THiiiiiiHi III! ■aMaa»M««aaiMM«iwaaj»ftMMa|aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiijijiiiiwiHBhnimmi)>Bi».'.i>( 
 
 PS 1602 
 
 Copy 1 
 
 ESSAY ON MANNER. 
 
 WITH OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 RALPH WALDO, EMERSON 
 
 LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 
 
 jJ rt WilW it Bii. ' 4iJW(lUa t u;U.il ' >Hi <i >w WW > i J»ilU. l lB i 'PM 1 UUIMM I UJllJUilttililiJl WtWmBW l ftfl^nill ia aM I WiJJUUJ^^ 
 
Class '^ /<^ ^'\ 
 Book O O 
 
 CoRyiightN"- 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE, Ph.D., L.H.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 ESSAYS ON 
 
 MANNERS, SELF-RELIANCE 
 
 COMPENSATION, NATURE, FRIENDSHIP 
 
lonffmanfif* (EnffUfil) Clafigicg 
 
 ^..^.. -■ EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 ON 
 
 MANNERS, SELF-RELIANCE, 
 
 COMPENSATION, NATURE, 
 
 FRIENDSHIP 
 
 EDITED 
 
 WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION 
 BY 
 
 EUNICE J. CLEVELAND, A. M. 
 
 HEAD OF THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, NORTHROP COLLEGIATE SCHOOL, 
 MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 
 
 LON^GMAKS, GEEEN, AND CO. 
 
 FOURTH AVENUE AND 30th STREET, NEW YORK 
 
 PRAIRIE AVENUE & 25th STREET, CHICAGO 
 
 1915 
 

 Copyright, 1915 
 
 BY 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 ©CI.A41I'770 
 nrj -41915 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 I. Life of Emerson vii 
 
 II. Emerson's Teaching xxiii 
 
 III. How to Study the Essays xxxii 
 
 Bibliographical Note xl 
 
 Chronological Table xliii 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 Manners 1 
 
 Self-reliance 27 
 
 Compensation 59 
 
 Nature 83 
 
 Friendship 103 
 
 Notes 123 
 
 V 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I. LIFE OF EMERSON" 
 (May 25, 1803— April 27, 1882) 
 
 We have few more intimate biographical records than 
 Emerson's ; fewer still that cause so little disappointment 
 in the reading. In the wealth of material at hand, — 
 in his Journal and letters as well as in the personal 
 reminiscences of a great band of friends and admirers, — 
 we are brought face to face with a personality that can 
 but win by the "cumulative power of character/^ Even 
 those who met Emerson with prejudices to be overcome 
 were conquered by his presence. "In an instant all my 
 dislike vanished," said Crabbe Robinson, in reporting 
 the first glimpse caught of him across a crowded room. 
 One and another bear evidence to the same personal 
 power with a concurrence that would be tiresome, were 
 it not for the strong individual conviction in each case. 
 
 Two other brothers, Edward and Charles, both younger, 
 shared this power; William, the oldest, was likewise 
 gifted with unusual intellect. The family lived in Bos- 
 ton, where the father, William Emerson, was a brilliant 
 Congregational minister, prominent in religious, social, 
 and literary circles till his death in 1811. That, event 
 put a new face on the circumstances of the family ; only 
 the most rigid and careful economy, supplemented by 
 the generous continuance of part of her husband's salary 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 aud the help of relatives, enabled the mother, Ruth 
 Haskins Emerson, to keep the family together and give 
 them the education due to their great intellectual gifts 
 and to the traditions of the family. "They were born 
 to be educated," their aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, once 
 declared. 
 
 This aunt was a force to be reckoned with. Odd to 
 the point of absurdity, she yet had so fine an intellect 
 and so true a nature that she gained and held the respect 
 of her nephews. She was at times an inmate of their 
 home; at other times her peculiarities drove her to the 
 quiet of the country. But absent or present, she con- 
 tinually urged them on by the spur of her spiritual 
 ambition to live lives of independent thought, to dis- 
 regard fame and social advancement, and to fit them- 
 selves for true leadership. The early correspondence 
 between her and Ealph Waldo Emerson is scarcely less 
 valuable than the first few years of his Journal in trac- 
 ing the rise of his fine independence of thought. 
 
 Through a childhood filled with work and books, sea- 
 soned by the hardships of poverty, and straitened by 
 Puritan discipline, one catches glimpses of the Emerson 
 of later days. He made efforts at poetical and orator- 
 ical composition, flat and feeble to be sure, but earnest ; 
 and when, in his twelfth year, the family went to live 
 for a time with their step-grandfather, Dr. Ezra Ripley, 
 at the Old Manse in Concord, Waldo and his two 
 younger brothers were set free in nature. "They took 
 that valley for their toy," writes Emerson in The Dirge, 
 and alludes to games that filled the Concord woods and 
 cornfields with echoes from the past. When he came 
 back as a man, those woods were already dear to him; 
 and the imagination that in boyhood had wakened 
 through them to a love of nature, found there in manhood 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 as nowhere else, a way of feeling and seeing that deepened 
 into philosophical vision. 
 
 In the Latin School at Boston Emerson did not dis- 
 tinguish himself; but at fourteen he was ready for 
 Harvard. William had preceded him there, and later 
 the two younger boys followed him. All were obliged 
 to mingle study and work and to live more frugally than 
 was good for boys of their delicate constitution. On en- 
 trance Emerson was President's Freshman, or messenger, 
 and later eked out his expenses by waiting on table, 
 tutoring, and teaching a country school. Pie was urged 
 on meanwhile by the stern-spirited women at home to 
 rise above material inconveniences and become an in- 
 dependent, moral spirit. Those who knew him described 
 him even in his freshman days as "kindly, affable, and 
 self contained.^^ He took his degree in 1821 without 
 any distinction except the rather equivocal one of being 
 chosen class poet after seven others had refused the 
 office; but though he bore from college little honor and 
 less knowledge of mathematics, he had "consoled himself 
 for his defects,'^ as his Journal long years afterwards 
 states, "with Chaucer and Montaigne, with Plutarch 
 and Plato at night." Other authors we find mentioned 
 here and there as forming part of this privately acquired 
 education, — Otwa.y, Massinger, Swift, Addison, Sterne, 
 and many historical writers and poets of his own day. 
 Shakespeare he knew from beginning to end. 
 
 After graduation he turned to teaching in earnest, 
 assisting in a school for young ladies which William, 
 "a grave professor even at eighteen," had started in his 
 mother's house. In a short time he was left in sole 
 charge by William's departure for Europe. The task 
 was far from congenial, for he fell short of his brother's 
 dignity and was often teased for his bashfulness and 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 blushing cheeks by his roguish pupils. In after years 
 they praised his work as a teacher, but he looked upon it 
 with regret because he had made it too much a matter 
 of dry form, keeping the best of his thoughts to himself. 
 His Journal of those days shows that even then he was 
 cherishing ideas which were to become an important part 
 of his later philosophy. 
 
 He continued his teaching till free from debt, then in 
 1825 went back to Harvard to study theology. But he 
 made the mistake, for the sake of economy, of taking a 
 damp, dimly lighted room. Eheumatism, weak eyes, and 
 a stricture in the chest were the results, so that in 1826 
 when he was "approbated" as a Unitarian minister, he 
 was in a fair way to be a confirmed invalid. Rev. 
 Samuel Ripley, the uncle who had always stood behind 
 the family most generousl}^, sent him south. Lazy days 
 in St. Augustine restored his general health, though 
 his lungs were long weak. But prudence and "hope," 
 as his son has said, conquered ill-health at last, and set 
 him free for his life work. 
 
 After the preliminaries usual to a young man starting 
 out in the ministry, Emerson at the age of twenty-six 
 was ordained assistant to Rev. Mr. Ware of the Second 
 Church, Boston, and soon succeeded to the sole pastor- 
 ship. The same 3'ear, 1829, he married Ellen Tucker of 
 Concord, New Hampshire, a joyous, gracious woman, 
 whose influence it is easy to trace in several passages 
 in the essays of this book. One of Emerson's parish- 
 ioners describes her as a flowerlike woman whose delicate 
 health made her practically a recluse from the start ; once 
 each Sunday they saw her when she came in a carriage 
 to hear her husband's sermon. These years of Emerson's 
 pastorate have an ever-increasing interest to the student 
 of his life. They were outwardly prosperous, free from 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 the hardships of early years and from anxiety for his 
 family. But the outer events sink into insignificance 
 before the importance of the mental life he was living. 
 The long lists of books suggested by the J ournal of those 
 years show that he was pursuing a course of study that 
 was bringing him into the great current of the thought 
 of his age. The number and variety of these literary 
 influences must have proved distracting to a less balanced 
 intellect, but to Emerson they were all leading quietly 
 to one belief that was to give direction to his whole 
 life. He was making a thoughtful comparati^■e study 
 of the old Greek philosophers and the modern thinkers 
 in the same line, w^ith close attention to psychology and 
 science. His favorite authors still appear in the lists, 
 but several are added, — Landor, Goethe, Carlyle, and 
 Sw^edenborg. The sense of the beauty and harmony of 
 the world that had often wakened him at night when he 
 was a boy with a feeling of indescribable happiness, was 
 deepened by this reading ; and to it w^as added a growing 
 reverence for the mysterious working of man's mind. 
 The sermons in which he gave public expression to these 
 thoughts are unpublished, but those who have read them 
 in manuscript describe them as conventional in tone, 
 differing little from the usual sermon of his day and 
 church. Those who heard them, however, say they had 
 a singular power of making the life of everyday seem 
 new and very real. 
 
 The years of this service were limited. In 1831 Mrs. 
 Emerson died. September of the following year ended 
 Emerson's connection with his church. He proposed 
 that they should adopt a simpler form of the communion 
 service in which the elements of bread and wine should 
 not be used. He had come to feel acutely that for him 
 worship must be absolutely free from formalism, and if 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 the church did not adopt his suggestion he must resign. 
 But the church stood by the traditional form, although 
 there was no unkindliness of spirit on either side. In 
 December Emerson, practically severed from the pro- 
 fession for which he had been preparing all his life, set 
 sail for Europe. His farewell letter to his church is the 
 best comment on the situation; one feels on reading it 
 that he would always be a leader of men^s thoughts 
 whether he held a pulpit or not. 
 
 Of his European trip we have an account in his 
 Journal and letters, and in the beginning of English 
 Traits. He went by way of the Mediterranean and 
 traveled northward through Italy. The churches made 
 a great impression upon him; again and again Iiq 
 describes the feeling of awe they awakened. His com- 
 ments on Italian art are full of self-revelation: ^'I 
 make a continual effort not to be pleased except by that 
 which ought to please me," he notes in Florence, ^^and 
 I walked coolly round and round the marble lady"; "I 
 collect nothing that can be touched- or tasted or smelled, 
 neither cameo, painting, nor medallion, but I value much 
 the growing picture which the ages have painted and 
 which I reverently survey." Throughout his journey 
 his supreme interest was in men. He reconstructed in 
 his imagination the cities of the past and brought their 
 heroes back to walk their streets; and he visited the 
 great men of the present. In Florence he became ac- 
 quainted with Landor, and in England he saw Coleridge 
 and Wordsworth. 
 
 But the event of his journey was his visit to Carlyle, 
 then comparatively unknown. He made his way from 
 Dumfries to Craigenputtock, where he found the "tall, 
 gaunt man of clifflike brow" with whom he had formed 
 a book acquaintance in America. He stayed only over 
 
INTRODUCTION xill 
 
 night, but he "talked and heard talk to his heart's 
 content," as Carlyle wrote to his mother. One may well 
 believe it from the range of topics that were discussed 
 in the short visit, from favorite books to "that plastic 
 little animal man"^ and the immortality of the soul. In 
 August he wrote to Mr. Ireland after his visit to Carlyle, 
 ''The comfort of meeting a man is that he speaks sin- 
 cerely, . . . that he is above the meanness of pretend- 
 ing to knowledge which he has not.'^ He had not found 
 Carlyle all that he had expected, but he had found him 
 a man, and the two sealed a lifelong friendship. It was 
 Emerson who first published Sartor Resartus in its 
 non-periodical form, and later other works of Carlyle, 
 sparing neither time nor expense in the service of his 
 friend. Carlyle for his part interested himself in 
 Emerson^s literary success in England. The friendship 
 is left to us in permanent record in one of the most 
 interesting books of the nineteenth century. The Cor- 
 respondence of Carlyle and Emerson. 
 
