Essays: First Series
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1,579 passages indexed from Essays: First Series (Ralph Waldo Emerson) — Page 11 of 32
License: Public Domain
Essays: First Series, passage 784
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1107
[Footnote 127: Edmund Burke (1729?-1797), illustrious Irish statesman, orator, and author.]
Essays: First Series, passage 881
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 385
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 707
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 907
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 432
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 656
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1240
[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_.]
Essays: First Series, passage 644
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1356
[Footnote 461: Furies. In Roman mythology, three goddesses who sought out and punished evil-doers.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1547
[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."]
Essays: First Series, passage 815
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 347
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1199
[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?]
Essays: First Series, passage 243
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1208
[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."]
Essays: First Series, passage 46
"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."
Essays: First Series, passage 751
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 217
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 876
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 757
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1572
"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_.
Essays: First Series, passage 1054
[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.'"]
Essays: First Series, passage 123
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1277
[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.]
Essays: First Series, passage 234
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1070
[Footnote 76: By the Classic age is generally meant the age of Greece and Rome; and by the Romantic is meant the middle ages.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1009
[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.]
Essays: First Series, passage 185
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1093
[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.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1374
[Footnote 473: Gabriel. One of the seven archangels. The Hebrew name means "God is my strong one."]
Essays: First Series, passage 1228
[Footnote 294: A texture of wine and dreams. What does Emerson mean by this phrase? Explain the whole sentence.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1556
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_."]
Essays: First Series, passage 572
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 826
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 382
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1062
[Footnote 68: Carolus Linnæus (1707-1778). A great Swedish botanist. He did much to make botany the orderly science it now is.]
Essays: First Series, passage 578
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1188
"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.
Essays: First Series, passage 730
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1313
[Footnote 403: Nelson. Horatio Nelson, an English admiral, who won many great naval victories and was killed in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1116
[Footnote 147: These lines appear in Emerson's _Quatrains_ under the title _Power_.]
Essays: First Series, passage 890
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1559
[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.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1021
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."]
Essays: First Series, passage 121
Long he must stammer in his speech; often forego the living for the dead. Worse yet, he must accept--how often!--poverty and solitude.
Essays: First Series, passage 1229
[Footnote 295: "The valiant warrior," etc. The quotation is from Shakespeare's _Sonnet_, XXV.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1405
[Footnote 513: Black. Joseph Black, a Scotch chemist who made valuable discoveries about latent heat and carbon dioxide, or carbonic acid gas.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1241
[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;