alone being necessary to +salvation.] + +[Footnote 224: "There is no sorrow I have thought more about than +that--to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail." + GEORGE ELIOT, _Middlemarch_, lxxvi.] + +[Footnote 225: Explain the use of _it_ in these expressions.] + +[Footnote 226: Stoic, a disciple of the Greek philosopher Zeno, who +taught that men should be free from passion, unmoved by joy and grief, +and should submit without complaint to the inevitable.] + +[Footnote 227: Word made flesh, see _John_, i. 14.] + +[Footnote 228: Healing to the nations, see _Revelation_, xxii. 2.] + +[Footnote 229: In what prayers do men allow themselves to indulge?] + +[Footnote 230: + + "Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, + Uttered or unexpressed, + The motion of a hidden fire + That trembles in the breast." + MONTGOMERY, _What is Prayer?_ +] + +[Footnote 231: Caratach (Caractacus) is a historical character in +Fletcher's (1576-1625) tragedy of _Bonduca_(Boadicea).] + +[Footnote 232: Zoroaster, a Persian philosopher, founder of the +ancient Persian religion. He flourished long before the Christian +era.] + +[Footnote 233: "Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God +speak with us, lest we die."--_Exodus_, xx. 19. Compare also the +parallel passage in _Deuteronomy_, v. 25-27.] + +[Footnote 234: John Locke. (See note 18.)] + +[Footnote 235: Lavoisier (1743-1794), celebrated French chemical +philosopher, discoverer of the composition of water.] + +[Footnote 236: James Hutton (1726-1797), great Scotch geologist, +author of the _Theory of the Earth_.] + +[Footnote 237: Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), English philosopher, +jurist, and legislative reformer.] + +[Footnote 238: Fourier (1772-1837), French socialist, founder of the +system of Fourierism.] + +[Footnote 239: Calvinism, the doctrines of John Calvin (1509-1564). +French theologian and Protestant reformer. A cardinal doctrine of +Calvinism is predestination.] + +[Footnote 240: Quakerism, the doctrines of the Quakers or Friends, a +society founded by George Fox (1624-1691).] + +[Footnote 241: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), Swedish theosophist, +founder of the New Jerusalem Church. He is taken by Emerson in his +_Representative Men_ as the type of the mystic, and is often mentioned +in his other works.] + +[Footnote 242: "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, +we must carry it with us, or we find it not."--EMERSON, _Art_.] + +[Footnote 243: Thebes, a celebrated ruined city of Upper Egypt.] + +[Footnote 244: Palmyra, a ruined city of Asia situated in an oasis of +the Syrian desert, supposed to be the Tadmor built by Solomon in the +wilderness (_II. Chr._, viii. 4).] + +[Footnote 245: + + "Vain, very vain, my weary search to find + That bliss which only centers in the mind.... + Still to ourselves in every place consign'd, + Our own felicity we make or find." + GOLDSMITH (and JOHNSON), + _The Traveler_, 423-32. + + "He that has light within his own clear breast + May sit i' th' center, and enjoy bright day; + But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, + Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; + Himself in his own dungeon." + MILTON, _Comus_, 381-5. + +Compare also _Paradise Lost_, I, 255-7.] + +[Footnote 246: Vatican, the palace of the pope in Rome, with its +celebrated library, museum, and art gallery.] + +[Footnote 247: Doric, the oldest, strongest, and simplest of the three +styles of Grecian architecture.] + +[Footnote 248: Gothic, a pointed style of architecture, prevalent in +western Europe in the latter part of the middle ages.] + +[Footnote 249: Never imitate. Emerson insists on this doctrine.] + +[Footnote 250: Shakespeare (1564-1616), the great English poet and +dramatist. He is mentioned in Emerson's writings more than any other +character in history, and is taken as the type of the poet in his +_Representative Men_. + +"O mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and +merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, +like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,--like frost and +snow, rain and dew, hailstorm and thunder, which are to be studied +with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith +that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless +or inert,--but that, the further we press in our discoveries, the more +we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where +the careless eye had seen nothing but accident!"--DE QUINCY.] + +[Footnote 251: Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), American philosopher, +statesman, diplomatist, and author. He discovered the identity of +lightning with electricity, invented the lightning-rod, went on +several diplomatic missions to Europe, was one of the committee that +drew up the Declaration of Independence, signed the treaty of Paris, +and compiled _Poor Richard's Almanac_.] + +[Footnote 252: Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a famous English philosopher +and statesman. He became Lord Chancellor under Elizabeth. He is best +known by his _Essays_; he wrote also the _Novum Organum_ and the +_Advancement of Learning_.] + +[Footnote 253: Sir Isaac Newton. (See note 53.)] + +[Footnote 254: Scipio. (See note 205.)] + +[Footnote 255: Phidias (500?-432? B.C.), famous Greek sculptor.] + +[Footnote 256: Egyptians. He has in mind the pyramids.] + +[Footnote 257: The Pentateuch is attributed to Moses.] + +[Footnote 258: Dante (1265-1321), the greatest of Italian poets, +author of the _Divina Commedia_.] + +[Footnote 259: Foreworld, a former ideal state of the world.] + +[Footnote 260: New Zealander, inhabitant of New Zealand, a group of +two islands lying southeast of Australia.] + +[Footnote 261: Geneva, a city of Switzerland, situated at the +southwestern extremity of Lake Geneva.] + +[Footnote 262: Greenwich nautical almanac. The meridian of the Royal +Observatory at Greenwich, near London, is the prime meridian for +reckoning the longitude of the world. The nautical almanac is a +publication containing astronomical data for the use of navigators and +astronomers. What is the name of the corresponding publication of the +U.S. Observatory at Washington?] + +[Footnote 263: Get the meaning of these astronomical terms.] + +[Footnote 264: Plutarch. (50?-120? A.D.), Greek philosopher and +biographer, author of _Parallel Lives_, a series of Greek and Roman +biographies. Next after Shakespeare and Plato he is the author most +frequently mentioned by Emerson. Read the essay of Emerson on +Plutarch.] + +[Footnote 265: Phocion (402-317 B.C.), Athenian statesman and general. +(See note 364.)] + +[Footnote 266: Anaxagoras (500-426 B.C.), Greek philosopher of +distinction.] + +[Footnote 267: Diogenes (400?-323?), Greek cynic philosopher who +affected great contempt for riches and honors and the comforts of +civilized life, and is said to have taken up his residence in a tub.] + + +[Footnote 268: Henry Hudson (---- - 1611), English navigator and +explorer, discoverer of the bay and river which bear his name.] + +[Footnote 269: Bering or Behring (1680-1741), Danish navigator, +discoverer of Behring Strait.] + +[Footnote 270: Sir William Edward Parry (1790-1855), English navigator +and Arctic explorer.] + +[Footnote 271: Sir John Franklin (1786-1846?), celebrated English +navigator and Arctic explorer, lost in the Arctic seas.] + +[Footnote 272: Christopher Columbus (1445?-1506), Genoese navigator +and discoverer of America. His ship, the Santa Maria, appears small +and insignificant in comparison with the modern ocean ship.] + +[Footnote 273: Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), Emperor of France, one +of the greatest military geniuses the world has ever seen. He was +defeated in the battle of Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington, and died +in exile on the isle of St. Helena. Emerson takes him as a type of the +man of the world in his _Representative Men_: "I call Napoleon the +agent or attorney of the middle class of modern society.... He was the +agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the internal improver, the +liberal, the radical, the inventor of means, the opener of doors and +markets, the subverter of monopoly and abuse.... He had the virtues of +the masses of his constituents: he had also their vices. I am sorry +that the brilliant picture has its reverse."] + +[Footnote 274: Comte de las Cases (not Casas) (1766-1842), author of +_Memorial de Sainte-Helene_.] + +[Footnote 275: Ali, Arabian caliph, surnamed the "Lion of God," cousin +and son-in-law of Mohammed. He was assassinated about 661.] + +[Footnote 276: The county of Essex in England has several namesakes in +America.] + +[Footnote 277: Fortune. In Roman mythology Fortune, the goddess of +fortune or chance, is represented as standing on a ball or wheel. + + "Nec metuis dubio Fortunae stantis in orbe + Numen, et exosae verba superba deae?" + OVID, _Tristia_, v., 8, 8. + +] + + +FRIENDSHIP + +[Footnote 278: Most of Emerson's _Essays_ were first delivered as +lectures, in practically the form in which they afterwards appeared in +print. The form and style, it is true, were always carefully revised +before publication; this Emerson called 'giving his thoughts a Greek +dress.' His essay on _Friendship_, published in the First Series of +_Essays_ in 1841 was not, so far as we know, delivered as a lecture; +parts of it, however, were taken from lectures which Emerson delivered +on _Society_, _The Heart_, and _Private Life_. + +In connection with his essay on _Friendship_, the student should read +the two other notable addresses on the same subject, one the speech by +Cicero, the famous Roman orator, and the other the essay by Lord +Bacon, the great English author.] + +[Footnote 279: Relume. Is this a common word? Define it.] + +[Footnote 280: Pass my gate. The walk opposite Emerson's house on the +'Great Road' to Boston was a favorite winter walk for Concord people. +Along it passed the philosophic Alcott and the imaginative Hawthorne, +as well as famous townsmen, and school children.] + +[Footnote 281: My friends have come to me, etc.: Compare with +Emerson's views here expressed the noble passage in his essay on _The +Over-Soul_: "Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great +and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And +this because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a +wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood +rolls uninterruptedly in endless circulation through all men, as the +water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one."] + +[Footnote 282: Bard. Poet: originally one who composed and sang to the +music of a harp verses in honor of heroes and heroic deeds.] + +[Footnote 283: Hymn, ode, and epic. Define each of these three kinds +of poetry.] + +[Footnote 284: Apollo. In classic mythology, the sun god who presided +over music, poetry, and art; he was the guardian and leader of the +Muses.] + +[Footnote 285: Muses. In classic mythology, the nine sisters who +presided over music, poetry, art, and science. They were Clio the muse +of history, Euterpe of music, especially the flute, Thalia of comedy, +Melpomene of tragedy, Terpsichore of dancing, Erato of erotic poetry, +mistress of the lyre, Polyhymnia of sacred poetry, Urania of +astronomy, Calliope of eloquence and