 In 1833 Emerson returned to America, confirmed in 
 his determination to wait patiently the issue of events. 
 Already he was revolving plans for his first book. He 
 settled in Concord, drawn partly by his brother Charles's 
 influence and partly by his boyhood love of the place. 
 It was convenient also to East Lexington, where he 
 accepted a call to act as temporary pastor. He and his 
 mother first lived in the Old Manse; but in 1835, upon 
 his engagement to Lydian Jackson, he bought the house 
 on the old stage road to Boston which became his home 
 for the rest of his life. The early days in Concord were 
 saddened by news of the death of his brother Edward, 
 for whom Emerson had cherished an almost adoring 
 admiration. The youngest brother Charles did not long 
 survive ; he died two years later, in 1836. Him Emerson 
 
Xi V IN TROD UCTION 
 
 describes as "clean aud sweet in life, untempted almost/^ 
 The loss of these brothers was too sore ever to be 
 repaired, for they had been from earliest years so closely 
 bound to Emerson that it was as if a part of his mental 
 faculty had gone with them. He bore their death bravely, 
 as he had borne that of his wife, but it is undeniable that 
 to this bereavement must be traced in some measure that 
 gentle reticence of spirit which marked his social inter- 
 course outside his own family circle. 
 
 Emerson began his literary career in 1836 with the 
 publication of Nature, "the azure book" that Carlyle 
 welcomed with warm praise as a foundation for work of 
 real value to the race. Carlyle's prophecy proved true, 
 but at first there were few who shared his enthusiasm. 
 This first book of Emerson may almost be called an 
 epitome of his later teaching. It is remarkable as well 
 for the beauty of its expression; many of its passages 
 are prose poetry of delicate but inspiring imagination. 
 
 Two years earlier, by speaking before the Mechanic 
 Institute of Boston, Emerson had entered on the field of 
 lecturing. New England lyceums, called into existence 
 by a general desire for culture, attracted many speakers 
 from home and abroad, but none who exerted a deeper 
 influence than he. Almost every year as long as his 
 health permitted him, he delivered lecture courses in 
 Boston. At first he gave besides only an occasional ad- 
 dress in his own village or in some other New England 
 town, but gradually his engagements called him farther 
 and farther from home, — to New York, Philadelphia, 
 Pittsburgh, and westward, until after 1850 he made 
 trips even beyond the Mississippi. In the winter of 
 1847-48 he gave a series of courses in England and 
 Scotland. Of Emerson as a lecturer we have many 
 descriptions. He was singularly impressive, though his 
 
INTRODUCTION XV 
 
 manner was quiet and his style unoratorical. He read 
 from notes, handling his manuscripts with hesitation 
 and looking out over his audience with a farseeing gaze 
 that was at once kindly and remote. He had his hearers 
 with him from the start, even those who did not under- 
 stand what he was saying, and passed from one of his 
 quaintly humorous illustrations to his gravest teach- 
 ings without a break in their responsive attention. The 
 compelling principle was his high, serene character; that 
 was "the something deeper than his words'^ to which 
 Lowell alludes in his essay on Emerson as a lecturer. 
 It spoke in every word and in his quiet presence, but 
 especially in his voice, — ''that undertow of the rich 
 baritone that swept minds from their foothold into 
 deeper waters with a drift they could not and would 
 not resist/' By force of this quiet, impressive personality 
 Emerson made the lecture platform take the place of the 
 pulpit he had left, and in a few years ceased even to serve 
 as supply, devoting himself instead to this lay preaching. 
 His lecture work extended over a period of forty-seven 
 years, the last address being that of 1881. 
 
 Two of his addresses deserve especial mention as of 
 historical importance. One is The American Scholar, 
 the Phi -Beta Kappa oration of 1837; and the other the 
 address before the senior class of Divinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, in 1838. The first because of its strong appeal 
 for a truly American thought and literature has been 
 called "our intellectual Declaration of Independence." 
 The second is scarcely less significant in its bearing on 
 religious history. In it Emerson eloquently urges the 
 need for simplifying and spiritualizing faith. This 
 address set a ban upon his religious teaching and closed 
 the doors of Harvard against him for nearly thirty 
 years. The change of sentiment wrought during that 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION 
 
 time is marked by the fact that at the close he was given 
 the honorary degree of LL.D., was made an Overseer of 
 the college, and was invited again to deliver the Phi 
 Beta Kappa address. 
 
 The record of the thirty years that worked the change 
 is quiet, but not uneventful, though the events are of a 
 nature that gain little from a brief telling. They con- 
 cern themselves, aside from his literary work, chiefly 
 with the placid family and neighborhood life of Concord. 
 Emerson was at his best in his home. He was very fond 
 of children, and to the three who remained to him after 
 the death of his eldest child, Waldo, he gave a most 
 delightful companionship. Few passages in his letters 
 are iiner than those in which he sends messages from 
 England to the children at home, ils a townsman he 
 fulfilled his duties faithfully. The bucket of the fire 
 department, his son says, was always in the entry, and he 
 was long a member of the school committee. He was 
 particularly interested in the town-meeting, holding it 
 in respect as a typical American institution; but he 
 seldom spoke there, and indeed carried himself always 
 as a modest, retiring householder. Nevertheless the 
 rank and file of the townsmen, those who gathered on 
 the corner or before the tavern to discuss important 
 topics, stood in awe of him. At the appearance of his 
 tall, slender figure the group melted away or stood 
 tongue-tied. Emerson never blamed them, though he 
 had a philosopher's interest in the wisdom he might 
 have gathered from their talk. Erom the more substan- 
 tial neighbors, upright New Englanders of the old type, 
 he won not only respect but pleasant companionship. 
 Concord of those days, however, could offer friend- 
 ships of a more unusual type ; it was rich in personalities 
 of extreme interest. One of these was Henry Thoreau. 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 For two } ears lie lived most democratically as a general 
 helper in Emerson^s household; at another time he 
 made his home in a cabin in Walden woods. So devoted 
 was he to his revered friend that it is said he came to 
 speak in the same remarkable voice. There is little in 
 the Journal that betokens more genuine pleasure than 
 the pages which record the woodland expeditions Emer- 
 son took with this eccentric naturalist. ''The ri verged 
 has taken the form of my valiant Henry Thoreau here, 
 and introduced me to the riches of his shadowy, starlit, 
 moonlit stream, a lovely new world lying as close and 
 yet as unknown to this vulgar trite one, as death to life, 
 or poetry to prose. Through one field we went to the 
 boat, and then left all time, all science, all history behind 
 us and entered into nature with one stroke of a paddle/' 
 Another interesting neighbor was Bronson Alcott, the 
 visionary philosopher and author of the Dry hie Sayings. 
 With him Emerson enjoyed a finer intellectual com- 
 panionship than with anyone except Carlyle. Alcott and 
 Thoreau, he said, were the only ones besides himself, 
 who really knew the law of Compensation; but Alcotfs 
 mind lacked conversation so that no one would ever 
 know its riches as he did. Another ardent thinker 
 whom Emerson counted among his friends was Margaret 
 Fuller, the high-souled, adventurous woman whose life 
 ended so tragically in 1850. With her intercourse was 
 more stormy. She could never accept quietly the 
 reticence of Emerson's nature, and accused him of '^al- 
 ways seeming to be on stilts." "It is even so," he 
 comments, "but having never found any remedy, I am 
 very patient with this folly." Hawthorne became a 
 neighbor in 1842 when he came to live at the Old Manse. 
 He was so shy that though he often walked home with 
 Emerson, he could but rarely be persuaded to come into 
 
xvm INTRODUCTION 
 
 the house. The two never came into close relations, 
 though Emerson always honored Hawthorne's noble char- 
 acter, and looked forward to the time when they should 
 be friends. "I thought I could well wait his time and 
 mine for what was so well worth waiting/' he wrote to 
 Mrs. Hawthorne when death had put an end to the 
 hope. 
 
 The wholesome Concord life with its stimulating com- 
 panionships and simple social relations was a fitting 
 accompaniment to Emerson's real work. Every day he 
 spent hours in his study, ''reading for lustres/' he said ; 
 every day also he walked alone, usually in his little 
 wood on Walden Pond, giving himself up to meditation 
 and the quiet influence of nature. The fruits of his 
 thought, first given to the world in lectures, began to 
 appear in print in 1841, when Emerson issued his second 
 book. Essay, First Series, followed in 1844 by the 
 Second Series. The two Series included, among others, 
 the five essays in this volume. In the mean time Emer- 
 son had been making frequent contributions to the Dial, 
 the magazine of high ideals and short life, which was 
 started in 1840 under the editorship of Margaret Fuller. 
 In 1843 he himself reluctantly assumed the editorship 
 and carried the paper its last two years. In 1847 he 
 published May Day and Other Poems; in 1849 Nature, 
 Addresses and Lectures, and in 1850 Representative 
 Men. Without doubt this decade was his most impor- 
 tant period of literary activity. Interesting and valuable 
 as the four later volumes of essays are, the measure of his 
 genius and the strength of his teaching may be found 
 in the books mentioned. They were received with en- 
 thusiasm. Editions were at once issued in England, 
 and reissues were in demand there, and in America as 
 well. They passed over to the continent also and were 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 translated by enthusiastic admirers. All hailed Emersou 
 as the great tliinker who proved that America couid 
 produce a genius all her own. 
 
 About the time that Emerson brought out his first 
 volume of essays, he became interested in two social 
 experiments. One of these was the famous Brook Farm, 
 ten or twelve miles from Boston. The men who organ- 
 ized this scheme were influenced by the same philosoph- 
 ical ideas as Emerson; but they had read also certain 
 continental writers on Socialism, particularly Fourier, 
 who counseled the division of society into phalanxes that 
 should work together for a common living. From 1841 
 to 1847 work and life and education went on at Brook 
 Farm in a pleasant idyllic course, which was not, how- 
 ever, wholly free from financial embarrassment. Some 
 phases of the life are familiar through Hawthorne's 
 BUthedah Romance, but for others one must turn to 
 the personal reminiscences of its members and its visitors. 
 The experiment finally died a natural death, and all 
 that was left was the memory of a pleasant bit of poetry 
 that had lived itself out on New England soil. In the 
 mean time the other community had sped an even shorter 
 course. This was Fruitlands, where Alcott had gathered 
 a little company of men, some from beyond the sea. 
 As was to be expected from a man of his character, his 
 system of farming was comically impractical, so that his 
 experiment was a failure from the start. 
 
 Emerson was a frequent visitor at both communities. 
 He had in fact thought seriously of accepting the earnest 
 invitation to live at Brook Farm. The character of the 
 experimenters and their unselfish aims could not fail 
 to excite his respect, but his dislike of anything like 
 organized reform and his shrewd common sense kept him 
 quietly at home. He tried, it is true, a few socialistic 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 experiments on his own account. In one he was soon 
 convinced that the maids could eat apart from his 
 family without imperiling democratic principles, es- 
 pecially when they sensibly preferred to. In another 
 he found that he could not work his own garden, and 
 afterward read or write with any degree of success. So 
 he settled back into his usual mode of life, satisfied 
 with comfortable conventionality; but he could view 
 with sympathetic amusement the more extensive ex- 
 periments going on at the two farms. His visits found 
 vent in humorous entries in his Journal. "The fault 
 of Alcott's community," he 'wrote, "is that it has only 
 room for one;" and of Brook Farm he recorded, "One 
 man ploughed all day, and one looked out of the window 
 all day and drew his picture, and both received the 
 same wages." 
 
 If Emerson had a large measure of respect for these 
 experimenters, he had much less in common with the 
 crowds of erratic reformers M^ho brought their wild 
 schemes to the famous man of Concord in hopes of his 
 becoming a convert. He received the fanatics with a 
 fine and patient courtesy, though their importunity 
 made distracting breaks in his time; but they had no 
 other satisfaction from their visits. 
 
 There was one class of strangers, however, to whom 
 he always extended a free and cordial welcome. In a 
 letter to Miss Peabody he wrote, "My special parish is 
 young men inquiring their way in life." Even in his 
 last working days, when prudence counseled conservation 
 of his powers, to all the young pilgrims drawn from 
 far and near to Concord he gave a welcome and a chance 
 to prove whether they were in truth men. One of them 
 characterizes Emerson's attitude toward young men as 
 ''wonderfully flattering; it was a manner I know no 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 name for but expectancy; as if the world problem was 
 now to be solved and we were the beardless (Edipuses 
 for whom he had been faithfully waiting." Another 
 says, "Almost before we were alone he had made me 
 forget in whose presence I stood. ... He addressed me 
 as if I were wholly impersonal, a sort of invisible aud- 
 ience, ... He always talked slowly, and his words had 
 the trick of impressing themselves which belongs to happy 
 selection; but it was mostly because his speech was so 
 wise and sincere and came from the depths of his heart, 
 that it has sunken so deep into mine." He was ever 
 lured on, as he wrote Carlyle, "with the hope of saying 
 something which shall stick by the good boys." But to 
 two principles he firmly adhered in this intercourse. 
 He always spoke in the tone and style that was his own 
 with no false allowance for youth; those for whom it 
 was meant could understand it, he held. And he never 
 encouraged disciples; it was his supreme duty to tell 
 people what line of thought he was following in his 
 search for wisdom, and to report as faithfully as he 
 could the truths revealed to him, but every youth must 
 search for himself and be not an Emersonian but an 
 individual. 
 
