Essays: First Series
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1,579 passages indexed from Essays: First Series (Ralph Waldo Emerson) — Page 30 of 32
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Essays: First Series, passage 1135
[Footnote 170: He had rather have his actions ascribed to whim and caprice than to spend the day in explaining them.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1287
[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:
Essays: First Series, passage 641
"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."
Essays: First Series, passage 606
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1111
[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_.]
Essays: First Series, passage 571
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1492
[Footnote 613: Wieland. Christopher Martin Wieland was a German contemporary of Lessing's, who made a prose translation into German of Shakespeare's plays.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1177
[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.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1392
[Footnote 493: Madeira Islands. Where are these islands, famous for picturesque beauty and balmy atmosphere?]
Essays: First Series, passage 17
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....
Essays: First Series, passage 518
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!"
Essays: First Series, passage 203
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1320
[Footnote 412: Mercuries. The word here means simply messengers. According to Greek mythology, Mercury was the messenger of the gods.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1442
[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.]
Essays: First Series, passage 684
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 973
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1000
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?
Essays: First Series, passage 1418
[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.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1434
[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.]
Essays: First Series, passage 719
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 478
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 388
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1023
[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.]
Essays: First Series, passage 524
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 737
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 804
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1185
[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_.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1337
[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.]
Essays: First Series, passage 266
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 39
"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....
Essays: First Series, passage 696
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 232
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 103
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1554
[Footnote 689: Begin where we will, etc. Explain what Emerson means by this expression.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1327
[Footnote 425: Recall. In the first edition, Emerson had here the word "signify." Which is the better word and why?]
Essays: First Series, passage 174
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1346
[Footnote 449: Golden Book. In a book, called "the Golden Book," were recorded the names of all the children of Venetian noblemen.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1476
[Footnote 596: Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc. The first regular English tragedy, by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, printed in 1565.]
Essays: First Series, passage 1546
[Footnote 680: Job. Why is Job, the hero of the Old Testament book of the same name, given as a type of misery?]
Essays: First Series, passage 669
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."
Essays: First Series, passage 533
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 334
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1512
[Footnote 638: Rowe. Nicholas Rowe, an English author of the seventeenth century, who wrote a biography of Shakespeare.]
Essays: First Series, passage 460
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 1020
[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.
Essays: First Series, passage 461
Now this convention, which good sense demands, destroys the high freedom of great conversation, which requires an absolute running of two souls into one.
Essays: First Series, passage 24
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."
Essays: First Series, passage 1510
[Footnote 635: Ballads of Spain and Scotland. The old ballads of these countries are noted for beauty and spirit.]
Essays: First Series, passage 198
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.
Essays: First Series, passage 587
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.