epic poetry.] + +[Footnote 286: Genius. According to an old belief, a spirit that +watched over a person to control, guide and aid him.] + +[Footnote 287: "Crush the sweet poison," etc. This is a quotation from +_Comus_, a poem by Milton.] + +[Footnote 288: Systole and diastole. (See note 98.)] + +[Footnote 289: Friendship, like the immortality, etc. See on what a +high plane Emerson places this relation of friendship. In 1840 he +wrote in a letter: "I am a worshiper of friendship, and cannot find +any other good equal to it. As soon as any man pronounces the words +which approve him fit for that great office, I make no haste; he is +holy; let me be holy also; our relations are eternal; why should we +count days and weeks?"] + +[Footnote 290: Elysian temple. Temple of bliss. In Greek mythology, +Elysium was the abode of the blessed after death.] + +[Footnote 291: An Egyptian skull. Plutarch says that at an Egyptian +feast a skull was displayed, either as a hint to make the most of the +pleasure which can be enjoyed but for a brief space, or as a warning +not to set one's heart upon transitory things.] + +[Footnote 292: Conscious of a universal success, etc. Emerson wrote in +his journal: "My entire success, such as it is, is composed wholly of +particular failures."] + +[Footnote 293: Extends the old leaf. Compare Emerson's lines: + + "When half-gods go + The gods arrive." + +] + +[Footnote 294: A texture of wine and dreams. What does Emerson mean by +this phrase? Explain the whole sentence.] + +[Footnote 295: "The valiant warrior," etc. The quotation is from +Shakespeare's _Sonnet_, XXV.] + +[Footnote 296: Naturlangsamkeit. A German word meaning slowness. The +slowness of natural development.] + +[Footnote 297: Olympian. One who took part in the great Greek games +held every four years on the plain of Olympia. The racing, wrestling +and other contests of strength and skill were accompanied by +sacrifices to the gods, processions, and banquets. There was a sense +of dignity and almost of worship about the games. The Olympic games +have been recently revived, and athletes from all countries of the +world contest for the prizes--simple garlands of wild olive.] + +[Footnote 298: I knew a man who, etc. The allusion is to Jonas Very, a +mystic and poet, who lived at Salem, Massachusetts.] + +[Footnote 299: Paradox. Define this word. Explain its application to a +friend.] + +[Footnote 300: My author says, etc. The quotation is from _A +Consideration upon Cicero_, by the French author, Montaigne. Montaigne +was one of Emerson's favorite authors from his boyhood: of the essays +he says, "I felt as if I myself, had written this book in some former +life, so sincerely it spoke my thoughts."] + +[Footnote 301: Cherub. What is the difference between a cherub and a +seraph?] + +[Footnote 302: Curricle. A two-wheeled carriage, especially popular in +the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 303: This law of one to one. Emerson felt that this same law +applied to nature. He wrote in his journal: "Nature says to man, 'one +to one, my dear.'"] + +[Footnote 304: Crimen quos, etc. The Latin saying is translated in +the preceding sentence.] + +[Footnote 305: Nonage. We use more commonly the word, "minority."] + +[Footnote 306: Janus-faced. The word here means simply two-faced, +without the idea of deceit usually attached to it. In Roman mythology, +Janus, the doorkeeper of heaven was the protector of doors and +gateways and the patron of the beginning and end of undertakings. He +was the god of the rising and setting of the sun, and was represented +with two faces, one looking to the east and the other to the west. His +temple at Rome was kept open in time of war and closed in time of +peace.] + +[Footnote 307: Harbinger. A forerunner; originally an officer who rode +in advance of a royal person to secure proper lodgings and +accommodations.] + +[Footnote 308: Empyrean. Highest and purest heaven; according to the +ancients, the region of pure light and fire.] + + +HEROISM + +[Footnote 309: Title. Probably this essay is, essentially at least, +the lecture on _Heroism_ delivered in Boston in the winter of 1837, in +the course of lectures on _Human Culture_.] + +[Footnote 310: Motto. This saying of Mahomet's was the only motto +prefixed to the essay in the first edition. In later editions, Emerson +prefixed, according to his custom, some original lines; + + "Ruby wine is drunk by knaves, + Sugar spends to fatten slaves, + Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons, + Thunder clouds are Jove's festoons, + Drooping oft in wreaths of dread + Lightning-knotted round his head: + The hero is not fed on sweets, + Daily his own heart he eats; + Chambers of the great are jails, + And head-winds right for royal sails." + +] + +[Footnote 311: Elder English dramatists. The dramatists who preceded +Shakespeare. In his essay on _Shakespeare; or, the Poet_, Emerson +enumerates the foremost of these,--"Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, Jonson, +Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Peele, Ford, Massinger, +Beaumont and Fletcher."] + +[Footnote 312: Beaumont and Fletcher. Francis Beaumont and John +Fletcher were two dramatists of the Elizabethan age. They wrote +together and their styles were so similar that critics are unable to +identify the share of each in their numerous plays.] + +[Footnote 313: Rodrigo, Pedro, or Valerio. Favorite names for heroes +among the dramatists. Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, known usually by the +title of the Cid, was the national hero of Spain, famous for his +exploits against the Moors. Don Pedro was the Prince of Arragon in +Shakespeare's play, _Much Ado About Nothing_.] + +[Footnote 314: Bonduca, Sophocles, the Mad Lover, and Double Marriage. +The first, third and fourth are names of plays by Beaumont and +Fletcher. In the case of the second, Emerson, by a lapse of memory, +gives the name of one of the chief characters instead of the name of +the play--_The Triumph of Honor_ in a piece called _Four Plays in +One_. It is from this play by Beaumont and Fletcher that the passage +in the essay is quoted.] + +[Footnote 315: Adriadne's crown. According to Greek mythology, the +crown of Adriadne was, for her beauty and her sufferings, put among +the stars. She was the daughter of Minos, King of Crete; she gave +Theseus the clue by means of which he escaped from the labyrinth and +she was afterwards abandoned by him.] + +[Footnote 316: Romulus. The reputed founder of the city of Rome.] + +[Footnote 317: Laodamia, Dion. Read these two poems by Wordsworth, the +great English poet, and tell why you think Emerson mentioned them +here.] + +[Footnote 318: Scott. Sir Walter Scott, a famous Scotch author.] + +[Footnote 319: Lord Evandale, Balfour of Burley. These are characters +in Scott's novel, _Old Mortality_. The passage referred to by Emerson +is in the forty-second chapter.] + +[Footnote 320: Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle was a great admirer of heroes, +asserting that history is the biography of great men. One of his most +popular books is _Heroes and Hero-Worship_, on a plan similar to that +of Emerson's _Representative Men_.] + +[Footnote 321: Robert Burns. A Scotch lyric poet. Emerson was probably +thinking of the patriotic song, _Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled_.] + +[Footnote 322: Harleian Miscellanies. A collection of manuscripts +published in the eighteenth century, and named for Robert Harley, the +English statesman who collected them.] + +[Footnote 323: Lutzen. A small town in Prussia. The battle referred to +was fought in 1632 and in it the Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus gained +a great victory over vastly superior numbers. Nearly two hundred years +later another battle was fought at Lutzen, in which Napoleon gained a +victory over the allied Russians and Prussians.] + +[Footnote 324: Simon Ockley. An English scholar of the seventeenth +century whose chief work was a _History of the Saracens_.] + +[Footnote 325: Oxford. One of the two great English universities.] + +[Footnote 326: Plutarch. (See note 264.)] + +[Footnote 327: Brasidas. This hero, described by Plutarch, was a +Spartan general who lived about four hundred years before Christ.] + +[Footnote 328: Dion. A Greek philosopher who ruled the city of +Syracuse in the fourth century before Christ.] + +[Footnote 329: Epaminondas. A Greek general and statesman of the +fourth century before Christ.] + +[Footnote 330: Scipio. (See note 205.)] + +[Footnote 331: Stoicism. The stern and severe philosophy taught by the +Greek philosopher Zeno; he taught that men should always seek virtue +and be indifferent to pleasure and happiness. This belief, carried to +the extreme of severity, exercised a great influence on many noble +Greeks and Romans.] + +[Footnote 332: Heroism is an obedience, etc. In one of his poems +Emerson says: + + "So nigh is grandeur to our dust, + So near is God to man, + When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' + The youth replies, 'I can.'" + +] + +[Footnote 333: Plotinus. An Egyptian philosopher who taught in Rome +during the third century. It was said that he so exalted the mind that +he was ashamed of his body.] + +[Footnote 334: Indeed these humble considerations, etc. The passage, +like many which Emerson quotes, is rendered inexactly. The Prince says +to Poins: "Indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with +my greatness. What a disgrace it is to me to remember thy name! or to +know thy face to-morrow! or to take note how many pairs of silk +stockings thou hast, that is, these and those that were thy +peach-colored ones! or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as, one +for superfluity and another for use!" Shakespeare's _Henry IV._, Part +II. 2, 2.] + +[Footnote 335: Ibn Hankal. Ibn Hankul, an Arabian geographer and +traveler of the tenth century. He wrote an account of his twenty +years' travels in Mohammedan countries; in 1800 this was translated +into English by Sir William Jones under the title of _The Oriental +Geography of Ibn Hankal_. In that volume this anecdote is told in +slightly different words.] + +[Footnote 336: Bokhara. Where is Bokhara? It corresponds to the +ancient Sogdiana.] + +[Footnote 337: Bannocks. Thick cakes, made usually of oatmeal. What +does Emerson mean by this sentence? Probably no person ever met his +visitors, many of whom were "exacting and wearisome," and must have +been unwelcome, with more perfect courtesy and graciousness than +Emerson.] + +[Footnote 338: John Eliot. Give as full an account as you can of the +life and works of this noble Apostle to the Indians of the seventeenth +century.] + +[Footnote 339: King David, etc. See First Chronicles, 11, 15-19.] + +[Footnote 340: Brutus. Marcus Junius Brutus, a Roman patriot of the +first century before Christ, who took part in the assassination of +Julius Caesar.] + +[Footnote 341: Philippi. A city of Macedonia near which in the year 42 +B.C. were fought two battles in which the republican army under Brutus +and Cassius was defeated by Octavius and Antony, friends of Caesar.] + +[Footnote 342: Euripides. A Greek tragic poet of the fifth century +before Christ.] + +[Footnote 343: Scipio. (See note 205.) Plutarch in his _Morals_ gives +another version of the story: "When Paetilius and Quintus accused him +of many crimes before the people; 'on this very day,' he said, 'I +conquered Hannibal and Carthage. I for my part am going with my crown +on to the Capitol to sacrifice; and let him that pleaseth stay and +pass his vote upon me.' Having thus said, he went his way; and the +people followed him, leaving his accusers declaiming to themselves."] + +[Footnote 344: Socrates. (See note 187.)] + +[Footnote 345: Prytaneum. A public hall at Athens.] + +[Footnote 346: Sir Thomas More. An English statesman and author who +was beheaded in 1535 on a charge of high treason. The incident to +which Emerson refers is one which showed his "pleasant wit" +undisturbed by the prospect of death. As the executioner was about to +strike, More moved his head carefully out of reach of the ax. "Pity +that should be cut," he said, "that has never committed treason."] + +[Footnote 347: Blue Laws. Any rigid Sunday laws or religious +regulations. The term is usually applied to the early laws of New +Haven and Connecticut which regulated personal and religious conduct.] + +[Footnote 348: Epaminondas. (See note 329.)] + +[Footnote 349: Olympus. A mountain of Greece, the summit of which, +according to Greek mythology, was the home of the gods.] + +[Footnote 350: Jerseys. Consult a history of the United States for a +full account of Washington's campaign in New Jersey.] + +[Footnote 351: Milton. (See note 151.)] + +[Footnote 352: Pericles. A famous Greek statesman of the fifth century +before Christ, in whose age Athens was preeminent in naval and +military affairs and in letters and art.] + +[Footnote 353: Xenophon. A Greek historian of the fourth century +before Christ.] + +[Footnote 354: Columbus. Give an account of his life.] + +[Footnote 355: Bayard. Chevalier de Bayard was a French gentleman of +the fifteenth century. He is the French national hero, and is called +"The Knight without fear and without reproach."] + +[Footnote 356: Sidney. Probably Sir Philip Sidney, an English +gentleman and scholar of the sixteenth century who is the English +national hero as Bayard is the French; another brave Englishman was +Algernon Sidney, a politician and patriot of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 357: Hampden. John Hampden was an English statesman and +patriot who was killed in the civil war of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 358: Colossus. The Colossus of Rhodes was a gigantic +statue--over a hundred feet in height--of the Rhodian sun god. It was +one of the seven wonders of the world; it was destroyed by an +earthquake about two hundred years before Christ.] + +[Footnote 359: Sappho. A Greek poet of the seventh century before +Christ. Her fame remains, though most of her poems have been lost.] + +[Footnote 360: Sevigne. Marquise de Sevigne was a French author of the +seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 361: De Stael. Madame de Stael was a French writer whose +books and political opinions were condemned by Napoleon.] + +[Footnote 362: Themis. A Greek goddess. The personification of law, +order, and justice.] + +[Footnote 363: A high counsel, etc. Such was the advice given to the +Emerson boys by their aunt, Miss. Mary Moody Emerson: "Scorn trifles, +lift your aims; do what you are afraid to do; sublimity of character +must come from sublimity of motive." Upon her monument are inscribed +Emerson's words about her: "She gave high counsels. It was the +privilege of certain boys to have this immeasurably high standard +indicated to their childhood, a blessing which nothing else in +education could supply."] + +[Footnote 364: Phocion. A Greek general and statesman of the fourth +century before Christ who advised the Athenians to make peace with +Philip of Macedon. He was put to death on a charge of treason.] + +[Footnote 365: Lovejoy. Rev. Elijah Lovejoy, a Presbyterian clergyman +of Maine who published a periodical against slavery. In 1837 an +Illinois mob demanded his printing press, which he refused to give up. +The building containing it was set on fire and when Lovejoy came out +he was shot.] + +[Footnote 366: Let them rave, etc. These lines are misquoted, being +evidently given from memory, from Tennyson's _Dirge_. In the poem +occur these lines: + + "Let them rave. + Thou wilt never raise thine head + From the green that folds thy grave-- + Let them rave." + +] + + +MANNERS + +[Footnote 367: The essay on _Manners_ is from the Second Series of +_Essays_, published in 1844, three years after the First Series. The +essays in this volume, like those in the first, were, for the most +part, made up of Emerson's lectures, rearranged and corrected. The +lecture on _Manners_ had been delivered in the winter of 1841. He had +given another lecture on the same subject about four years before, and +several years later he treated of the same subject in his essay on +_Behavior_ in _The Conduct of Life_. You will find it interesting to +read _Behavior_ in connection with this essay.] + +[Footnote 368: Feejee islanders. Since this essay was written, the +people of the Feejee, or Fiji, Islands have become Christianized, and, +to a large extent, civilized.] + +[Footnote 369: Gournou. This description is found in _A Narrative of +the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids_, by +Belzoni, an Italian traveler and explorer.] + +[Footnote 370: Borgoo. A province of Africa.] + +[Footnote 371: Tibboos, Bornoos. Tribes of Central Africa, mentioned +in Heeren's _Historical Researches_.] + +[Footnote 372: Honors himself with architecture. Architecture was a +subject in which Emerson was deeply interested. Read his poem, _The +Problem_.] + +[Footnote 373: Chivalry. Chivalry may be considered "as embodying the +Middle Age conception of the ideal life of ... the Knights"; the word +is often used to express "the ideal qualifications of a knight, as +courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms." Fully to +understand the order of Knighthood and the ideals of chivalry, you +must read the history of Europe in the Middle Ages.] + +[Footnote 374: Sir Philip Sidney. (See note 356.)] + +[Footnote 375: Sir Walter Scott. (1771-1832). His historical novels +dealing with the Middle Ages have some fine pictures of the chivalrous +characters in which he delighted.] + +[Footnote 376: Masonic sign. A sign of secret brotherhood, like the +sign given by one Mason to another.] + +[Footnote 377: Correlative abstract. Corresponding abstract name. Sir +Philip Sidney, himself the ideal gentleman, used the word +"gentlemanliness." He said: "Gentlemanliness is high-erected thoughts +seated in a heart of courtesy."] + +[Footnote 378: Gentilesse. Gentle birth and breeding. Emerson was very +fond of the passage on "gentilesse" in Chaucer's _Wife of Bath's +Tale_.] + +[Footnote 379: Feudal Ages. The Middle Ages in Europe during which the +feudal system prevailed. According to this, land was held by its +owners on condition of certain duties, especially military service, +performed for a superior lord.] + +[Footnote 380: God knows, etc. Why is this particularly true of a +republic such as the United States?] + +[Footnote 381: The incomparable advantage of animal spirits. Why does +Emerson regard this as of such importance? In his journals he +frequently comments on his own lack of animal spirits, and says that +it unfits him for general society and for action.] + +[Footnote 382: The sense of power. "I like people who can do things," +wrote Emerson in his journal.] + +[Footnote 383: Lundy's Lane. Give a full account of this battle in the +War of 1812.] + +[Footnote 384: Men of the right Caesarian pattern. Men versatile as was +Julius Caesar, the Roman, famous as a general, statesman, orator, and +writer.] + +[Footnote 385: Timid maxim. Why does Emerson term this saying +"timid"?] + +[Footnote 386: Lord Falkland. Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland, was an +English politician who espoused the royalist side; he was killed in +battle in the Civil War.] + +[Footnote 387: Saladin. A famous sultan of Egypt and Syria who lived +in the twelfth century. Scott describes him as possessing an ideal +knightly character and introduces him, disguised as a physician and +also as a wandering soldier in his historical romance, _The +Talisman_.] + +[Footnote 388: Sapor. A Persian monarch of the fourth century who +defeated the Romans in battle.] + +[Footnote 389: The Cid. See "Rodrigo," in _Heroism_, 313.] + +[Footnote 390: Julius Caesar. See note on "Caesarian," 384.] + +[Footnote 391: Scipio. (See note 205.)] + +[Footnote 392: Alexander. Alexander, King of Macedon, surnamed the +Great. In the fourth century before Christ he made himself master of +the known world.] + +[Footnote 393: Pericles. See note on _Heroism_, 352.] + +[Footnote 394: Diogenes. (See note 267.)] + +[Footnote 395: Socrates. (See note 187.)] + +[Footnote 396: Epaminondas. (See note 329.)] + +[Footnote 397: My contemporaries. Emerson probably had in mind, among +others, his friend, the gentle philosopher, Thoreau.] + +[Footnote 398: Fine manners. "I think there is as much merit in +beautiful manners as in hard work," said Emerson in his journal.] + +[Footnote 399: Napoleon. (See note 273.)] + +[Footnote 400: Noblesse. Nobility. Why does Emerson use here the +French word?] + +[Footnote 401: Faubourg St. Germain. A once fashionable quarter of +Paris, on the south bank of the Seine; it was long the headquarters of +the French royalists.] + +[Footnote 402: Cortez. Consult a history of the United States for an +account of this Spanish soldier, the conqueror of Mexico.] + +[Footnote 403: Nelson. Horatio Nelson, an English admiral, who won +many great naval victories and was killed in the battle of Trafalgar +in 1805.] + +[Footnote 404: Mexico. The scene of Cortez's victories.] + +[Footnote 405: Marengo. The scene of a battle in Italy in 1800, in +which Napoleon defeated the Austrians with a larger army and made +himself master of northern Italy.] + +[Footnote 406: Trafalgar. A cape on the southern coast of Spain, the +scene of Nelson's last great victory, in which the allied French and +Spanish fleets were defeated.] + +[Footnote 407: Mexico, Marengo, and Trafalgar. Is this the order in +which you would expect these words to occur? Why not?] + +[Footnote 408: Estates of the realm. Orders or classes of people with +regard to political rights and powers. In modern times, the nobility, +the clergy, and the people are called "the three estates."] + +[Footnote 409: Tournure. Figure; turn of dress,--and so of mind.] + +[Footnote 410: Coventry. It is said that the people of Coventry, a +city in England, at one time so disliked soldiers that to send a +military man there meant to exclude him from social intercourse; hence +the expression "to send to Coventry" means to exclude from society.] + +[Footnote 411: "If you could see Vich Ian Vohr with his tail on." Vich +Ian Vohr is a Scotch chieftain in Scott's novel, _Waverley_. One of +his dependents says to Waverley, the young English officer: "If you +Saxon duinhe-wassal [English gentleman] saw but the Chief with his +tail on." "With his tail on?" echoed Edward in some surprise. +"Yes--that is, with all his usual followers when he visits those of +the same rank." See _Waverley_, chapter 16.] + +[Footnote 412: Mercuries. The word here means simply messengers. +According to Greek mythology, Mercury was the messenger of the gods.] + +[Footnote 413: Herald's office. In