 Only once in his life did Emerson come forward and 
 offer himself as a direct leader of men's thought. That 
 was in the great abolition struggle. From this at first 
 he held himself aloof, partly out of dislike for the 
 methods that were used and partly because he could 
 always see both sides of a question. He long counseled 
 settlement of the difficulty by the purchase of the slaves 
 at whatsoever cost or sacrifice. This he would follow 
 by the slow process of education and general enlighten- 
 ment. But in 1850 his Journal begins to show that a 
 different phase of the question was rousing him ; "These 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 taunts upon sentimentalism, and higher law, and the 
 like, which our Senators use, are the screens of their 
 ■cowardice." It was as a champion, then, against the 
 moral cowardice of truckling to the demands of property 
 that he finally came forward into the struggle. From 
 then on to the close of the war he had for every crisis 
 a fitting word, fair and liberal, but unbending for the 
 right as he saw it. When the Harvard boys came back 
 from war, he spoke the Commemoration address for 
 those who were left behind. It was fitting that he 
 should, for as Lowell said, "To him more than to all 
 other causes did they owe the sustaining strength of their 
 thoughtful heroism." It was his last patriotic address 
 in connection with the great struggle. 
 
 In 1867 Emerson published in the Atlantic Monthly 
 his Terminus, in which he expressed his conviction: 
 
 *'It is time to be old. 
 
 The port, well worth the cruise, is near." 
 
 Others had not recognized that fact concerning him, 
 but he knew. He completed tasks after that, but most 
 of them were more in the nature of gathering together 
 what he had already done than of fresh composition. 
 In 1870-71 he gave two courses of lectures in philosophy 
 at Harvard, in which he hoped to carry out a plan that 
 had entered his head in 1837, — to put in permanent, 
 consistent form his teaching that the laws of the soul 
 parallel the laws of external nature. But the task was 
 heyond his waning powers. In 1872 the burning of his 
 home and a low fever that assailed him from the incident 
 exposure, still further worked upon his strength. Friends 
 sent him abroad, while they restored the house in minute 
 detail. But his real work was over. What addresses 
 he gave after that were possible only through the as- 
 
INTRODUCTION XXIU 
 
 sistance of his friend Mr. Cabot and his daughter Ellen, 
 who supplied the lapses in his failing memory. This 
 failure took the form of an inability to recall words, 
 usually of common meaning, an inability he was wont 
 to cover by quaint, roundabout expressions. "Isn't 
 there too much heaven on you there ?" he asked a friend 
 whom he thought uncomfortable in the blazing sun. He 
 still read, still talked with those in whose presence he 
 was free, and to the last cherished the thought of friends 
 whose names he could no longer remember. "That is 
 that man, my man,'^ he said of a picture of Carlyle on 
 his study wall. His old age even to its last tranquil 
 breath belongs to the well-nigh perfect integrity of his 
 life. 
 
 II. EMEESON'S TEACHI^^TG. 
 
 In his essays Emerson is a teacher. He offers great 
 moral lessons about what life is and how men should live 
 it, but he does this by suggestion rather than by direct 
 advice, and he does not offer a system of thought. In- 
 stead he makes statements of separate truths. Often 
 these stand in very disconnected relations, sometimes 
 one statement is quite inconsistent with another; but a 
 close study of a considerable body of his work, even of 
 the essays of this book, is sufficient to show that these 
 scattered precepts have reall}^ a basis of logic and may 
 all be unified by a thorough understanding of a few 
 leading ideas. 
 
 In the first place Emerson was an idealist. This 
 means he held that the spirit is real. Some people find 
 it difficult to understand this point of view, for they 
 believe that only what the eye can see and the hand can 
 touch is real. Emerson's idealism is kept in touch with 
 this everyday feeling by a peculiar strain of practicality. 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTION 
 
 "iSTature is ideal to me so long as I cannot try the 
 accuracy of my own senses." "The advantage of the 
 ideal theory is that it presents the world in precisely 
 the view most desirable to the mind." "It animates me 
 to create my own world through the purification of my 
 soul." That last sentence, if looked at closely, offers an 
 insight into his belief. If within a man's own mind is 
 a spirit that can work upon him until the whole world is 
 transformed for him, then that spirit must be real, and 
 the world subordinated to it. 
 
 On this theory that the spirit is real has been built 
 up a system of thought that is very old. It is not easy 
 to understand, for like all philosophical systems it 
 deals with very abstract and very lofty ideas. But one 
 must gain some knowledge of it to comprehend the full 
 force of Emerson's teaching, which springs from this 
 system of thought. The two basic principles of the 
 system, as Emerson himself explains them in several 
 places, are Identity and Variety. I. Identity, or Unity, 
 means that the whole universe is one because it is an 
 expression of one Spirit. This Spirit Emerson usually 
 calls Eeason, or Intuition. II. Variety, or Motion, 
 signifies the changing forms through which this supreme 
 Reason manifests itself, {a.) The flow of Eeason 
 through the minds of men is one phase of this mani- 
 festation. (5.) The great laws and principles that under- 
 lie all nature is another. Visible nature, that is 
 everything outside of man's mind, thus becomes a mere 
 symbol, or outer expression, of those laws; or in other 
 words, it is a s5^mbol of imiversal Eeason. 
 
 On this underlying unity of man and nature idealists 
 built up the idea that the great physical laws which rule 
 in the outer world are paralleled by moral laws which 
 rule in the minds and lives of men. Thev believed, for 
 
INTRODUCTION XXV 
 
 instance, that the law of Fluidity, or constant motion 
 in nature, was a symbol of the constant energy of Rea- 
 son in man's mind; that the law of Evolution was a 
 symbol of an upward tendency in the moral world ; and 
 that the law of Polarity, which balances or neutralizes 
 opposite forces in nature, taught that every act or 
 thought of man would bring to pass its own due reward 
 or penalty. 
 
 In the second place Emerson is an individualist. His 
 individualism is an outgrowth of his idealism, for he 
 holds that every person, being different from every 
 other, is fitted to receive and respond to the flow of 
 Reason in his mind, so as to do a work in the world that 
 no other human being can. The individualist has 
 therefore a supreme duty to be free from all overpower- 
 ing influences from without and listen only to his own 
 Reason. Great men of the past were those who had 
 most clearly fulfilled this duty. It was very important 
 that it should be fulfilled because Reason could act only 
 upon the individual and never upon the masses except 
 through him. He, then, was responsible for improve- 
 ment in societ}^ In this whole doctrine Emerson is 
 truly American, for his individualism received emphasis 
 from his nationalit}^ and formed the strong point in all 
 the teaching he directed to his countrymen. 
 
 In the third place Emerson is an optimist. This is 
 the great prevailing note of his philosophy, as it was the 
 great winning element in his character. He saw in 
 nature the law of compensation working the perfect 
 justice of the Spirit, and this he read as a symbol of 
 the same perfect justice in the lives of men. Reason 
 always triumphs, he said. He saw also in nature the 
 law of evolution working itself out, lower forms ever 
 giving place to higher and tending upward to man. In 
 
XXVI INTRODUCTION 
 
 this he saw a symbol of the evolution possible in the 
 mind of each individual. Sometime would come the age 
 of the perfect man, he said. This doctrine was very 
 American, closely related to the comparatively pure 
 atmosphere of life in the New World and to America's 
 chance for a great future; through it Emerson im- 
 pressed his own high, far-reaching aims upon his nation. 
 
 As was intimated at the start, the system of thought, 
 here given in its barest outline, has its roots far back 
 in the past. Its fundamental ideas of Identity and 
 Variety are traceable to the old Greek schools of phil- 
 osophy, but the systematizing of it was due largely to 
 Plato. He gave too an abiding literary expression to 
 the idealists' great teaching that the only real life is the 
 life of the spirit, and must concern itself with thought 
 and character. The neo-Platonists and Christian mystics 
 emphasized the mystical union of Eeason in man with 
 the universal Eeason; and modern philosophers in the 
 light of modern science have worked out many interesting 
 phases of the idealistic theories. To be more explicit as 
 to the exact sources of special idealistic theories is not 
 necessary here. The point to be kept in mind is that 
 this accumulated body of thought was brought into great 
 prominence a little before Emerson was born and in 
 his early years by a number of philosophers and poets. 
 Among them, because of their great influence on the 
 course of literature, may be mentioned Coleridge and 
 Goethe. 
 
 This noble heritage was not Emerson's alone. The 
 early nineteenth century writers who had voiced the 
 idealistic tendency had mostly finished their work before 
 he began his, but they had handed the thought on to 
 new workers. It had undergone changes in this transi- 
 tion. The great passion for a sudden perfecting of the 
 
INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 human race which had animated many at the time of 
 the French Revolution had faded naturally in the 
 march of historical events, and a quieter view of life 
 had taken its place. One must take things as they were 
 and make the best of them. But if society could not be 
 instantaneously changed, much was to be gained by 
 rousing the individual to live the life of the spirit. 
 Carlyle, who began his literary work in 1824, was of this 
 later school. He spoke the necessity of a healthy, sturdy, 
 sane individual, a man of elemental force, who could 
 pierce with his shrewd eye the shams of life and live in 
 reality. If life looked dark, let him not question too 
 much what it all meant, but find some useful work and 
 do it. Euskin, beginning in 1843, defended the same 
 fundamental principles though in a different way, for 
 he had the more actire instinct of a reformer to fight 
 against existing circumstances. He weighed, however, 
 the finer things of life, — art, science, pity, and useful- 
 ness to others, — against all the material advantages in 
 the world. Among the idealistic poets Browning was 
 one of the foremost advocates of the life of the spirit. 
 His subtly drawn portraits picture the souls of men 
 and women. Some are pure and radiant like little 
 Pippa's, shedding a redeeming light on all around; 
 others are scenes of struggles between good and evil; 
 but the lesson is always the prevailing power of Love. 
 The great novelists of the time also were filled with the 
 same spirit. Their noblest characters are those who for- 
 get themselves and live simply or grandly for others. 
 Social ties and advantages sink before the power of the 
 soul, and the '^Tiappy ending" of the old stories gives 
 way to the triumph of character. 
 
 The system of thought of which we have been speak- 
 ing had a development in America that was modified, 
 
xxviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 naturally, by the conditions existing there. Two of its 
 manifestations deserve especial mention from the rela- 
 tions they bear to Emerson's teaching. One was Trans- 
 cendentalism. This was not a sudden outburst, for 
 idealistic ideas had long been working in New England 
 thought ; but at the time when Emerson's lectures began 
 to attract wide attention these ideas suddenly took a 
 public form. The movement is always associated with 
 Emerson's name, for the teachings of which it was an 
 expression were in the main identical with his. The 
 Transcendentalists were eager, high-souled natures, often 
 so carried away by their ardor as to be fanatical against 
 what they considered the senseless conventions and base 
 aims of society. Many of them were not primarily 
 philosophers; rather they were social reformers, for 
 they had imbibed socialistic ideas along with their 
 idealism and were bent therefore on driving materialism 
 out of society by organized attacks. They divided into 
 sects as numerous as they were enthusiastic, each with 
 its own favorite scheme for improving conditions, and 
 for years they made Xew England the scene of ardent 
 reform. Mention has already been made of the slight 
 community of interest between Emerson and this active 
 tj^pe of Transcendentalists. From the very nature of 
 his teaching he was held aloof from them ; his individ- 
 ualism made organized reform of any kind distasteful, 
 and his optimistic belief in the slow triumph of right 
 in society bade him look toward a less direct method of 
 attack. 
 
 The second manifestation showed how strange a form 
 idealism might take when developed on i^merican soil. 
 Walt T^Hiitman's first issue of Leaves of Grass appeared 
 in 1855. and from then on until his death in 1893 he 
 was a leading figure in American literature. His teach- 
 
INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 ings were fundamentally Emerson's, — idealism, individ- 
 ualism, and optimism, — but he carried them to the 
 extreme of robustness, unconventionality, and democracy. 
 There was no lack of emphasis upon the reality of 
 the life of the spirit, but side by side with that was a 
 sturdy insistence on the reality of the life of the body 
 and a fierce joy in the pleasures of physical being. Noth- 
 ing could be more opposed to Emerson's ideals than 
 some of the tendencies and implications of Whitman's 
 peoms, but they sprang from the same root. 
 