England the Herald's College, or +College of Arms, is a royal corporation the chief business of which is +to grant armorial bearings, or coats of arms, and to trace and +preserve genealogies. What does Emerson mean by comparing certain +circles of society to this corporation?] + +[Footnote 414: Amphitryon. Host; it came to have this meaning from an +incident in the story of Amphitryon, a character in Greek legend. At +one time Jupiter assumed the form of Amphitryon and gave a banquet. +The real Amphitryon came in and asserted that he was master of the +house. In the French play, founded on this story, the question is +settled by the assertion of the servants and guests that "he who gives +the feast is the host."] + +[Footnote 415: Tuileries. An old royal residence in Paris which was +burned in 1871.] + +[Footnote 416: Escurial, or escorial. A celebrated royal edifice near +Madrid in Spain.] + +[Footnote 417: Hide ourselves as Adam, etc. See Genesis iii. 8.] + +[Footnote 418: Cardinal Caprara. An Italian cardinal, Bishop of Milan, +who negotiated the famous concordat of 1801, an agreement between the +Church and State regulating the relations between civil and +ecclesiastical powers.] + +[Footnote 419: The pope. Pope Pius VII.] + +[Footnote 420: Madame de Stael. (See note 361.)] + +[Footnote 421: Mr. Hazlitt. William Hazlitt, an English writer.] + +[Footnote 422: Montaigne. A French essayist of the sixteenth century.] + +[Footnote 423: The hint of tranquillity and self-poise. It is +suggested that Emerson had here in mind a favorite passage of the +German author, Richter, in which Richter says of the Greek statues: +"The repose not of weariness but of perfection looks from their eyes +and rests upon their lips."] + +[Footnote 424: A Chinese etiquette. What does Emerson mean by this +expression?] + +[Footnote 425: Recall. In the first edition, Emerson had here the word +"signify." Which is the better word and why?] + +[Footnote 426: Measure. What meaning has this word here? Is this the +sense in which we generally use it?] + +[Footnote 427: Creole natures. What is a creole? What does Emerson +mean by "Creole natures"?] + +[Footnote 428: Mr. Fox. Charles James Fox, an English statesman and +orator of the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 429: Burke. Both Fox and Burke opposed the taxation of the +American colonies and sympathized with their resistance; it was on the +subject of the French Revolution that the two friends clashed.] + +[Footnote 430: Sheridan. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, an Irish +dramatist, member of the famous Literary Club to which both Fox and +Burke belonged.] + +[Footnote 431: Circe. According to Greek legend, Circe was a beautiful +enchantress. Men who partook of the draught she offered, were turned +to swine.] + +[Footnote 432: Captain Symmes. The only real personage of this group. +He asserted that there was an opening to the interior of the earth +which was stocked with plants and animals.] + +[Footnote 433: Clerisy. What word would we be more apt to use here?] + +[Footnote 434: St. Michael's (Square). St. Michael's was an order +instituted by Louis XI. of France.] + +[Footnote 435: Cologne water. A perfumed water first made at the city +of Cologne in Germany, from which it took its name.] + +[Footnote 436: Poland. This kingdom of Europe was, in the eighteenth +century, taken possession of and divided among its powerful neighbors, +Russia, Prussia, and Austria.] + +[Footnote 437: Philhellene. Friend of Greece.] + +[Footnote 438: As Heaven and Earth are fairer far, etc. This passage +is quoted from Book II. of Keats' _Hyperion_.] + +[Footnote 439: Waverley. The Waverley novels, a name applied to all of +Scott's novels from _Waverley_, the title of the first one.] + +[Footnote 440: Robin Hood. An English outlaw and popular hero, the +subject of many ballads.] + +[Footnote 441: Minerva. In Roman mythology, the goddess of wisdom +corresponding to the Greek Pallas-Athene.] + +[Footnote 442: Juno. In Roman mythology, the wife of the supreme god +Jupiter.] + +[Footnote 443: Polymnia. In Greek mythology, one of the nine muses who +presided over sacred poetry; the name is more usually written +Polyhymia.] + +[Footnote 444: Delphic Sibyl. In ancient mythology, the Sibyls were +certain women who possessed the power of prophecy. One of these who +made her abode at Delphi in Greece was called the Delphian, or +Delphic, sibyl.] + +[Footnote 445: Hafiz. A Persian poet of the fourteenth century.] + +[Footnote 446: Firdousi. A Persian poet of the tenth century.] + +[Footnote 447: She was an elemental force, etc. Of this passage Oliver +Wendell Holmes said that Emerson "speaks of woman in language that +seems to pant for rhythm and rhyme."] + +[Footnote 448: Byzantine. An ornate style of architecture developed in +the fourth and fifth centuries, marked especially by its use of gold +and color.] + +[Footnote 449: Golden Book. In a book, called "the Golden Book," were +recorded the names of all the children of Venetian noblemen.] + +[Footnote 450: Schiraz. A province of Persia famous especially for its +roses, wine, and nightingales, and described by the poets as a place +of ideal beauty.] + +[Footnote 451: Osman. The name given by Emerson in his journal and +essays to his ideal man, one subject to the same conditions as +himself.] + +[Footnote 452: Koran. The sacred book of the Mohammedans.] + +[Footnote 453: Jove. Jupiter, the supreme god of Roman mythology.] + +[Footnote 454: Silenus. In Greek mythology, the leader of the satyrs. +This fable, which Emerson credits to tradition, was original.] + +[Footnote 455: Her owl. The owl was the bird sacred to Minerva, the +goddess of wisdom.] + + +GIFTS + +[Footnote 456: This essay was first printed in the periodical called +_The Dial_. + +It was a part of Emerson's philosophic faith that there is no such +thing as giving,--everything that belongs to a man or that he ought to +have, will come to him. But in the ordinarily accepted sense of the +word, Emerson was a gracious giver and receiver. In his family the old +New England custom of New Year's presents was kept up to his last +days. His presents were accompanied with verses to be read before the +gift was opened.] + +[Footnote 457: Into chancery. The phrase "in chancery," means in +litigation, as an estate, in a court of equity.] + +[Footnote 458: Cocker. Spoil, indulge,--a word now little used.] + +[Footnote 459: Fruits are acceptable gifts. Emerson took especial +pleasure in the beauty of fruits and the thought of how they had been +evolved from useless, insipid seed cases.] + +[Footnote 460: To let the petitioner, etc. We can hardly imagine +Emerson's asking a gift or favor. He often quoted the words of Landor, +an English writer: "The highest price you can pay for a thing is to +ask for it."] + +[Footnote 461: Furies. In Roman mythology, three goddesses who sought +out and punished evil-doers.] + +[Footnote 462: A man's biography, etc. Emerson wrote in his journal: +"Long ago I wrote of _gifts_ and neglected a capital example. John +Thoreau, Jr. [who, like his brother Henry, was a lover of nature] one +day put a bluebird's box on my barn,--fifteen years ago it must +be,--and there it still is, with every summer a melodious family in it +adorning the place and singing its praises. There's a gift for you +which cost the giver no money, but nothing which he bought could have +been as good."] + +[Footnote 463: Sin offering. Under the Hebrew law, a sacrifice or +offering for sin. See Leviticus xxiii. 19. Explain what Emerson means +here by the word.] + +[Footnote 464: Blackmail. What is "blackmail"? How may Christmas +gifts, for instance, become a species of blackmail?] + +[Footnote 465: Brother, if Jove, etc. In the Greek legend, Epimetheus +gives this advice to his brother Prometheus. The lines are taken from +a translation of _Works and Days_, by the Greek poet, Hesiod.] + +[Footnote 466: Timons. Here used in the sense of wealthy givers. +Timon, the hero of Shakespeare's play, _Timon of Athens_, wasted his +fortune in lavish gifts and entertainments, and in his poverty was +exposed to the ingratitude of those whom he had served. He became +morose and died in miserable retirement.] + +[Footnote 467: It is a very onerous business, etc. One of Emerson's +favorite passages in the essays of Montaigne, a French writer, was +this: "Oh, how am I obliged to Almighty God, who has been pleased that +I should immediately receive all I have from his bounty, and +particularly reserved all my obligation to himself! How instantly do I +beg of his holy compassion that I may never owe a real thanks to +anyone. O happy liberty in which I have thus far lived! May it +continue with me to the last. I endeavor to have no need of any one." + +When Emerson, in his old age, had his house injured by fire, his +friends contributed funds to repair it and to send him to England. The +gift was proffered graciously and accepted gratefully.] + +[Footnote 468: Buddhist. A follower of Buddha, a Hindoo religious +teacher of the fifth century before Christ.] + + +NATURE + +[Footnote 469: Nature. Emerson's first published volume was a little +book of essays, entitled _Nature_, which appeared in 1836. In the +years which followed, he thought more deeply on the subject and, +according to his custom, made notes about it and entries in his +journals. In the winter of 1843 he delivered a lecture on _Relation to +Nature_, and it is probable that this essay is built up from that. The +plan of it, however, had been long in his mind: In 1840 he wrote in +his journal: "I think I must do these eyes of mine the justice to +write a new chapter on Nature. This delight we all take in every show +of night or day or field or forest or sea or city, down to the lowest +particulars, is not without sequel, though we be as yet only wishers +and gazers, not at all knowing what we want. We are predominated here +as elsewhere by an upper wisdom, and resemble those great discoverers +who are haunted for years, sometimes from infancy, with a passion for +the fact, or class of facts in which the secret lies which they are +destined to unlock, and they let it not go until the blessing is won. +So these sunsets and starlights, these swamps and rocks, these bird +notes and animal forms off which we cannot get our eyes and ears, but +hover still, as moths round a lamp, are no doubt a Sanscrit cipher +covering the whole religious history of the universe, and presently we +shall read it off into action and character. The pastures are full of +ghosts for me, the morning woods full of angels."] + +[Footnote 470: There are days, etc. The passage in Emerson's journal +is hardly less beautiful. Under date of October 30, 1841, he wrote: +"On this wonderful day when heaven and earth seem to glow with +magnificence, and all the wealth of all the elements is put under +contribution to make the world fine, as if Nature would indulge her +offspring, it seemed ungrateful to hide in the house. Are there not +dull days enough in the year for you to write and read in, that you +should waste this glittering season when Florida and Cuba seem to have +left their glittering seats and come to visit us with all their +shining hours, and almost we expect to see the jasmine and cactus +burst from the ground instead of these last gentians and asters which +have loitered to attend this latter glory of