 In the light of all the foregoing facts the question 
 naturally rises what did Emerson add to the system of 
 ideas which had been the common belief of so many 
 workers? He laid no claim to originality of material; 
 indeed he did not think such originality possible. "If 
 one require," he said in speaking of Shakespeare, '^^the 
 originality which consists in weaving, like a spider, their 
 own web from their bodies, no great men are original. 
 Every master has found his material 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 !" Even this kind of originality, however, 
 Emerson cannot wholly disclaim. To be sure, he was 
 not the first to conceive the idea of the parallel between 
 the physical and the spiritual laws, and he acknowledges 
 fully the great help he gained in its development 
 from the mystical, yet scientific works of Emanuel 
 Swedenborg; but he showed very early an adoption of 
 its principles in his own life, and his essays gave it a 
 detailed exposition and helpful application. Moreover, 
 by new combinations of the old ideas, he arrived at 
 original conclusions, as for instance in the relation 
 between the individual and the ultimate regeneration of 
 the race. 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION 
 
 But his final claim to greatness rests in himself more 
 than in the substance of his teaching. He made a vast 
 body of thoughts his own, welding them in the quiet 
 processes of his mind into a faith rather than a system 
 of thought; he adds thus to his words the irresistible 
 power of his character. The very lessons he brought 
 also took color from the mind through which they 
 were passed. His optimism, for instance, was in great 
 measure the product of his character. He was singularly 
 free from human imperfections; someone has said of 
 him that he scarcely knew the nature of temptation. 
 He more than most men, therefore, could ignore the 
 problems of evil, could rise above it and call it Nothing. 
 He has been criticised for his optimism, and the criticism 
 perhaps is just, if his teaching be taken as directed to 
 society. But he always addressed the individual, and 
 his disregard of evil enabled him to make his appeal 
 positive and hopeful. It is at least an open question if 
 this was not an element of strength in his teaching. It 
 was certainly an element of originality. Finally he had 
 an almost unique faculty of fitting his method to his 
 purpose. He saw the universe as a symbol of its great 
 Cause, and pondered upon the laws that run through 
 mind and matter alike; but he could see as well the 
 world full of men and women with daily problems to 
 face. His task was to bring the truths he saw to the 
 help of that world. The task was complicated be- 
 cause he was teaching individuals that they must not 
 rely merely on teaching, but that every soul must ar- 
 rive at its own truths. He met the situation by a body 
 of thought that mingles the ideal and the practical 
 in a way peculiarly his own, and that succeeds as 
 but few teachings have succeeded in giving spiritual 
 stimulus without imposing bonds. His work was based 
 
INTRODUCTION XXXl 
 
 on a system of thought, but it forces no system on others. 
 
 One other element must be dwelt upon in gaining an 
 understanding of what his words stand for; that is his 
 relation to his country. It is not easy to give briefly 
 the social, religious, and political condition of America 
 as Emerson saw it in the early nineteenth century, but 
 perhaps it may be described with sufficient exactness in 
 the two words, dependence and materialism. He saw 
 a nation cut loose from the demands that long years of 
 Old World traditions had laid upon it, and able thus to 
 offer an unparalleled chance of development to its 
 individuals. Yet it had built up for itself a new tra- 
 dition, quite as binding as the old, a tradition of defer- 
 ence to public opinion and the past. The people as a 
 whole were bent chiefly on acquiring wealth; statesmen 
 yielded to the demands of property; religious teachers 
 were preaching a past creed instead of a present faith; 
 and writers, teachers, and artists were building up in 
 the New World a European culture. America was not 
 a broad, forward-looking country with hopes and big 
 plans for the future, but a mere creature of the past and 
 of petty incentives. It is against this America that 
 Emerson took his stand. He offered it aspirations, in- 
 dependence, and aims reaching be3^ond the present. It 
 was a new ideal of freedom that he brought, — real wor- 
 ship, rights for women, pure methods in politics and 
 trade, a truly American art and literature, a broad 
 educational policy, everything that could exalt the in- 
 dividual and give him the power of carrying out his 
 higher will. 
 
 His teachings made their way slowly. His highest 
 idealism could act, of course, only on the few; yet its 
 influence must not be underestimated on that account. 
 Gradually, however, the practical elements sifted them- 
 
xxxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 selves out of what was incomprehensible to the multi- 
 tude, and worked themselves into the life and thought 
 of his country. It is a tribute to Emerson rather than 
 a depreciation of his work that many a common opinion 
 of today can be traced to him or to the iS^ew England 
 idealism of which he was the center. 
 
 III. HOW TO STUDY THE ESSAYS. 
 
 In studying an essay of Emerson the aim should be 
 to arrive at as complete a comprehension as possible of 
 what the essay teaches, and to relate its thought to the 
 body of teaching to which it belongs. A casual reading 
 is of less help in the study of Emerson than is the case 
 with most authors, though such a reading should be 
 given. It must be followed, however, by a close study of 
 the author's method and style and of his meaning in 
 detail. Special questions on these points are offered on 
 the following pages. They are, of course, only sugges- 
 tions and must be varied to suit the class. Especially in 
 the case of style and method should they be amplified. 
 The peculiarities of Emerson's style have been the center 
 of much criticism. They were in large measure the 
 result of his desire to be suggestive and stimulating 
 rather than authoritative. His method of composition 
 followed out this theory. The thoughts that came to him 
 were clothed in fitting sentence form and recorded in 
 his Journal. When he composed a lecture, he grouped 
 these recorded thoughts about some leading or central 
 idea and gave them to the public, enriched with concrete 
 illustrations. The essays were made from passages 
 selected from the lectures, but the illustrations were 
 mostly dropped and the language was condensed to only 
 the most essential words. The result was essays of very 
 peculiar structure. The thought is built up in sentences 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxiii 
 
 rather than in sentence or paragraph groups. This 
 leads to many breaks, either real or apparent, which 
 must be bridged from the reader's own thoughts. The 
 lack of connection occurs between paragraphs, and be- 
 tween sentences in the paragraph as well. In some 
 cases the sense runs easily from sentence to sentence 
 until the break is reached; then the line of thought 
 diverges into a new channel. The old thought is not 
 always resumed. Often the break occurs because an 
 idea is developed by the statement of facts assumed as 
 true, where one might expect an explanation. The whole 
 effect of the style is suggestive ; it forces upon the reader 
 the necessity of grasping a sentence completely, that is, 
 of gaining from it what it contains and what it implies ; 
 every word must be studied. 
 
 When the reader has grasped the meaning of an essay 
 in detail, he has gained in large measure its moral les- 
 sons. But the practice Emerson followed of showing 
 first one phase and then another of his teaching, leaving 
 the reader to balance contradictions and strike the 
 medium of truth, creates often an impression of vague- 
 ness regarding the meaning of the essay as a whole. To 
 supply the thread of logic the mind is unconsciously 
 seeking, many methods are open. The suggestions and 
 questions given for each essay separately on pages xxxvi 
 to xxxix may prove helpful. 
 
 For the essay on Manners, (I) questions on method 
 and style, (II) suggestions for the discussion of special 
 passages, and (III) suggestions for the study of the 
 teachings as a whole, are offered in the following pages. 
 For the other essays, only suggestions for the study of 
 the essay as a whole are given, but material suggestive 
 as well as explanatory on special passages will be found 
 in the Notes at the end of the volume. 
 
xxxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 MANNERS 
 
 I. Questions on Method and Style 
 
 Page 2, line 27. Note the break between this and the preced- 
 ing paragraph. Supply the process of thought that would unite 
 the two. Find other examples of broken transition between 
 paragraphs. 
 
 2, 1. 31. "The word gentleman" etc. Can the break between 
 this sentence and the preceding be supplied? 
 
 3, 1. 13. What is the relation of this sentence to what precedes 
 and what follows? 
 
 5, 1. 10. The figure of speech here is suggestive rather than 
 explanatory. What does it suggest? 
 
 6, 1. 30. What does this figure of speech suggest? Note 
 whether other figures in the essay are explanatory or illustrative. 
 
 7, 1. 14. In this paragraph select sentences that are mere 
 statements where proof might be expected. Find other examples 
 of the same method of development. 
 
 8, 1. 18. Supply the statement omitted between this and the 
 sentence in the preceding line. 
 
 10, 1. 32. " A man," etc. What is the relation of this sen- 
 tence to what precedes and what follows? 
 
 11, 1. 28. "A gentleman," etc. Note the relation of this 
 sentence to its context. 
 
 15, 1. 18. "Conventional." Notice that the emphasis is laid 
 on the derivation of the word. Are there other uses of this 
 device? 
 
 19, 1. 4. Contrast by reading aloud the rhythm of this para- 
 graph with one from Webster or Hawthorne. 
 
 II. Suggestions for the Discussion of Special Passages 
 
 Page 3, line 25. "Quantities" is used in a pecuUar sense. 
 Define it. 
 
 5, 1. 8. "Memory" is here equivalent to established pre- 
 cedents which go down before a dominating personality. What 
 quaUty of the gentleman is emphasized in this paragraph? Is 
 it generally accepted as a quality of good manners? Why does 
 Emerson emphasize it? 
 
 6, 1. 22. Is this the method by which manners are actually 
 revivified? The second part of the paragraph reminds one of the 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxv 
 
 relations between Chesterfield and Dr. Johnson. See Macaulay's 
 Life of Johnson and Boswell's Johnson. 
 
 7, 1. 14. Does Emerson mean the " class of power " are 
 gentlemen? Or the "polished circles"? Does this contradict 
 the paragraph on page four in any sense? 
 
 8, 1. 10. "The city," etc. What is the significance of this 
 and the following sentences in the paragraph? 
 
 8, 1. 17. Note how this paragraph emphasizes the fact that 
 society, in the narrower sense of the word, is a natural product, 
 and cannot therefore be set aside or forced. 
 
 9, 1. 20. In what sense can this sentence and the following be 
 accepted as true? Does the latter part of the paragraph tally 
 with experience? 
 
 9, 1. 29. Does society hate pretenders? Explain the next 
 sentence. What is the leading idea of the paragraph? How are 
 the last three sentences related to it? Is the paragraph con- 
 sistent with jyage 15, lines 12-20. Can the two ideas be recon- 
 ciled? 
 
 11, 1. 12. Who are the "lesser gods"? The "loftier deities"? 
 Is the last sentence in this paragraph idealistic or practical? 
 
 11, 1. 22. In this paragraph note the emphasis again on the 
 individual. Is physical, mental, or moral worth implied here 
 as the basic idea of the gentleman? Note the quiet humor 
 implied in " too great or too little." 
 
 13, 1. 21. In what sense is "deference" explained by the 
 paragraph. The aloofness described here is one very character- 
 istic phase of Emerson's insistence on individuality. What 
 sentence in the paragraph is the key to the secret of this attitude? 
 
 15, 1. 32. What purpose does the qualifying nature of this 
 paragraph serve in the general account of good manners? Note 
 the moral turn given to the idea at the close. This is transitional 
 to the next paragraph, which again leads into the following. 
 
 17, 1. 25. How are the two ideas in this sentence opposed in 
 thought? Fashion is symbolic of what? Evolved from what 
 ideal? What disparity is there between Emerson's ideal of 
 society and real society as pictured later in the paragraph? How 
 does he reconcile them? 
 
 19, 1. 4. Explain sentences two and three of this paragraph 
 in their relation to the context. What is the underlying thought 
 here? Is it only ideal? (Incidents such as took place when the 
 Tit.'inic went down must not be overlooked in answering this.) 
 
xxxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 21, 11. 19-23. Find illustrations in Scott and Shakespeare to 
 test the point made. 
 
 22, 1. 3. "I have seen an individual" etc., is a favorite method 
 with Emerson of sketching an ideal. It is not always certain 
 he had not someone in mind. This ideal person in Journal and 
 essays alike he often calls Osman. See page 25, line 18. 
 
 22, 1. 15. Note the opinion on woman's rights. By the term 
 "musical nature" he signifies a natural fitness or sense of har- 
 mony that makes one receptive to the leading of Intuition. 
 
 Emerson was especially fortunate in his women friends. The 
 first type of woman described may well be taken to reflect the 
 personalities of Margaret Fuller, his aunt Mary Moody Emerson, 
 and Sarah Ripley. In the second type there is a reminder of 
 Ellen Tucker Emerson and of Elizabeth Hoar, whom he always 
 called his sister as she was the betrothed wife of his brother 
 Charles. 
 
 24, 1. 11. This sentence is idealistic: Things are what our 
 minds hold them to be; fashionable society melts to nothing, 
 when the brave and the good say, " It is nothing unless it.be 
 good and useful." 
 
 24, 1. 15. Note the humor and the irony at the close of this 
 paragraph, 
 
 26, 1. 16. What does he stigmatize in the term " national 
 caution"? 
 