the year? All insects are +out, all birds come forth, the very cattle that lie on the ground seem +to have great thoughts, and Egypt and India look from their eyes."] + +[Footnote 471: Halcyons. Halcyon days, ones of peace and tranquillity; +anciently, days of calm weather in mid-winter, when the halcyon, or +kingfisher, was supposed to brood. It was fabled that this bird laid +its eggs in a nest that floated on the sea, and that it charmed the +winds and waves to make them calm while it brooded.] + +[Footnote 472: Indian Summer. Calm, dry, hazy weather which comes in +the autumn in America. The Century Dictionary says it was called +Indian Summer because the season was most marked in the sections of +the upper eastern Mississippi valley inhabited by Indians about the +time the term became current.] + +[Footnote 473: Gabriel. One of the seven archangels. The Hebrew name +means "God is my strong one."] + +[Footnote 474: Uriel. Another of the seven archangels; the name means +"Light of God."] + +[Footnote 475: Converts all trees to wind-harps. Compare with this +passage the lines in Emerson's poem, _Woodnotes_: + + "And the countless leaves of the pines are strings + Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings." + +] + +[Footnote 476: The village. Concord, Massachusetts. Emerson's home the +greater part of the time from 1832 till his death.] + +[Footnote 477: I go with my friend, etc. With Henry Thoreau, the lover +of Nature.] + +[Footnote 478: Our little river. The Concord river.] + +[Footnote 479: Novitiate and probation. Explain the meaning of these +words, in the Roman Catholic Church. What does Emerson mean by them +here?] + +[Footnote 480: Villegiatura. The Italian name for a season spent in +country pleasures.] + +[Footnote 481: Hanging gardens. The hanging gardens of Babylon were +one of the seven wonders of the world.] + +[Footnote 482: Versailles. A royal residence near Paris, with +beautiful formal gardens.] + +[Footnote 483: Paphos. A beautiful city on the island of Cyprus, where +was situated a temple of Astarte, or Venus.] + +[Footnote 484: Ctesiphon. One of the chief cities of ancient Persia, +the site of a magnificent royal palace.] + +[Footnote 485: Notch Mountains. Probably the White Mountains near +Crawford Notch, a deep, narrow valley which is often called "The +Notch."] + +[Footnote 486: AEolian harp. A stringed instrument from which sound is +drawn by the passing of the wind over its strings. It was named for +AEolus, the god of the winds, in Greek mythology.] + +[Footnote 487: Dorian. Dorus was one of the four divisions of Greece: +the word is here used in a general sense for Grecian.] + +[Footnote 488: Apollo. In Greek and Roman mythology, the sun god, who +presided over music, poetry, and healing.] + +[Footnote 489: Diana. In Roman mythology, the goddess of the moon +devoted to the chase.] + +[Footnote 490: Edens. Beautiful, sinless places,--like the garden of +Eden.] + +[Footnote 491: Tempes. Places like the lovely valley of Tempe in +Thessaly, Greece.] + +[Footnote 492: Como Lake. A lake of northern Italy, celebrated for its +beauty.] + +[Footnote 493: Madeira Islands. Where are these islands, famous for +picturesque beauty and balmy atmosphere?] + +[Footnote 494: Common. What is a common?] + +[Footnote 495: Campagna. The plain near Rome.] + +[Footnote 496: Dilettantism. Define this word and explain its use +here.] + +[Footnote 497: "Wreaths" and "Flora's Chaplets." About the time that +Emerson was writing his essays, volumes of formal, artificial verses +were very fashionable, more as parlor ornaments than as literature. +Two such volumes were _A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England_ and +_The Floral Offering_ by Mrs. Frances Osgood, a New England writer.] + +[Footnote 498: Pan. In Greek mythology, the god of woods, fields, +flocks, and shepherds.] + +[Footnote 499: The multitude of false cherubs, etc. Explain the +meaning of this sentence. If true money were valueless, would people +make false money?] + +[Footnote 500: Proteus. In Greek mythology, a sea god who had the +power of assuming different shapes. If caught and held fast, however, +he was forced to assume his own shape and answer the questions put to +him.] + +[Footnote 501: Mosaic ... Schemes. The conception of the world as +given in Genesis on which the law of Moses, the great Hebrew lawgiver, +was founded.] + +[Footnote 502: Ptolemaic schemes. The system of geography and +astronomy taught in the second century by Ptolemy of Alexandria; it +was accepted till the sixteenth century, when the Copernican system +was established. Ptolemy believed that the sun, planets, and stars +revolve around the earth; Copernicus taught that the planets revolve +around the sun.] + +[Footnote 503: Flora. In Roman mythology, the goddess of the spring +and of flowers.] + +[Footnote 504: Fauna. In Roman mythology, the goddess of fields and +shepherds; she represents the fruitfulness of the earth.] + +[Footnote 505: Ceres. The Roman goddess of grain and harvest, +corresponding to the Greek goddess, Demeter.] + +[Footnote 506: Pomona. The Roman goddess of fruit trees and gardens.] + +[Footnote 507: All duly arrive. Emerson deducts from nature the +doctrine of evolution. What is its teaching?] + +[Footnote 508: Plato. (See note 36.)] + +[Footnote 509: Himalaya Mountain chains. (See note 193.)] + +[Footnote 510: Franklin. Give an account of Benjamin Franklin, the +famous American scientist and patriot. What did he prove about +lightening?] + +[Footnote 511: Dalton. John Dalton was an English chemist who, about +the beginning of the nineteenth century, perfected the atomic theory, +that is, the theory that all chemical combinations take place in +certain ways between the atoms, or ultimate particles, of bodies.] + +[Footnote 512: Davy. (See note 69.)] + +[Footnote 513: Black. Joseph Black, a Scotch chemist who made valuable +discoveries about latent heat and carbon dioxide, or carbonic acid +gas.] + +[Footnote 514: The astronomers said, etc. Beginning with this passage, +several pages of this essay was published in 1844, under the title of +_Tantalus_, in the next to the last number of _The Dial_, which +Emerson edited.] + +[Footnote 515: Centrifugal, centripetal. Define these words.] + +[Footnote 516: Stoics. See "Stoicism," 331.] + +[Footnote 517: Luther. (See note 188.)] + +[Footnote 518: Jacob Behmen. A German mystic of the sixteenth century; +his name is usually written Boehme.] + +[Footnote 519: George Fox. (See note 202.)] + +[Footnote 520: James Naylor. An English religious enthusiast of the +seventeenth century; he was first a Puritan and later a Quaker.] + +[Footnote 521: Operose. Laborious.] + +[Footnote 522: Outskirt and far-off reflection, etc. Compare with this +passage Emerson's poem, _The Forerunners_.] + +[Footnote 523: Oedipus. In Greek mythology, the King of Thebes who +solved the riddle of the Sphinx, a fabled monster.] + +[Footnote 524: Prunella. A widely scattered plant, called self-heal, +because a decoction of its leaves and stems was, and to some extent +is, valued as an application to wounds. An editor comments on the fact +that during the last years of Emerson's life "the little blue +self-heal crept into the grass before his study window."] + + +SHAKESPEARE; OR, THE POET + +[Footnote 525: Shakespeare; or the Poet is one of seven essays on +great men in various walks of life, published in 1850 under the title +of _Representative Men_. These essays were first delivered as lectures +in Boston in the winter of 1845, and were repeated two years later +before English audiences. They must have been especially interesting +to those Englishmen who had, seven years before, heard Emerson's +friend, Carlyle, deliver his six lectures on great men whom he +selected as representative ones. These lectures were published under +the title of _Heroes and Hero-Worship_. You should read the latter +part of Carlyle's lecture on _The Hero as Poet_ and compare what he +says about Shakespeare with Emerson's words. Both Emerson and Carlyle +reverenced the great English poet as "the master of mankind." Even in +serious New England, the plays of Shakespeare were found upon the +bookshelf beside religious tracts and doctrinal treatises. There the +boy Emerson found them and learned to love them, and the man Emerson +loved them but the more. It was as a record of personal experiences +that he wrote in his journal: "Shakespeare fills us with wonder the +first time we approach him. We go away, and work and think, for years, +and come again,--he astonishes us anew. Then, having drank deeply and +saturated us with his genius, we lose sight of him for another period +of years. By and by we return, and there he stands immeasurable as at +first. We have grown wiser, but only that we should see him wiser than +ever. He resembles a high mountain which the traveler sees in the +morning and thinks he shall quickly near it and pass it and leave it +behind. But he journeys all day till noon, till night. There still is +the dim mountain close by him, having scarce altered its bearings +since the morning light."] + +[Footnote 526: Genius. Here instead of speaking as in _Friendship_, +see note 286, of the genius or spirit supposed to preside over each +man's life, Emerson mentions the guardian spirit of human kind.] + +[Footnote 527: Shakespeare's youth, etc. It is impossible to +appreciate or enjoy this essay without having some clear general +information about the condition of the English people and English +literature in the glorious Elizabethan age in which Shakespeare lived. +Consult, for this information, some brief history of England and a +comprehensive English literature.] + +[Footnote 528: Puritans. Strict Protestants who became so powerful in +England that in the time of the Commonwealth they controlled the +political and religious affairs of the country.] + +[Footnote 529: Anglican Church. The Established Church of England; the +Episcopal church.] + +[Footnote 530: Punch. The chief character in a puppet show, hence the +puppet show itself.] + +[Footnote 531: Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, etc. For an account of these +dramatists consult a text book on English literature. The English +drama seems to have begun in the Middle Ages with what were called +Miracle plays, which were scenes from Bible history; about the same +time were performed the Mystery plays, which dramatized the lives of +saints. These were followed by the Moralities, plays in which were +personified abstract virtues and vices. The first step in the creation +of the regular drama was taken by Heywood, who composed some farcical +plays called Interludes. The people of the sixteenth century were fond +of pageants, shows in which classical personages were introduced, and +Masques, which gradually developed from pageants into dramas +accompanied with music. About the middle of the sixteenth century, +rose the English drama,--comedy, tragedy, and historical plays. The +chief among the group of dramatists who attained fame before +Shakespeare began to write were Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, and Peele. Ben +Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher rank next to Shakespeare among his +contemporaries, and among the other dramatists of the period were +Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Ford, and Massinger.] + +[Footnote 532: At the time