 25, 1. 30. Does this paragraph settle upon any scheme for 
 reorganizing imperfect society? 
 
 III. Suggestions for the Study of the Essay as a Whole 
 
 The general thought in the essay on Manners takes two lines, — 
 statements on society as ar^ whole and statements on the gentle- 
 man. As Emerson presents, as usual, the ideal side by side with 
 the actual, the whole essay may be grouped under four headings. 
 A collection of some of the specific statements of the essay 
 under these four groups will supply a partial tabulation that 
 can be extended by the pupil. 
 
 A. The ideal of society. 
 
 1. Society is a self-constituted aristocracy, or fraternity 
 
 of the best. 
 
 2. It makes its own whatever personal beauty or extra- 
 
 ordinary native endowment anywhere appears. 
 
^INTRODUCTION xxxvii 
 
 B. Actual society: 
 
 1. It is the average result of the character and faculties 
 
 universally found in man. 
 
 2. It is the spontaneous fruit of that class who have most 
 
 vigor. 
 
 C. The ideal gentleman: 
 
 1. The word is a homage to personal and incommunicable 
 
 properties. 
 
 2. The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own actions, 
 
 expressing that lordship in his behavior; and the 
 possessor of good nature and benevolence. 
 
 D. The gentleman as he sometimes exists: 
 
 1. Frivolous and fantastic additions have got associated 
 
 with the name. 
 
 2. All sorts of gentlemen knock at the door. 
 
 The statements under each head will tend to group them- 
 selves around rather definite ideas, as for instance'in A.: 
 a. The formation and constitution of society; 
 h. The relation of the man of force to society; 
 
 c. The qualities that gain entrance to society; 
 
 d. The true reason for the existence of society, and the advan- 
 
 tages of a social code; 
 
 e. Society as a symbol of high spiritual facts. 
 
 Such questions as the following may serve to bring out the 
 leading teachings more clearly. 
 
 1. Is Emerson too optimistic in his picture of actual 
 society? 
 
 2. Does he intimate anywhere that he would forcibly abolish 
 the faults of society? Does he hope for a slow reformation of 
 society? Account for these facts. Discuss the bearing of the 
 last paragraph upon them. 
 
 3. How do the statements under D of the outline emphasize 
 his positive, optimistic method of teaching. 
 
 4. How many of the qualities assigned to the ideal gentleman 
 may be traced back to Emerson's ideal of the individual? 
 
 5. Show in the whole characterization of the ideal gentleman 
 that emphasis is laid on the moral sentiment (i. e. character as 
 opposed to virtues), and hatred of moral cowardice. What to 
 Emerson constitutes moral cowardice? 
 
 6. What remedy is offered to a person who feels aggrieved 
 
xxxviii IN TROD UCTION 
 
 at his position in society or at his exclusion from it? How is 
 this ideahstic? 
 
 7. What part do irony and humor play in the essay? 
 
 8. How does the essay stand related to the teaching of 
 idealism? of evolution? 
 
 9. Discuss the optimism of the essay as a whole. 
 
 10. Show how Emerson's idea of the origin, constitution, and 
 growth of society lays the responsibility for faults in it upon the 
 individual. Is this ideal or practical? Why is it consistent with 
 his whole philosophy? 
 
 SELF-RELIANCE 
 
 The general teaching of this essay may be grouped around 
 the following heads : 
 
 A. The ideal as it is set: 
 
 la. The self-rehant nation; 
 
 16. The lack of self-reliance as it reacts upon the nation; 
 
 2a. The ideal of the self-reliant soul; 
 
 26. Hindrances to self-reliance in the individual. 
 
 B. Means of attaining the ideal: 
 
 \ 1. The relations between the self-reliant soul and universal 
 
 Reason; 
 2. The importance of the self-reliant soul as an agent of 
 moral courage. 
 Suggestive questions: 1 . To what nation is the appeal directed? 
 2. Why is lack of self-reliance moral cowardice? 3. How does 
 the principle of Identity give unity to the whole essay? 4. Why 
 does the last paragraph deserve to be called " the final trumpet 
 call to faith"? 
 
 COMPENSATION 
 
 The ethical value of this essay and its relation to Emerson's 
 whole teaching may be brought out clearly by grouping its ideas 
 after the following outline. 
 
 The working of the law of compensation. 
 
 A. In nature; 
 
 B. 1. On the wicked; 
 2. On the good. 
 
 Suggestive questions: 1. What is crime in Emerson's view? 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxix 
 
 2. Can the inconsistency underlying the two divisions of B be 
 reconciled? 3. What bearing has Emerson's optimism on this 
 essay? 4. What is the unity of this essay? 
 
 NATURE 
 
 The statements drawn from the portion on Efficient Nature 
 might well be collected and grouped under the following general 
 principles. In no essay in the book do we come closer to Emer- 
 son's own statement of his faith. 
 
 Parallels drawn between spiritual and physical laws: 
 
 A. Evolution or development; 
 
 a. In external nature, 
 
 b. In man. 
 
 B. Exaggeration; 
 
 a. In external nature. 
 h. In man. 
 
 C. Compensation; 
 
 a. In nature, 
 
 b. In man. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP 
 
 There seems little necessity of analyzing this essay, as it has 
 but one leading line of thought. 
 
 Suggestive questions: 1. What in detail are the ideal relation- 
 ships of two individuals in a friendship? (Use " individual " in 
 Emerson's meaning.) 2. Is there anything in his picture of friend- 
 ship that undermines his constant insistence on a soul absolutely 
 true to its own nature? 3. What type of man is capable of 
 friendship in this large sense? 4. How does the doctrine of 
 Identity underlie the thought of this essay? 5. What part do 
 the emotions play in friendship as Emerson describes it? Is this 
 wise or unwise? 6. Do Emerson's words of the advantage to the 
 individual compensate for the aloofness this ideal involves? 
 Defend your answer, 7. Emerson's idea of evolution in the 
 physical world meant slow development or perfection. What 
 bearing has the moral parallel of this law on his ideas of the ideal 
 friendship? 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 (For a more complete bibliography see George W. Cooke's 
 A Bibliography of Ralph W. Emerson, Boston and New York, 
 1908. There are bibliographical notes in the books by A. Ireland, 
 R. Garnett, and M. Conway listed below.) 
 
 I. Helpful material for an historical background in the study 
 of Emerson will be found in convenient compass in: — Barrett 
 Wendell, A Literary History of America, Book II., Chapter 5, 
 and Book V., Chapters 1, 4 and 5. John Nichol, American 
 Literature, Edinburgh, 1882, Chapters 8 and 9. C. E. Richard- 
 son, American Literature from 1607 to 1885, Chapters 8 and 9. 
 W. P. Trent, A History of American Literature, 1905, Chapter 6, 
 to which is appended a bibliography of the Transcendental 
 movement, etc. 
 
 II. Texts: The two standard editions of Emerson's works 
 are: — The Riverside Edition, 12 volumes, and The Centenary 
 Edition, 12 volumes. 
 
 The latter is annotated in an interesting, personal way by 
 Edward Waldo Emerson. 
 
 III. Biography: Autobiographical material will be found in: 
 Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Boston, 1909, Edited by 
 Edward Waldo Emerson and W. E. Forbes. Correspondence of 
 Carlyle and Emerson, Boston, 1886, 2 volumes, Edited by C. E. 
 Norton. Correspondence of Emerson and John Sterling, Boston, 
 1897, Edited by Edward Waldo Emerson. Correspondence 
 between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Herman Grimm, Boston, 1903. 
 Edited by F. W. HoUs. 
 
 Five early and valuable lives of Emerson are: — J. E. Cabot, 
 A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Boston, 1887, 2 volumes. 
 G. W. Cooke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, His Life, Writings, and 
 Philosophy, Boston, 1881. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson, Boston, 1885. (American Men of Letters Series.) 
 Alexander Ireland, In Memoriam — Ralph Wcddo Emerson, 
 
 xl 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE xli 
 
 London, 1882. This is of interest from its connection with 
 Emerson's lecture tour in England. Richard Garnett, Life of 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, London, 1888. (Great Writers Series.) 
 
 Several books mentioned under I. have good biographical 
 material. 
 
 Biographical material by relatives: — Edward Waldo Emerson, 
 Emerson in Concord, Boston, 18S9. This is of especial personal 
 interest. Daniel Greene Haskins, Ralph Waldo Emerson, his 
 Maternal Ancestors, Boston, 1887. This throws an interesting 
 light on late colonial days in Boston, the personality of Madam 
 Emerson, and Emerson's early childhood. 
 
 Other excellent biographies: — G. W. Woodberry, Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson, New York, 1907. (English Men of Letters Series.) 
 W. M. Payne, "Ralph Waldo Emerson" in Leading American 
 Essayists, New York, 1910. This is very clear and concise. 
 John Morley, "Emerson" in Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I, London, 
 1898. The life is short, and the appended criticism is brief but 
 suggestive. 
 
 Books containing personal reminiscences of great interest 
 with more or less direct biographical material and criticism: — 
 Moncure D. Conway, Emerson at Home and Abroad, Boston, 
 1882. F. B. Sanborn, The Genius and Character of Emerson, 
 Boston, 1885. This is a collection of lectures on Emerson given 
 at the Concord School of Philosophy. Two of especial interest 
 are by Miss E. P. Peabody and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. C. J. 
 W^oodbury, Talks with Ralph Waldo Emerson, London, 1890. 
 John Albee, Remembrances of Emerson, New York, 1901. James 
 Russell Lowell, "Emerson the Lecturer" in My Study Windows, 
 Boston, 1871. A. Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
 Philosopher and Seer, Boston, 1888. George William Curtis, 
 "Emerson" in Literary and Social Essays, Nev/ York, 1894. 
 This is also found in Elbert Hubbard's Little Journeys to the 
 Homes of American Authors. It contains a graphic account of 
 Emerson's home, and some of the friends gathered there. E. P. 
 Whipple, Recollections of Eminent Men, 1886, pp. 119-154. 
 Herman Grimm, "Ralph Waldo Emerson" in Essays on Liter- 
 ature, translated by S. H. Adams, Boston, 1888. 
 
 IV. Criticism: The following estimates of the character, 
 philosophy and writings of Emerson are cited as showing a wide 
 variety of opinion: — John J. Chapman, Emerson and Other 
 Essays, New York, 1898. James Russell Lowell, Fable for Critics. 
 
Xlii BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 E. P. Whipple "Emerson as Poet" in American Literature and 
 Other Papers, Boston, 1899. W. C. Brownell "Emerson" in 
 American Prose Masters, New York, 1909. Matthew Arnold, 
 "Emerson" in Discourses on America, New York, 1906. Leslie 
 Stephen, "Emerson" in Studies of a Biographer, Vol. 4, New 
 York, 1898. Henry James, "Emerson" in Partial Portraits, 
 London, 1888. P. E. More, "Emerson" in Shelburne Essays, 
 First Series, New York, 1907. 
 
 V. Magazine Articles: Such varied treatment of Emerson 
 is given in permanent book form that there is little need of turn- 
 ing to files of periodicals. Two interesting and helpful articles 
 are: — Emerson, by Henry James, Sr. Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 
 1904 (Vol. 94); and Emerson as Seer, by C. W. Eliot, Atlantic, 
 June, 1903 (Vol. 91). 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 xliii 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 Contemporary 
 
 History and 
 
 Literature, 
 
 Biography. 
 
 1803. Emerson born. 
 
 1805. Scott, Lay of 
 
 1803. Louisiana 
 Treaty. 
 
 1804. Bonaparte 
 made Emperor; 
 Plawthorne born. 
 
 
 the Last Minstrel. 
 
 1807, Longfellow, 
 Whittier born. 
 
 
 1808. Scott, Mar- 
 
 
 
 mion. 
 
 
 
 1809. Irving, History 
 
 1809. Lincoln, 
 
 
 of New York. 
 
 Holmes, Poe, Ten- 
 nyson, Darwin, 
 Gladstone born. 
 
 1811. Death of Emer- 
 
 
 
 son's father. 
 
 
 
 
 1812. Bvron, Childe 
 
 1812-14. War with 
 
 
 Harold, Cantos I, II, 
 
 England. 
 
 1813. Boston Latin 
 
 
 
 School. 
 
 
 
 1814. Family in Con- 
 
 1814. Wordsworth, 
 
 
 cord. 
 
 The Excursion. 
 
 
 
 1815. Miss Austen, 
 
 1815. Battle of 
 
 
 Emma. 
 
 Waterloo. 
 
 1817. Entered Har- 
 
 1817. Bryant, Than- 
 
 
 vard. 
 
 atopsis. 
 
 
 
 1819. Irving, Sketch 
 
 1819. Lowell, Ruskin 
 
 
 Book. 
 
 born. 
 
 
 1820. Scott, Ivanhoe; 
 
 1820-21. Missouri 
 
 
 Shelley, Prome- 
 
 Compromise. 
 
 
 t h e u s Unbound; 
 
 
 
 Keats, Lamia and 
 
 
 
 other Poems. 
 
 
 1821. Graduated 
 
 1821. Cooper, The 
 
 1821. Greek revolt. 
 
 from college. 
 
 Spy. 
 
 
 1821-25. A teacher. 
 
 1822. De Quincey, 
 
 Coiifessions. 
 
 
 1823. Goodhy, Proud 
 
 1823. Lamb, Essays 
 
 1823. P r o cl a m a - 
 
 World, written. 
 
 of Elia. 
 
 tion of the Monroe 
 Doctrine, Shelley 
 died. 
 
 1825. Entered Har- 
 
 1825. Carlyle, Life of 
 
 1824. Byron died. 
 
 vard Divinity 
 
 Schiller; Macaulay, 
 
 
 School. 
 
 Essay on Milton. 
 
 
 1826. Illness; appro- 
 
 1826. L n g f e 1 - 
 
 
 bated to preach; 
 
 low, first poems. 
 
 
 first public sermon 
 
 
 
 at Waltham. 
 
 
 
 1826-27. In the South. 
 
 
 1827 Webster elect- 
 ed U. S. senator. 
 
xiiv CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABl.'E— Continued. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 1829. Ordained Assis- 
 tant Pastor of Sec- 
 ond Church, Bos- 
 ton; succeeded to 
 pastorate; married 
 Ellen Tucker. 
 
 Contemporary 
 Literature. 
 
 1830. Tennyson 
 Poems. 
 
 1831. Death of Ellen 1831. Poe, Poems. 
 Tucker Emerson. I 
 
 1832. Resignation of| 
 his charge; voyage 
 to Europe. 
 
 1833. Italy, France, 
 England, and Scot- 
 land; return home. 
 
 1834. Four lectures in 
 Boston; life in the 
 Old Manse; Nature, 
 written; death of 
 Edward Emerson; 
 eorrespon dence 
 with Carlyle begun. 
 
 1835. Marriage t o 
 Lydian Jackson ; 
 lectures on Biogra- 
 phy and English 
 Literature, Boston. 
 
 1836. Death of 
 Charles Emerson; 
 twelve lectures in 
 Boston; iVa^wre pii fo- 
 il shed; Sartor Re- 
 sartus edited. 
 
 1837. The American 
 Scholar; first ad- 
 dress on Slavery. 
 
 1838. Divinity Col- 
 lege address; Mich- 
 ad Angela. 
 
 1839. Milton. 
 
 1840. "T h e Dial," 
 Vol. L, five prose 
 pieces and three 
 poems. 
 
 1833. Carlyle, Sartor 
 Resartus; Brown- 
 ing, Pauline. 
 
 1834. Bancroft, Col- 
 onization of the U.S., 
 Vol. I. 
 
 1836, Dickens, Pick- 
 wick Papers: Lan- 
 dor, Pericles and As- 
 pasia. 
 
 1837. Prescott, Fer- 
 dinand and Isabella; 
 Hawthorne, Twice- 
 Told Tales. 
 
 History and 
 Biography. 
 
 1829. Catholic 
 Emancipation in 
 England. 
 
 1830. Accession 
 of William IV. in 
 England; revolu- 
 tion in France. 
 
 1832. Ordinance o f 
 Nullification 
 in South Carolina; 
 Reform Bill in Eng- 
 land; Scott died. 
 
 1833. A n t i - Slavery 
 Society formed. 
 
 1834. Coleridge 
 Lamb died. 
 
 and 
 
 1837. Accession 
 of Queen Victoria. 
 
 1839. Chartist riots 
 in England. 
 
 1840. P e n n y p o s t 
 established in Eng- 
 land. 
 
CHROXOLOGICAL TABLE 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TA^^LE— Continued. 
 
 xlv 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 1841. Death of eldest 
 child; address on 
 Nature; "The 
 Dial," Vol. II., four 
 contribu tions 
 Essays, First 
 
 1843. Editor of "The 
 Dial." 
 
 1844. Eleven contri- 
 butions to "The 
 Dial"; Essays, 
 Second Series. 
 
 1845. Seven lectures 
 on "Representative 
 Men," Boston. 
 
 1847. May Day and 
 Other Poems; lec- 
 ture course in Man- 
 chester, England. 
 
 1848. Lecture courses 
 in England and 
 Scotland; visit to 
 Paris. 
 
 Contemporary 
 
 LlTER.\TURE. 
 
 1841. Carlyle, Heroes 
 and Hero-Worship. 
 
 1843. Webster, Bunk- 
 er Hill Speech; 
 Ruskin, Modern 
 
 Painters, Vol. I. 
 
 History and 
 Biography. 
 
 1841. Brook 
 experiment. 
 
 Farm 
 
 1845. 
 
 ven. 
 
 Poe, The Ra- 
 
 1849. Nature, Ad- 
 dresses and Lectures. 
 
 1850. First lectures 
 west of the Mis- 
 sissippi ; Represen- 
 tative Men. 
 
 1851. Address on the 
 Fugitive Slave Law. 
 
 1852. Memoirs of 
 Margaret Fuller (in 
 collaboration). 
 
 1855. Lectures on 
 Slavery, Boston ; 
 Address at the Wo- 
 man's Rights Con- 
 vention, Boston. 
 
 1847. Thackeray 
 Vanity Fair. 
 
 1848. Lowell, Bigelow 
 Papers; Macaulay, 
 History of England, 
 Fols, I, 11. Mill, 
 Principles of Politi- 
 cal Economy. 
 
 1850. Hawthorne, 
 The Scarlet Letter; 
 Kingsley, Alton ^ 
 
 Locke. 
 
 1852. Mrs. Stowe, 
 Uncle Tom's Cabin. 
 
 1853. Matthew 
 Arnold, Poems. 
 
 1855. Spencer, Prin- 
 ciples of Psychology; 
 Whitman, Leaves 
 of Grass. 
 
 1844. Morse tele- 
 graph. 
 
 1846-48. Mexican 
 War; 1846. Repeal 
 of the English Corn 
 Laws. 
 
 1848. Gold discover- 
 ed in California; 
 revolution in 
 France. 
 
 1849. Poe died. 
 
 1850. Fugitive Slave 
 Act ; Webster's 
 speech on the ques- 
 tion ; Wordsworth 
 died. 
 
 1852. Clay, Webster 
 died; Napoleon III. 
 proclaimed Emper- 
 or. 
 1854-56. Crimean 
 War. 
 
Xlvi CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE— Conhnwed. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 1856. Speeches on the 
 Assault on Mr. 
 Sumner and on 
 Kansas Relie f; 
 English Traits, 
 Samuel Hoar. 
 
 1857. The Chartist's 
 Complaint. 
 
 1858. Address at 
 Middlesex Agricul- 
 tural Fair. 
 
 1859. Burns Centen- 
 ary speech. 
 
 1860. Speeches on 
 John Brown; Con- 
 duct of Life. 
 
 1860-70. Saturday 
 Club. 
 
 1861. American 
 Civilization. 
 
 1865. Memorial ad- 
 dress on Lincoln ; 
 Harvard Com- 
 me moration 
 Speech; Thoreau's 
 Letters edited; Liv- 
 ing Age. 
 
 1866. Character. 
 
 1867. Progress of Cul- 
 ture, Phi Beta 
 Kappa address; 
 LL. D. from Har- 
 vard; Overseer of 
 Harvard; Terminus; 
 May-Day and other 
 pieces. 
 
 Contemporary 
 Literature. 
 
 1858. Holmes, Auto-' 
 crat; Tennyson,; 
 Idylls of the King. | 
 
 1859. Darwin, Origin 
 of Species; Dickens, 
 7'ale of Two Cities; 
 Fitz Gerald, Ruhdi- 
 ydt; Meredith, Ordeal 
 of Richard Feverel. 
 
 1861. George Eliot, 
 
 Silas M arn er ; 
 
 Reade, Cloister and 
 
 the Hearth. 
 1863. Longfellow, 
 
 Tales of a Wayside 
 
 Inn. 
 
 1864. Newman, Apo- 
 logia pro sua Vita. 
 
 1865. Lowell, Com- 
 memoration Ode; 
 Ruskin, Sesame and 
 Lilies. 
 
 1866. Whittier, Snow 
 Bound. 
 
 History and 
 Biography. 
 
 1857. D red Scott 
 decision. 
 
 1858. Lincoln- 
 Douglas debate. 
 
 1859. John 
 Raid. 
 
 Brown's 
 
 1868. Alcott, 
 Women. 
 
 Little 
 
 1860. War of Italian 
 liberties. 
 
 1861. Lincoln elected 
 president; Civil 
 War begun. 
 
 1863. Emancipa- 
 tion Proclama- 
 tion ; Battle of Get- 
 tysburg; Thackeray 
 died. 
 
 1864. Hawthorne died. 
 
 1865. Close of Civil 
 War; Assassination 
 of Lincoln. 
 
 18(;6. Reform 
 England. 
 
 Bill 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE— Continued. 
 
 xlvii 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 Contemporary 
 
 History and 
 
 Literature. 
 
 BlOGRAIHY. 
 
 
 1869. Browning, The 
 
 1869. Opening of the 
 
 
 Ring and the Book. 
 
 Suez Canal. 
 
 
 Clemens, Innocents 
 
 
 
 Abroad; Blackmore, 
 
 
 
 Lorna Doone. 
 
 
 1870. Course in Phil- 
 
 1870. Huxley, Lay 
 
 1870. Franco -Prus- 
 
 osophy at Harvard; 
 
 Sermons and Ad- 
 
 sian War. 
 
 Society and Soli- 
 
 dresses. 
 
 
 tude. 
 
 
 
 1871. Repetition 
 
 1871. Lowell, My 
 
 
 of lecture course at 
 
 Study Windows. 
 
 
 Harvard ; trip to 
 
 
 
 California. 
 
 
 
 1872. Last of the an- 
 
 
 
 nual lecture courses 
 
 
 
 in Boston ; t rip to 
 
 
 
 Europe. 
 
 1873. Arnold, Litera- 
 ture and Dogma. 
 
 
 1874. Parnassus, a n 
 
 1874. Mill, Auto- 
 
 
 anthology of Eng- 
 
 biography. 
 
 
 lish poems. 
 
 
 
 1875. Nominated 
 
 
 
 Lord Rector of Glas- 
 
 
 
 gow University. 
 
 
 
 1876. Oration at the 
 
 1876. George Eliot, 
 
 1876. The Centen- 
 
 University of Vir- 
 
 Daniel Deronda. 
 
 nial. 
 
 ginia; Select Poems; 
 
 
 
 Letters and Social 
 
 
 
 Aims. 
 
 1877. Morris, Sigurd 
 the Volsung; Lanier, 
 Poems. 
 
 
 1878. Fortune of the 
 
 1878. Henry James, 
 
 1878. Bryant died. 
 
 Republic; The Sover- 
 
 Daisy Miller; 
 
 
 eignty of Ethics. 
 
 Howells, Lady of the 
 Aroostook. 
 
 
 1879. Founding 
 
 1879. Meredith, The 
 
 
 of the Concord 
 
 Egoist. 
 
 
 School of Phil- 
 
 
 
 osophy; The 
 
 
 
 Preacher. 
 
 
 1880. Interna- 
 tional Peace As- 
 sociation founded. 
 
 1881. Address on 
 
 
 1881. Carlyle died. 
 
 Carlyle. 
 
 
 
 1882. Superlatives; 
 
 1 
 
 1882. Longfellow 
 
 death. 
 
 1 
 
 died. 
 
MANNERS 
 
 *'How near to good is what is fair! 
 Which we no sooner see, 
 But with the lines and outward air 
 Our senses taken be." 
 
 '* Again yourselves compose, 
 And now put all the aptness on 
 Of Figure, that Proportion 
 
 Or Color can disclose ; 
 That if those silent arts were lost, 
 Design and Picture, they might boast 
 
 From you a newer ground. 
 Instructed by the heightening sense 
 Of dignity and reverence 
 
 In their true motions found. ' ' 
 
 Ben Jonson. 
 