when, etc. Probably about 1585.] + +[Footnote 533: Tale of Troy. Drama founded on the Trojan war. The +subject of famous poems by Latin and Greek poets.] + +[Footnote 534: Death of Julius Caesar. An account of the plots which +ended in the assassination of the great Roman general.] + +[Footnote 535: Plutarch. See note on _Heroism_(264). Shakespeare, like +the earlier dramatists, drew freely on Plutarch's _Lives_ for +material.] + +[Footnote 536: Brut. A poetical version of the legendary history of +Britain, by Layamon. Its hero is Brutus, a mythical King of Britain.] + +[Footnote 537: Arthur. A British King of the sixth century, around +whose life and deeds so many legends have grown up that some +historians say he, too, was a myth. He is the center of the great +cycle of romances told in prose in Mallory's _Morte d'Arthur_ and in +poetry in Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_.] + +[Footnote 538: The royal Henries. Among the dramas popular in +Shakespeare's day which he retouched or rewrote are the historical +plays. Henry IV., First and Second Parts; Henry V; Henry VI., First, +Second, and Third Parts; and Henry VIII.] + +[Footnote 539: Italian tales. Italian literature was very popular in +Shakespeare's day, and authors drew freely from it for material, +especially from the _Decameron_, a famous collection of a hundred +tales, by Boccaccio, a poet of the fourteenth century.] + +[Footnote 540: Spanish voyages. In the sixteenth century, Spain was +still a power upon the high seas, and the tales of her conquests and +treasures in the New World were like tales of romance.] + +[Footnote 541: Prestige. Can you give an English equivalent for this +French word?] + +[Footnote 542: Which no single genius, etc. In the same way, some +critics assure us, the poems credited to the Greek poet, Homer, were +built up by a number of poets.] + +[Footnote 543: Malone. An Irish critic and scholar of the eighteenth +century, best known by his edition of Shakespeare's plays.] + +[Footnote 544: Wolsey's Soliloquy. See Shakespeare's _Henry VIII._ +III, 2. Cardinal Wolsey was prime minister of England in the reign of +Henry VIII.] + +[Footnote 545: Scene with Cromwell. See _Henry VIII._ III, 2. Thomas +Cromwell was the son of an English blacksmith; he rose to be lord high +chamberlain of England in the reign of Henry VIII., but, incurring the +King's displeasure, was executed on a charge of treason.] + +[Footnote 546: Account of the coronation. See _Henry VIII._ IV, 1.] + +[Footnote 547: Compliment to Queen Elizabeth. See _Henry VIII._ V, 5.] + +[Footnote 548: Bad rhythm. Too much importance must not be attached to +these matters in deciding authorship, as critics disagree about them.] + +[Footnote 549: Value his memory, etc. The Greeks, in appreciation of +the value of memory to the poet, represented the Muses as the +daughters of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory.] + +[Footnote 550: Homer. A Greek poet to whom is assigned the authorship +of the two greatest Greek poems, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_; he is +said to have lived about a thousand years before Christ.] + +[Footnote 551: Chaucer. (See note 33.)] + +[Footnote 552: Saadi. A Persian poet, supposed to have lived in the +thirteenth century. His best known poems are his odes.] + +[Footnote 553: Presenting Thebes, etc. This quotation is from Milton's +poem, _Il Penseroso_. Milton here names the three most popular +subjects of Greek tragedy,--the story of Oedipus, the ill-fated King +of Thebes who slew his father; the tale of the descendants of Pelops, +King of Pisa, who seemed born to woe--Agamemnon was one of his +grandsons; the third subject was the tale of Troy and the heroes of +the Trojan war,--called "divine" because the Greeks represented even +the gods as taking part in the contest.] + +[Footnote 554: Pope. (See note 88.)] + +[Footnote 555: Dryden. (See note 35.)] + +[Footnote 556: Chaucer is a huge borrower. Taine, the French critic, +says on this subject: "Chaucer was capable of seeking out in the old +common forest of the Middle Ages, stories and legends, to replant them +in his own soil and make them send out new shoots.... He has the right +and power of copying and translating because by dint of retouching he +impresses ... his original work. He recreates what he imitates."] + +[Footnote 557: Lydgate. John Lydgate was an English poet who lived a +generation later than Chaucer; in his _Troy Book_ and other poems he +probably borrowed from the sources used by Chaucer; he called himself +"Chaucer's disciple."] + +[Footnote 558: Caxton. William Caxton, the English author, more famous +as the first English printer, was not born until after Chaucer's +death. The work from which Emerson supposes the poet to have borrowed +Caxton's translation of _Recueil des Histoires de Troye_, the first +printed English book, appeared about 1474.] + +[Footnote 559: Guido di Colonna. A Sicilian poet and historian of the +thirteenth century. Chaucer in his _House of Fame_ placed in his +vision "on a pillar higher than the rest, Homer and Livy, Dares the +Phrygian, Guido Colonna, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the other +historians of the war of Troy."] + +[Footnote 560: Dares Phrygius. A Latin account of the fall of Troy, +written about the fifth century, which pretends to be a translation of +a lost work on the fall of Troy by Dares, a Trojan priest mentioned in +Homer's _Iliad_.] + +[Footnote 561: Ovid. A Roman poet who lived about the time of Christ, +whose best-known work is the _Metamorphoses_, founded on classical +legends.] + +[Footnote 562: Statius. A Roman poet of the first century after +Christ.] + +[Footnote 563: Petrarch. An Italian poet of the fourteenth century.] + +[Footnote 564: Boccaccio. An Italian novelist and poet of the +fourteenth century. See note on "Italian tales," 539. It is supposed +that the plan of the _Decameron_ suggested the similar but far +superior plan of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_.] + +[Footnote 565: Provencal poets. The poets of Provence, a province of +the southeastern part of France. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated +for its lyric poets, called troubadours.] + +[Footnote 566: Romaunt of the Rose, etc. Chaucer's _Romaunt of the +Rose_, written during the period of French influence, is an incomplete +and abbreviated translation of a French poem of the thirteenth +century, _Roman de la Rose_, the first part of which was written by +William of Loris and the latter by John of Meung, or Jean de Meung.] + +[Footnote 567: Troilus and Creseide, etc. Chaucer ascribes the Italian +poem which he followed in his _Troilus and Creseide_ to an unknown +"Lollius of Urbino"; the source of the poem, however, is _Il +Filostrato_, by Boccaccio, the Italian poet already mentioned. +Chaucer's poem is far more than a translation; more than half is +entirely original, and it is a powerful poem, showing profound +knowledge of the Italian poets, whose influence with him superseded +the French poets.] + +[Footnote 568: The Cock and the Fox. _The Nun's Priest's Tale_ in the +_Canterbury Tales_ was an original treatment of the _Roman de Renart_, +of Marie of France, a French poet of the twelfth century.] + +[Footnote 569: House of Fame, etc. The plan of the _House of Fame_, +written during the period of Chaucer's Italian influence, shows the +influence of Dante; the general idea of the poem is from Ovid, the +Roman poet.] + +[Footnote 570: Gower. John Gower was an English poet, Chaucer's +contemporary and friend; the two poets went to the same sources for +poetic materials, but Chaucer made no such use of Gower's works as we +would infer from this passage. Emerson relied on his memory for facts, +and hence made mistakes, as here in the instances of Lydgate, Caxton, +and Gower.] + +[Footnote 571: Westminster, Washington. What legislative body +assembles at Westminster Palace, London? What at Washington?] + +[Footnote 572: Sir Robert Peel. An English statesman who died in 1850, +not long after _Representative Men_ was published.] + +[Footnote 573: Webster. Daniel Webster, an American statesman and +orator who was living when this essay was written.] + +[Footnote 574: Locke. John Locke. (See note 18.)] + +[Footnote 575: Rousseau. Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher +of the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 576: Homer. (See note 550.)] + +[Footnote 577: Menn. Menn, or Mann, was in Sanscrit one of fourteen +legendary beings; the one referred to by Emerson, Mann Vaivasvata was +supposed to be the author of the laws of Mann, a collection made about +the second century.] + +[Footnote 578: Saadi or Sadi. (See note 552.)] + +[Footnote 579: Milton. Of this great English poet and prose writer of +the seventeenth century, Emerson says: "No man can be named whose mind +still acts on the cultivated intellect of England and America with an +energy comparable to that of Milton. As a poet Shakespeare undoubtedly +transcends and far surpasses him in his popularity with foreign +nations: but Shakespeare is a voice merely: who and what he was that +sang, that sings, we know not."] + +[Footnote 580: Delphi. Here, source of prophecy. Delphi was a city in +Greece, where was the oracle of Apollo, the most famous of the oracles +of antiquity.] + +[Footnote 581: Our English Bible. The version made in the reign of +King James I. by forty-seven learned divines is a monument of noble +English.] + +[Footnote 582: Liturgy. An appointed form of worship used in a +Christian church,--here, specifically, the service of the Episcopal +church. Emerson's mother had been brought up in that church, and +though she attended her husband's church, she always loved and read +her Episcopal prayer book.] + +[Footnote 583: Grotius. Hugo Grotius was a Dutch jurist, statesman, +theologian, and poet of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 584: Rabbinical forms. The forms used by the rabbis, Jewish +doctors or expounders of the law.] + +[Footnote 585: Common law. In a general sense, the system of law +derived from England, in general use among English-speaking people.] + +[Footnote 586: Vedas. The sacred books of the Brahmins.] + +[Footnote 587: AEsop's Fables. Fables ascribed to AEsop, a Greek slave +who lived in the sixth century before Christ.] + +[Footnote 588: Pilpay, or Bidpai. Indian sage to whom were ascribed +some fables. From an Arabic translation, these passed into European +languages and were used by La Fontaine, the French fabulist.] + +[Footnote 589: Arabian Nights. _The Arabian Nights' Entertainment or A +Thousand and One Nights_ is a collection of Oriental tales, the plan +and name of which are very ancient.] + +[Footnote 590: Cid. _The Romances of the Cid_, the story of the +Spanish national hero, mentioned in note on _Heroism_139:5, was +written about the thirteenth century by an unknown author; it supplied +much of the material for two Spanish chronicles and Spanish and French +tragedies written later on the same subject.] + +[Footnote 591: Iliad. The poem in which the Greek, poet, Homer, +describes the siege and fall of Troy. Emerson here expresses the view +adopted by many scholars that it was the work, not of one, but of many +men.] + +[Footnote 592: Robin Hood. The ballads about Robin Hood, an English +outlaw and popular hero of the twelfth century.] + +[Footnote 593: Scottish Minstrelsy. _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish +Border_, a collection of original and collected poems, published by +Sir Walter Scott in 1802.] + +[Footnote 594: Shakespeare Society. The Shakespeare Society, founded +in 1841, was dissolved in 1853. In 1874 The New Shakespeare Society +was founded.] + +[Footnote 595: Mysteries. See "Kyd, Marlowe, etc." 531.] + +[Footnote 596: Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc. The first regular +English tragedy, by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, printed in +1565.] + +[Footnote 597: Gammer Gurtor's Needle. One of the first English +comedies, written by Bishop Still and printed in 1575.] + +[Footnote 598: Whether the boy Shakespeare poached, etc. For a fuller +account of the facts of Shakespeare's life, of which some traditions +and facts are mentioned here, consult some good biography of the +poet.] + +[Footnote 599: Queen Elizabeth. Dining her reign, 1558-1603, the +English drama rose and attained its height, and there was produced a +prose literature hardly inferior to the poetic.] + +[Footnote 600: King James. King James VI. of Scotland and I. of +England who was Elizabeth's kinsman and successor; he reigned in +England from 1603 to 1625.] + +[Footnote 601: Essexes. Walter Devereux was a brave English gentleman +whom Elizabeth made Earl of Essex in 1572. His son Robert, the second +Earl of Essex, was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth's.] + +[Footnote 602: Leicester. The Earl of Leicester, famous in +Shakespeare's time, was Robert Dudley, an English courtier, +politician, and general, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth.] + +[Footnote 603: Burleighs or Burghleys: William Cecil, baron of +Burghley, was an English statesman, who, for forty years, was +Elizabeth's chief minister.] + +[Footnote 604: Buckinghams. George Villiers, the first duke of +Buckingham, was an English courtier and politician, a favorite of +James I. and Charles I.] + +[Footnote 605: Tudor dynasty. The English dynasty of sovereigns +descended on the male side from Owen Tudor. It began with Henry VII. +and ended with Elizabeth.] + +[Footnote 606: Bacon. Consult English literature and history for an +account of the great statesman and author, Francis Bacon, "the wisest, +brightest, meanest of mankind."] + +[Footnote 607: Ben Jonson, etc. In his _Timber or Discoveries_, Ben +Jonson, a famous classical dramatist contemporary with Shakespeare, +says: "I loved the man and do honor his memory on this side idolatry +as much as any. He was indeed honest and of an open and free nature: +had an excellent fancy; brave notions and gentle expressions: wherein +he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should +be stopped.... His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had +been so, too. Many times he fell into those things could not escape +laughter.... But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was +ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned."] + +[Footnote 608: Sir Henry Wotton. An English diplomatist and author of +wide culture.] + +[Footnote 609: The following persons, etc. The persons enumerated were +all people of note of the seventeenth century. Sir Philip Sidney, Earl +of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, Sir Henry Vane, +Isaac Walton, Dr. John Donne, Abraham Cowley, Charles Cotton, John +Pym, and John Hales were Englishmen, scholars, statesmen, and authors. +Theodore Beza was a French theologian; Isaac Casaubon was a +French-Swiss scholar; Roberto Berlarmine was an Italian cardinal; +Johann Kepler was a German astronomer; Francis Vieta was a French +mathematician; Albericus Gentilis was an Italian jurist; Paul Sarpi +was an Italian historian; Arminius was a Dutch theologian.] + +[Footnote 610: Many others whom doubtless, etc. Emerson here +enumerates some famous English authors of the same period, not +mentioned in the preceeding list.] + +[Footnote 611: Pericles. See note on _Heroism_, 352.] + +[Footnote 612: Lessing. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a German critic and +poet of the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 613: Wieland. Christopher Martin Wieland was a German +contemporary of Lessing's, who made a prose translation into German of +Shakespeare's plays.] + +[Footnote 614: Schlegel. August Wilhelm von Schlegel, a German critic +and poet, who about the first of the nineteenth century translated +some of Shakespeare's plays into classical German.] + +[Footnote 615: Hamlet. The hero of Shakespeare's play of the same +name.] + +[Footnote 616: Coleridge. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet, +author of critical lectures and notes on Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 617: Goethe. (See note 85.)] + +[Footnote 618: Blackfriar's Theater. A famous London theater in which +nearly all the great dramas of the Elizabethan age were performed.] + +[Footnote 619: Stratford. Stratford-on-Avon, a little town in +Warwickshire, England, where Shakespeare was born and where he spent +his last years.] + +[Footnote 620: Macbeth. One of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, +written about 1606.] + +[Footnote 621: Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and Collier. English scholars +of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who edited the works of +Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 622: Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont: The +leading London theaters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.] + +[Footnote 623: Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready, famous +British actors of the Shakespearian parts.] + +[Footnote 624: The Hamlet of a famed performer, etc. Macready. Emerson +said to a friend: "I see you are one of the happy mortals who are +capable of being carried away by an actor of Shakespeare. Now, +whenever I visit the theater to witness the performance of one of his +dramas, I am carried away by the poet."] + +[Footnote 625: What may this mean, etc. _Hamlet_, I. 4.] + +[Footnote 626: Midsummer Night's Dream. One of Shakespeare's plays.] + +[Footnote 627: The forest of Arden. In which is laid, the scene of +Shakespeare's play, _As You Like It_.] + +[Footnote 628: The nimble air of Scone Castle. It was of the air of +Inverness, not of Scone, that "the air nimbly and sweetly recommends +itself unto our gentle senses."--_Macbeth_, I. 6.] + +[Footnote 629: Portia's villa. See the moonlight scene, _Merchant of +Venice_, V. 1.] + +[Footnote 630: The antres vost, etc. See _Othello_, I. 3. "Antres" is +an old word, meaning caves, caverns.] + +[Footnote 631: Cyclopean architecture. In Greek mythology, the Cyclops +were a race of giants. The term 'Cyclopean' is applied here to the +architecture of Egypt and India, because of the majestic size of the +buildings, and the immense size of the stones used, as if it would +require giants to perform such works.] + +[Footnote 632: Phidian sculpture. Phidias was a famous Greek sculptor +who lived in the age of Pericles and beautified Athens with his +works.] + +[Footnote 633: Gothic minsters. Churches or cathedrals, built in the +Gothic, or pointed, style of architecture which prevailed during the +Middle Ages; it owed nothing to the Goths, and this term was +originally used in reproach, in the sense of "barbarous."] + +[Footnote 634: The Italian painting. In Italy during the fifteenth and +sixteenth centuries pictorial art was carried to a degree of +perfection unknown in any other time or country.] + +[Footnote 635: Ballads of Spain and Scotland. The old ballads of these +countries are noted for beauty and spirit.] + +[Footnote 636: Tripod. Define this word, and explain its +appropriateness here.] + +[Footnote 637: Aubrey. John Aubrey, an English antiquarian of the +seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 638: Rowe. Nicholas Rowe, an English author of the +seventeenth century, who wrote a biography of Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 639: Timon. See note on _Gifts_, 466.] + +[Footnote 640: Warwick. An English politician and commander of the +fifteenth century, called "the King Maker." He appears in +Shakespeare's plays, _Henry IV._, _V._, and _VI._] + +[Footnote 641: Antonio. The Venetian Merchant in Shakespeare's play, +_The Merchant of Venice_.] + +[Footnote 642: Talma. Francois Joseph Talma was a French tragic actor, +to whom Napoleon showed favor.] + +[Footnote 643: An omnipresent humanity, etc. See what Carlyle has to +say on this subject in his _Hero as Poet_.] + +[Footnote 644: Daguerre. Louis Jacques Daguerre, a French painter, one +of the inventors of the daguerreotype process, by means of which an +image is fixed on a metal plate by the chemical action of light.] + +[Footnote 645: Euphuism. The word here has rather the force of +euphemism, an entirely different word. Euphuism was an affected ornate +style of expression, so called from _Euphues_, by John Lyly, a +sixteenth century master of that style.] + +[Footnote 646: Epicurus. A Greek philosopher of the third century +before Christ. He was the founder of the Epicurean school of +philosophy which taught that pleasure should be man's chief aim and +that the highest pleasure is freedom.] + +[Footnote 647: Dante. (See note 258.)] + +[Footnote 648: Master of the revels, etc. Emerson always expressed +thankfulness for "the spirit of joy which Shakespeare had shed over +the universe." See what Carlyle says in _The Hero as Poet_, about +Shakespeare's "mirthfulness and love of laughter."] + +[Footnote 649: Koran. The Sacred book of the Mohammedans.] + +[Footnote 650: Twelfth Night, etc. The names of three bright, merry, +or serene plays by Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 651: Egyptian verdict. Emerson used Egyptian probably in the +sense of "gipsy." He compares such opinions to the fortunes told by +the gipsies.] + +[Footnote 652: Tasso. An Italian poet of the sixteenth century.] + +[Footnote 653: Cervantes. A Spanish poet and romancer of the sixteenth +century, the author of _Don Quixote_.] + +[Footnote 654: Israelite. Such Hebrew prophets as Isaiah and +Jeremiah.] + +[Footnote 655: German. Such as Luther.] + +[Footnote 656: Swede. Such as Swedenborg, the mystic philosopher of +the eighteenth century of whom Emerson had already written in +_Representative Men_.] + +[Footnote 657: A pilgrim's progress. As described by John Bunyan, the +English writer, in his famous _Pilgrim's Progress_.] + +[Footnote 658: Doleful histories of Adam's fall, etc. The subject of +_Paradise Lost,_ the great poem by John Milton.] + +[Footnote 659: With doomsdays and purgatorial, etc. As described by +Dante in his _Divine Commedia_, an epic about hell, purgatory, and +paradise.] + + +PRUDENCE + +[Footnote 660: The essay on _Prudence_ was given as a lecture in +the course on _Human Culture_, in the winter of 1837-8. It was +published in the first series of _Essays_, which appeared in 1841.] + +[Footnote 661: Lubricity. The word means literally the state or +quality of being slippery; Emerson uses it several times, in its +derived sense of "instability."] + +[Footnote 662: Love and Friendship. The subjects of the two essays +preceding _Prudence_, in the volume of 1841.] + +[Footnote 663: The world is filled with the proverbs, etc. Compare +with this passage Emerson's words in _Compensation_ on "the flights of +proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as that of +birds and flies."] + +[Footnote 664: A good wheel or pin. That is, a part of a machine.] + +[Footnote 665: The law of polarity. Having two opposite poles, the +properties of the one of which are the opposite of the other.] + +[Footnote 666: Summer will have its flies. Emerson discoursed +with philosophic calm about the impediments and disagreeableness which +beset every path; he also accepted them with serenity when he +encountered them in his daily life.] + +[Footnote 667: The inhabitants of the climates, etc. As a +northerner, Emerson naturally felt that the advantage and superiority +were with his own section. He expressed in his poems _Voluntaries_ and +_Mayday_ views similar to those declared here.] + +[Footnote 668: Peninsular campaign. Emerson here refers to +the military operations carried on from 1808 to 1814 in Portugal, +Spain, and southern France against the French, by the British, +Spanish, and Portuguese forces commanded by Wellington. What was the +"Peninsular campaign" in American history?] + +[Footnote 669: Dr. Johnson is reported to have said, etc. Dr. +Samuel Johnson was an eminent English scholar of the eighteenth +century. In this, as in many other instances, Emerson quotes from his +memory instead of from the book. The words of Dr. Johnson, as reported +by his biographer Boswell, are: "Accustom your children constantly to +this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, +say it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check +them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."] + +[Footnote 670: Rifle. A local name in England and New England +for an instrument, on the order of a whetstone, used for sharpening +scythes; it is made of wood, covered with fine sand or emery.] + +[Footnote 671: Last grand duke of Weimar. Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach is a +grand duchy of Germany. The grand duke referred to was Charles +Augustus, who died in 1828. He was the friend and patron of the great +German authors, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland.] + +[Footnote 672: The Raphael in the Dresden gallery. The Sistine +Madonna, the most famous picture of the great Italian artist, +Raphael.] + +[Footnote 673: Call a spade a spade. Plutarch, the Greek historian, +said, "These Macedonians ... call a spade a spade."] + +[Footnote 674: Parts. A favorite eighteenth century term for +abilities, talents.] + +[Footnote 675: We have found out, etc. Emerson always insisted that +morals and intellect should be united. He urged that power and +insight are lessened by shortcomings in morals.] + +[Footnote 676: Goethe's Tasso. A play by the German poet +Goethe, founded on the belief that the imprisonment of Tasso was due +to his aspiration to the hand of Leonora d'Este, sister of the duke of +Ferrara. Tasso was a famous Italian poet of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 677: Richard III. An English king, the last of the +Plantagenet line, the hero--or villain--of Shakespeare's historical +play, Richard III.] + +[Footnote 678: Bifold. Give a simpler word that means the same.] + +[Footnote 679: Caesar. Why is Caesar the great Roman ruler, given as a +type of greatness?] + +[Footnote 680: Job. Why is Job, the hero of the Old Testament book of +the same name, given as a type of misery?] + +[Footnote 681: Poor Richard. _Poor Richard's Almanac_, +published (1732-1757) by Benjamin Franklin was a collection of maxims +inculcating prudence and thrift. These were given as the sayings of +"Poor Richard."] + +[Footnote 682: State Street. A street in Boston, Massachusetts, noted +as a financial center.] + +[Footnote 683: Stick in a tree between whiles, etc. "Jock, when ye hae +naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be +growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping."--Scott's _Heart of Midlothian_. +It is said that these were the words of a dying Scotchman to his son.] + +[Footnote 684: Minor virtues. Emerson suggests that punctuality and +regard for a promise are two of these. Can you name others?] + +[Footnote 685: The Latin proverb says, etc. This is quoted from +Tacitus, the famous Roman historian.] + +[Footnote 686: If he set out to contend, etc. In contention, +Emerson holds, the best men would lose their characteristic virtues, +--the fearless apostle Paul, his devotion to truth; the gentle +disciple John, his loving charity.] + +[Footnote 687: Though your views are in straight antagonism, &c. This +was Emerson's own method, and by it he won a courteous hearing from +those to whom his views were most objectionable.] + +[Footnote 688: Consuetudes. Give a simpler word that has the same +meaning.] + +[Footnote 689: Begin where we will, etc. Explain what Emerson means by +this expression.] + + +CIRCLES + +[Footnote 690: This essay first appeared in the first series of +_Essays_, published in 1841. Unlike most of the other essays in the +volume, no earlier form of it exists, and it was probably not +delivered first as a lecture. + +Dr. Richard Garnett says in his _Life of Emerson_: "The object of this +fine essay quaintly entitled _Circles_ is to reconcile this rigidity +of unalterable law with the fact of human progress. Compensation +illustrates one property of a circle, which always returns to the +point where it began, but it is no less true that around every circle +another can be drawn.... Emerson followed his own counsel; he always +keeps a reserve of power. His theory of _Circles_ reappears without +the least verbal indebtedness to himself in the splendid essay on +_Love_."] + +[Footnote 691: St. Augustine. A celebrated father of the +Latin church, who flourished in the fourth century. His most famous +work is his _Confessions_, an autobiographical volume of religious +meditations.] + +[Footnote 692: Another dawn risen on mid-noon. "Another morn has risen +on mid-noon." Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book V.] + +[Footnote 693: Greek sculpture. The greatest development of +the art of sculpture that the world has ever known was that which took +place in Greece, with Athens as the center, in the fifth century +before Christ. The masterpieces which remain are the models on which +modern art formed itself.] + +[Footnote 694: Greek letters. In literature--in drama, philosophy and +history--Greece attained an excellence as signal as in art. Emerson as +a scholar, felt that the literature of Greece was more permanent than +its art. Would an artist be apt to take this view?] + +[Footnote 695: New arts destroy the old, etc. Tell the ways in which +the improvements and inventions mentioned by Emerson have been +superseded by others; give the reasons. Mention other similar cases of +more recent date.] + +[Footnote 696: The life of man is a self-evolving circle, etc. "Throw a +stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the +beautiful type of all influence."--EMERSON, in _Nature_.] + +[Footnote 697: The heart refuses to be imprisoned. It is a +superstition current in many countries that an evil spirit cannot +escape from a circle drawn round it.] + +[Footnote 698: Crass. Gross; coarse.] + +[Footnote 699: The continual effort to raise himself above +himself, etc. + + "Unless above himself he can + Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!" + SAMUEL DANIEL. + +] + +[Footnote 700: If he were high enough, etc. + + Have I a lover + Who is noble and free?-- + I would he were nobler + Than to love me.--EMERSON, _The Sphinx._ + +] + +[Footnote 701: Aristotle and Plato. Plato was a famous Greek +philosopher who flourished in the fourth century before Christ. He was +the disciple of Socrates, the teacher of Aristotle, and the founder of +the academic school of philosophy. His exposition of idealism was +founded on the teachings of Socrates. Aristotle, another famous Greek +philosopher, was for twenty years the pupil of Plato. He founded the +peripatetic school of philosophy, and his writing dealt with all the +then known branches of science.] + +[Footnote 702: Berkeley. George Berkeley was a British clergyman of +the eighteenth century. He was the author of works on philosophy which +are marked by extreme subjective idealism.] + +[Footnote 703: Termini. Boundaries or marks to indicate boundaries. In +Roman mythology, Terminus was the god who presided over boundaries or +landmarks. He is represented with a human head, but without feet or +arms,--to indicate that he never moved from his place.] + +[Footnote 704: Pentecost. One of three great Jewish festivals. On the +day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the infant Christian +church, with the gift of tongues. See Acts ii. 1-20.] + +[Footnote 705: Hodiernal. Belonging to our present day.] + +[Footnote 706: Punic. Of Carthage, a famous ancient city, and +state of northern Africa. Carthage was the rival of Rome, but was, +after long warfare, overcome in the second century before Christ.] + +[Footnote 707: In like manner, etc. Emerson always urged that in order +to get the best from all, one must pass from affairs to thought, +society to solitude, books to nature. + + "See thou bring not to field or stone + The fancies found in books; + Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, + To brave the landscape's look."--EMERSON, + _Waldeinsamkeit_. + +] + +[Footnote 708: Petrarch. (See note 563.)] + +[Footnote 709: Ariosto. A famous Italian author of the sixteenth +century, who wrote comedies, satires, and a metrical romance, _Orlando +Furioso_.] + +[Footnote 710: "Then shall also the Son", etc. See 1 Corinthians xv. +28: Does Emerson quote the passage verbatim?] + +[Footnote 711: These manifold tenacious qualities, etc. It is +remarked of Emerson that the idea of the symbolism of nature which he +received from Plato, was the source of much of his pleasure in +Swedenborg, the Swedish mystic philosopher. Emerson says in his volume +on _Nature_: "The noblest ministry of nature is to stand as an +apparition of God."] + +[Footnote 712: "Forgive his crimes," etc. This is quoted from _Night +Thoughts_ by the English didactic poet, Edward Young.] + +[Footnote 713: Pyrrhonism. A doctrine held by a follower of Pyrrho, a +Greek philosopher of the third century before Christ, who founded the +sceptical school. He taught that it is impossible to attain truth, and +that men should be indifferent to all external circumstances.] + +[Footnote 714: I own I am gladdened, etc. Emerson always held fast to +the consoling thought that there was no evil without good, none out of +which Good did not or could not come.] + +[Footnote 715: Sempiternal. Everlasting; eternal.] + +[Footnote 716: Oliver Cromwell. An Englishman of the middle classes +who became the military and civil leader of the English Revolution of +the seventeenth century. He refused the title of king; but as Lord +Protector of the English commonwealth, he exercised royal power.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS *** + +***** This file should be named 16643.txt or 16643.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/6/4/16643/ + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant , Sankar Viswanathan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/16643.zip b/old/16643.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..08d30ae --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16643.zip |