 Half the world, it is said, knows not how the other 
 half live. Our Exploring Expedition saw the Feejee 
 islanders getting their dinner off human bones ; and they 
 are said to eat their own wives and children. The hus- 
 bandry of the modern inhabitants of Gournou (west of 5 
 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 10 
 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 hun- 
 
2 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 dreds at their command. "It is somewhat singular," adds 
 Belzoni, to whom we owe this account, "to talk of hap- 
 piness among people who live in sepulchres, among the 
 corpses and rags of an ancient nation which they know 
 5 nothing of." In the deserts of Borgoo the rock-Tib- 
 boos 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 have no proper names; individuals 
 
 10 are called after their height, thickness, or other acci- 
 dental quality, and have nicknames 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 
 
 15 in one race with these cannibals and man-stealers ; coun- 
 tries where man serves himself with metals, wood, stone, 
 glass, gum, cotton, silk and wool; honors himself with 
 architecture ; writes laws, and contrives to execute his will 
 through the hands of many nations; and, especially, 
 
 20 establishes a select society, running through all the 
 countries of intelligent men, a self-constituted aris- 
 tocracy, or fraternity of the best, which, without written 
 law or exact usage of any kind, perpetuates itself, colo- 
 nizes every new-planted island, and adopts and makes its 
 
 25 own whatever personal beauty or extraordinary native 
 endowment anywhere appears. 
 
 AVhat fact more conspicuous in modern history than the 
 creation of the gentleman ? Chivalry is that, and loyalty 
 is that, and in English literature half the drama, and all 
 
 30 the novels, from Sir Philip Sidney to Sir Walter Scott, 
 paint this figure. The word gentleman, which, like the 
 word Christian, must hereafter characterize the present 
 and the few preceding centuries by the importance at- 
 tached to it, is a homage to personal and incommunicable 
 
MANNERS 3 
 
 properties. Frivolous and fantastic additions have got 
 associated witli the name, but the steady interest of man- 
 kind in it must be attributed to the valuable properties 
 which it designates. An element which unites all the 
 most forcible jjersons of every country, makes them in- 5 
 telligible and agreeable to each other, and is somewhat 
 so precise that it is at once felt if an individual lack the 
 masonic sign, — cannot be any casual product, but must 
 be an average result of the character and faculties uni- 
 versally found in men. It seems a certain permanent 10 
 average ; as the atmosphere is a permanent composition, 
 whilst so many gases are combined only to be decom- 
 pounded. Comme il faut, is the Frenchman's description 
 of good society : as we must he. It is a spontaneous 
 fruit of talents and feelings of precisely that class who 15 
 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 com- 20 
 pound result into which every great force enters as an 
 ingredient, namely virtue, wit, beauty, wealth and power. 
 There is something equivocal in all the words in use to 
 express the excellence of manners and social cultivation, 
 because the quantities are fluxional, and the last effect is 25 
 assumed by the senses as the cause. The word gentleman 
 has not any correlative abstract to express the quality. 
 Gentility is mean, and gentilesse is obsolete. But we 
 must keep alive in the vernacular the distinction between 
 fashion, a word of narrow and often sinister meaning. 30 
 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. 
 
4 ^ EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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 
 5 well enough the popular feeling that the appearance sup- 
 poses 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 
 
 10 this fact of truth and real force, the word denotes good- 
 nature or benevolence : manhood first, and then gentle- 
 ness. 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 
 
 15 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 rattles in 
 our ear like a flourish of trumpets. But personal force 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 enough in these new arenas. 
 
 Power first, or no leading class. In politics and in 
 
 ' trade, bruisers and pirates are of better promise than 
 talkers and clerks. God knows that all sorts of gentle- 
 men knock at the door ; but whenever used in strictness 
 
 30 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 
 
MANNERS 5 
 
 animal spirits. The ruling class must have more, but 
 they must liave these, giving in every company the sense 
 of power, which makes things easy to be done which daunt 
 the wise. The society of the energetic class, in tlieir 
 friendly and festive meetings, is full of courage and of 5 
 attempts which intimidate the pale scholar. The courage 
 which girls exhibit is like a battle of Lundy's Lane, 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 10 
 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, 
 who have great range of affinity. I am far from believ- 
 ing the timid maxim of Lord Falkland ("that for 15 
 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 plente- 
 ous nature is rightful master which is the complement of 20 
 whatever person it converses with. My gentleman gives 
 the law where he is ; he will outpray saints in chapel, out- 
 general 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 25 
 against him; he has the private entrance to all minds, 
 and I could as easily exclude myself, as him. The famous 
 gentlemen of x\sia and Europe have been of this strong 
 type; Saladin, Sapor, the Cid, Julius Cassar, Scipio, 
 Alexander, Pericles, and the lordliest personages. They 30 
 sat very carelessly in their chairs, and were too excellent 
 themselves, to value any condition at a high rate. 
 
 A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the 
 popular judgment, to the completion of this man of the 
 
6 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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, wliich transcends the habits of 
 clique and caste, and makes itself felt by men of all 
 5 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, 
 
 10 he is not to be feared. Diogenes, Socrates, and Epami- 
 nondas, 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. Fortune will not sup- 
 
 15 ply 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 
 
 20 take the lead, and a broad sympathy which puts them in 
 
 fellowship with crowds, and makes their action popular. 
 
 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 
 
 25 their merits, is mutually agreeable and stimulating. The 
 good forms, the happiest expressions of each, are re- 
 peated and adopted. By swift consent everything super- 
 fluous is dropped, everything graceful is renewed. Fine 
 manners show themselves formidable to the uncultivated 
 
 30 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 trouble- 
 
MANNERS 7 
 
 some game, and not a misunderstanding rises between 
 the plajers. 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 travel- 
 ling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the 5 
 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 the more heed that 
 it becomes a badge of social and civil distinctions. Thus 
 grows up Fashion, an equivocal semblance, the most 10 
 puissant, the most fantastic and frivolous, the most 
 feared and followed, and which morals and violence 
 assault in vain. 
 
 There exists a strict relation between the class of 
 power and the exclusive and polished circles. The last 15 
 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. N'apol^pn, 
 child of the revolution, destroyer of the old noblesse, 
 never ceased to court the Faubourg St. Germain; 20 
 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 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 25 
 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 30 
 lustre to their name, marks of distinction, means of 
 cultivation and generosity, and in their physical organi- 
 zation a certain health and excellence which secure to 
 them, if not the highest power to work, yet high power to 
 
8 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 enjoy. The class of power, the working heroes, the Cor- 
 tez, the Nelson, the Napoleon, see that this is the festivity 
 and permanent celebration of such as they ; that fashion 
 is funded talent; is Mexico, Marengo and Trafalgar 
 5 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 tJieir sons, in the ordinary course of things, 
 must yield the possession of the harvest to new com- 
 
 lOpetitors 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 
 
 15 country which came to town day before yesterday that is 
 city and court to-day. 
 
 Aristocracy and fashion are certain inevitable results. 
 These mutual selections are indestructible. If they pro- 
 voke anger in the least favored class, and the excluded 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 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. I am the more struck with this 
 tenacity, when I see its work. It respects the adminis- 
 
 30 tration 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 dis- 
 
MANNERS 9 
 
 tinctions and ties will be slight and fugitive, this of 
 caste or fasliion 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 least 
 countenance from the law of the land. Not in Egypt or 5 
 in India a firmer or more impassable line. Here are as- 
 sociations 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 re- 
 ligious convention; — the persons seem to draw insep-10 
 arably near ; yet, that assembly once dispersed, its mem- 
 bers will not in the year meet again. Each returns to his 
 degree in the scale of good societ}-, porcelain remains 
 porcelain, and earthen earthen. The objects of fashion 
 may be frivolous, or fashion may be objectless, but the 15 
 nature of this union and selection can be neither frivo- 
 lous 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 20 
 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 coun- 
 try readily fraternize with those of every other. The 25 
 chiefs of savage tribes have distinguished themselves in 
 London and Paris by the purity of their tournure. 
 
 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 30 
 ""Coventry,^ 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 
 
10 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 all chivalry. There is almost no kind of self-reliance., so 
 it be sane and proportioned, which fashion does not oc- 
 casionally adopt and give it the freedom of its saloons. 
 A sainted soul is always elegant, and, if it will, passes 
 5 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 cotillons. For there is 
 
 10 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 
 
 15 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, 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 
 
 20 and aboriginal way; and that strong will is always in 
 fas-hion, 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 per- 
 sons in which every man's native manners and character 
 
 25 appeared. If the fashionist have not this quality, he 
 is nothing. We are such lovers of self-reliance that we 
 excuse in a man many sins if he will show us a complete 
 satisfaction in his position, Mdiich asks no leave to be, of 
 mine or any man's good opinion. But any deference to 
 
 30 some eminent man or woman of the world, forfeits all 
 privilege of nobilit}^ He is an underling : I have noth- 
 ing to do with him ; I will speak with liis master. A man 
 should not go where he cannot carry his whole sphere or 
 society with him, — not bodily, the whole circle of his 
 
MANNERS 11 
 
 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 Yich Ian Volir with 5 
 his tail on ! — " But Vich Ian Vohr must always carry 
 his belongings in some fashion, if not added as honor, 
 then severed as disgrace. 
 
 There will always be in society certain persons wlio are 
 mercuries of its approbation, and wdiose glance will at 10 
 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 formid-l5 
 able 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 other- 
 wise, in circles which exist as a sort of herald's office 20 
 for the sifting of character ? 
 
 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, 25 
 and this is Gregory; — they look each other in the eye; 
 fhey 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 as- 
 sures the other party, first of all, that he has been met. 30 
 For what is it that we seek, in so many visits and hos- 
 pitalities? Is it your draperies, pictures and decora- 
 tions? Or do we not insatiably ask. Was a man in the 
 house? I may easily go into a great household where 
 
12 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 there is much substance, excellent provision for comfort, 
 luxury and taste, and yet not encounter there any 
 Amphitryon who shall subordinate these appendages. 
 I may go into a cottage, and find a farmer who feels that 
 5 he is the man I have come to see, and fronts me accord- 
 ingly. 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 
 
 10 house, though it were the Tuileries or the Escurial, 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, conser- 
 vatory, gardens, equipage and all manner of toys, as 
 
 15 screens to interpose between himself and his guest. Does 
 it not seem as if man was of a very sly, elusive nature, 
 and dreaded nothing so much as a full rencontre front 
 to front with his fellow ? It were unmerciful, I know, 
 quite to abolish the use of these screens, which are of 
 
 20 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 per- 
 chance a searching realist comes to our gate, before whose 
 
 25 eye we have no care to stand, then again we run to our 
 curtain, and hide ourselves as Adam at the voice of the 
 Lord God in the garden. Cardinal Caprara, the Pope's 
 legate at Paris, defended himself from the glances of 
 Napoleon by an immense pair of green spectacles. Na- 
 
 SOpoleon 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 freeborn eyes, but fenced himself with 
 etiquette and within triple barriers of reserve ; and, as all 
 
MANNERS 13 
 
 the world knows from Madame de Stael, was wont, when 
 he found himself observed, to discharge his face of all 
 expression. But emperors and rich men are by no means 
 tne most skilful masters ol good manners. No rent-roll 
 nor army-list can dignify skulking and dissimulation; 5 
 and the first point of courtesy must always be truth, as 
 really all the forms of good-breeding point that way. 
 
 I have just been reading, in Mr. Hazlitt's translation, 
 Montaigne's account of his journey into Italy, and am 
 struck with nothing more agreeably than the self-respect- 10 
 ing 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 what- 
 ever prince or gentleman of note resides upon his road, 
 as a duty to himself and to civilization. When he leaves 15 
 any house in which he has lodged for a few weeks, he 
 causes his arms to be painted and hung up as a perpet- 
 ual sign to the house, as was the custom of gentlemen. 
 
 The complement of this graceful self-respect, and that 
 of all the points of good-breeding I most require and in- 20 
 sist 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 incom- 
 municable objects of nature and the metaphysical isola- 
 tion of man teach us independence. Let us not be too 25 
 much acquainted. I would have a man enter his house 
 through a hall filled with heroic and sacred sculptures, 
 that be might not want the hint of tranquillity and self- 
 poise. We should meet each morning as from foreign 
 countries, and, spending the day together, should depart 30 
 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 
 
14 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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; but cool- 
 5 ness and absence of heat and haste indicate fine qualities. 
 A gentleman makes no noise : a lady is serene. Propor- 
 tionate is our disgust at those invaders who fill a stu- 
 dious house with blast and running, to secure some paltry 
 convenience. Xot less I dislike a low sympathy of each 
 
 10 with his neighbor's needs. Must we have a good under- 
 standing 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 ]ie wishes for breaQ, 
 to ask me for bread, and if he wishes for sassafras or 
 
 15 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, however remotely, the grandeur 
 
 20 of our destiny. 
 
 The flower of courtesy does not very well bide hand- 
 ling, 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 
 
 25 well as the flesh and the heart must furnish a proportion. 
 Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine percep- 
 tions. 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. 
 
 30 We imperatively require a perception of, and a homage 
 to beauty in our companions. Other virtues are in re- 
 quest in the field and workyard, 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 
 
MANNERS 15 
 
 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 ht and fair 
 runs out, if with less rigor, into all parts of life. The 
 average spirit of the energetic class is good sense, acting 5 
 under certain limitations and to certain ends. It enter- 
 tains every natural gift. Social in its nature, it respects 
 everything which tends to unite men. It deliglits in 
 measure. The love of beauty is mainly the love of 
 measure or proportion. The person who screams, or lO 
 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 15 
 the social instrument. Society will pardon much to 
 genius and special gifts, but, being in its nature a con- 
 vention, 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 20 
 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 quar- 
 relsome, egotistical, solitary and gloomy people ; hates ^ 
 whatever can interfere with total blending of parties; 25 
 w^hilst 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 powder is ever welcome 
 in fine society as the costliest addition to its r-ule and its 30 
 credit. 
 
 The dry light must shine in to adorn our festival, but 
 it must be tempered and shaded, or that will also of- 
 fend. Accuracy is essential to beauty, and quick per- 
 
16 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 ceptions 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 and 
 5 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 loes 
 
 10 not see the annoyances, shifts and inconveniences that 
 cloud the brow and smother the voice of the sensitive. 
 
 Therefore besides personal force and so much percep- 
 tion as constitutes unerring taste, society demands in its 
 patrician class another element already intimated, which 
 
 15 it significantly terms good-nature, — expressing all de- 
 grees 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 
 
 20 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 mem- 
 ory that will fit the occasion. All his information is a 
 little impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds in 
 
 25 every turn of the conversation equally lucky occasions for 
 the introduction of that which he has to say. The favor- 
 ities of society, and what it calls ivhole souls, are able 
 men and of more spirit than wit, who have no uncom- 
 fortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and the 
 
 30 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, who 
 
MANNERS 17 
 
 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 and Fox sepa- 
 rated in the House of Commons ; when Fox urged on his 
 old friend the claims of old friendship with such tender- 5 
 ness that the house was moved to tears. Another anec- 
 dote is so close to my matter, that I must hazard the 
 story. A tradesman Avho 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 10 
 this money to Sheridan ; it is a debt of honor ; if an acci- 
 dent 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 15 
 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 Na- 
 poleon said of him on the occasion of his visit to Paris, 
 in 1805, "Mr. Fox will always hold the first place in an 20 
 assembly at the Tuileries." 
 
 We may easily seem ridiculous in our eulogy of cour- 
 tesy, 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 25 
 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 30 
 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 nec- 
 essary and excellent in it: for it is not to be supposed 
 
18 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 that men have agreed to be the dupes of anything pre- 
 posterous ; 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 uni- 
 6 versality 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 stand- 
 ards of justice, beauty and benefit to the individuals 
 actually found there. Monarchs and heroes, sages and 
 
 10 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 
 
 15 claims will pass for the time; for Fashion loves lions, 
 and points like Circe to her horned company. This 
 gentleman is this afternoon arrived from Denmark ; and 
 that is my Lord Eide, who came yesterday from Bagdat ; 
 here is Captain Friese, from Cape Turnagain; and Cap- 
 
 20 tain Symmes, from the interior of the earth; and Mon- 
 sieur Jovaire, who came down this morning in a balloon ; 
 Mr. Hobnail, the reformer ; and Eeverend Jul Bat, who 
 has converted the whole torrid zone in his Sunday school ; 
 and Signor Torre del Greco, who extinguished Vesuvius 
 
 25 by pouring into it the Bay of N"aples ; Spahi, 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 
 
 30 waited for. The artist, the scholar, and, in general, the 
 clerisy, win their way up into these places and get 
 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, being steeped 
 
MANNERS 19 
 
 in Cologne water, and perfumed, and dined, and intro- 
 duced, and properly grounded in all the biography and 
 politics and anecdotes of the boudoirs. 
 
 Yet these fineries may lia\e grace and wit. Let there 
 be grotesque sculpture about the gates and oifices of 5 
 temples. Let the creed and connnandments 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 al- 10 
 most 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 15 
 sentimental; nor is it to be concealed that living blood 
 and 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 20 
 persuaded his enemy : what his mouth ate, his hands paid 
 for : what his servants robbed, he restored : 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 25 
 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; some Phil- 
 hellene; some fanatic who plants shade-trees for the 30 
 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 
 
20 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 shoulders. And these are the centres of society, on which 
 it returns for fresh impuls-es. These are the creators of 
 Fashion, which is an attempt to organize beauty of be- 
 havior. The beautiful and the generous are, in the 
 5 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 worshipped Beauty 
 by word and by deed. The persons who constitute the 
 natural aristocracy are not found in the actual aristoc- 
 
 10 racy, 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 
 
 15 of these. It divines afar off their coming. It says with 
 the elder gods, — 
 
 As Heaven and Earth are fairer far 
 
 Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs; 
 
 And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth 
 20 In form and shape compact and beautiful; . . . 
 
 So ©n 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 .... 
 25 ... For 't is the eternal law 
 
 That first in beauty shall be first in might. 
 
 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 
 30 a tacit appeal of pride and reference, as to its inner and 
 imperial court; t]ie parliament of love and chivalry. 
 And this is constituted of those persons in whom heroic 
 dispositions are native; with the love of beauty, the 
 
MANNEH>S 21 
 
 delight in society, and the power to embellish the passing 
 day. If the individuals who compose the purest circles of 
 aristocracy in Europe, tlie guarded blood of centuries, 
 should pass in review, in such manner as that we could at 
 leisure and critically inspect their behavior, we might find 5 
 no gentleman and no lady ; for although excellent speci- 
 mens of courtesy and high-breeding would gratify us in 
 the assemblage, in the particulars we should detect of- 
 fence. Because elegance comes of no breeding, but of 
 birth. There must be romance of character, or the most 10 
 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 15 
 the superior classes. Certainly, kings and queens, nobles 
 and great ladies, had some right to complain of the ab- 
 surdity that had been put in their mouths before the days 
 of Waverley ; but neither does Scott^s dialogue bear criti- 
 cism. His lords brave each other in smart epigrammatic 20 
 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 25 
 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 30 
 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, 
 
22 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 hj 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 
 6 conventions of elegant society, were never learned there, 
 but were original and commanding and held out pro- 
 tection 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 
 
 10 modes of existence; who shook off the captivity of eti- 
 quette, with happy, spirited bearing, good-natured and 
 free as Eobin Hood ; yet with tlie port of an emperor, if 
 need be, — calm, serious and fit to stand the gaze of 
 millions. 
 
 15 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 sceptre 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 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 consciousness of inferiority in the men may give rise to 
 the new chivalry in behalf of Woman's Eights. Certainly 
 let her be as much better placed in the laws and in social 
 forms as the most zealous reformer can ask, but I con- 
 fide so entirely in her inspiring and musical nature, that 
 
 30 1 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, Juno, or Polymnia; and by the firm- 
 ness with which she treads lier upward path, she con- 
 
MANNERS 23 
 
 vinces the coarsest calculators that another road exists 
 than that which tlieir feet know. But besides tliose who 
 make good in our imagination the place of muses and 
 of Delphic Sibyls, are there not women who fill our vase 
 with wine and roses to the brim, so that the wine runs 5 
 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 tilings we 
 never thought to have said ; for once, our walls of habit- 
 ual reserve vanished and left us at large ; we were chil- 10 
 dren 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-coloTed words the romance that you are. Was it 
 Hafiz or Firdousi that said of his Persian Lilla, She 15 
 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? 
 She was a solvent powerful to reconcile all heterogeneous 
 persons into one society: like air or water, an element of 20 
 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 25 
 you could say her manners were marked with dignity, 
 yet no princess could surpass her clear and erect de- 
 meanor on each occasion. She did not study the Per- 
 sian grammar, nor the books of the seven poets, but all 
 the poems of the seven seemed to be written upon her. 30 
 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 fulness of her 
 heart, warming them by her sentiments; believing, as 
 
24 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 she did, that by dealing nobly with all, all would show 
 themselves noble. 
 
 I know that this Byzantine pile of chivalry or 
 5 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 
 
 10 enrolled in its Golden Book, and whom it has excluded 
 from its coveted honors and privileges. They have yet 
 to learn that its seeming grandeur is shadowy and rela- 
 tive: it is great by their allowance; its proudest gates 
 will fly open at the approach of their courage and virtue. 
 
 15 For the present distress, however, of those who are pre- 
 disposed 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 re- 
 lieve the most extreme susceptibility. For the advantages 
 
 20 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 so- 
 ciety, in the literary or scientific circle, at sea, in friend- 
 
 25 ship, in the heaven of thought or virtue. 
 
 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 
 
 30 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 and expand all that ap- 
 proaches it. This gives new meanings to every fact. 
 
MANNERS 25 
 
 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 5 
 "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 excep- 
 tion of your presence and your house from the general 10 
 bleakness and stoniness; to make such feel that they 
 were greeted with a voice which made them both remem- 
 ber 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 one holiday 15 
 from the national caution? Without the rich heart, 
 wealth is an ugly beggar. The king of Schiraz could not 
 afford to be so bountiful as the poor Osman who dwelt 
 at his gate. Osman had a humanity so broad and deep 
 that although his speech was so bold and free with the 20 
 Koran 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 25 
 in the centre of the country, that it seemed as if the in- 
 stinct 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 ? 
 
 But I shall hear without pain that I play the courtier 30 
 very ill, and talk of that which I do not well under- 
 stand. It is easy to see that what is called by distinc- 
 tion society and fashion has good laws as w^ell as bad, 
 has much that is necessary, and much that is absurd. 
 
26 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 Too good for banning, and too bad for blessing, it re- 
 minds us of a tradition of the pagan mythology, in any 
 attempt to settle its character. 'I overheard Jove, one 
 day,' said Silenus, ^talking of destroying the earth; he 
 5 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 
 10 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, much more all Olympus, to know 
 whether it was fundamentally bad or good/ 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 
 
 Ne te qiiaesiveris extra. 
 
 Man is his own star; and the soul that can 
 Eender 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. 
 Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune, 
 
 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. 
 
 I READ the other day some verses written by an eminent 
 painter which were original and not conventional. Al- 
 ways the soul hears an admonition in such lines^ let the 
 subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of 
 more value than any thought they may contain. To be- 5 
 lieve your own thought, to believe that what is true for 
 you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is 
 genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the 
 universal sense ; for always the inmost becomes the out- 
 most — and our first thought is rendered back to us by 10 
 the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the 
 voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we as- 
 cribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is that they set at 
 naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, 
 but what they thought. A man should learn to detect 
 
 27 
 
28 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his 
 miud from within, more than the lustre of the firmament 
 of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his 
 thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we 
 5 recognize our own rejected thoughts; 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 the whole 
 
 10 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 ar- 
 
 15 rives at the conviction that envy is ignorance ; that imi- 
 tation is suicide; 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 
 
 20 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. It is 
 
 25 not without preestablished harmony, this sculpture in 
 the memory. The eye was placed where one ray should 
 fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. Bravely 
 let him speak the utmost syllable of his confession. We 
 but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that 
 
 30 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. It needs a divine man to 
 exhibit anything divine. A man is relieved and gay 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 29 
 
 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 be- 
 friends ; no invention, no hope. 5 
 
 Trust thyself : every heart vibrates to that iron string. 
 Accept the place the divine providence has found for 
 you, the society of your contemporaries, the connexion of 
 events. Great men have always done so, and confided 
 themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying 10 
 their perception that the Eternal was stirring 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 pinched in a corner, not cowards fleeing before a 15 
 revolution, but redeemers and benefactors, pious as- 
 pirants to be noble cla}^, under the Almighty effort let 
 us advance on Chaos and the Dark. 
 
 What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text in the 
 face and behavior of children, babes, and even brutes. 20 
 That divided and rebel mind, that distrust of a sentiment 
 because our arithmetic has computed the strength and 
 means opposed to our purpose, these have not. Their 
 mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and 
 when we look in their faces, we are disconcerted. In- 25 
 fancy conforms to nobody ; all conform to it ; so that one 
 babe commonly makes four or five 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 30 
 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 who spoke so clear 
 and emphatic? It seems he knows how to speak to his 
 
30 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 contemporaries. Good Heaven ! it is he ! it is that very 
 lump of bashfuhiess and phlegm which for weeks has 
 done nothing but eat wlien you were by, and now rolls 
 out these words like bell-strokes. It seems he knows 
 
 5 how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold 
 then, he will know how to make us seniors very unneces- 
 sary. 
 
 The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and 
 would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to 
 
 10 conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature. 
 How is a boy the master of society; independent, ir- 
 responsible, 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, 
 
 15 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 
 
 20 once acted or spoken with eclat he is a committed person, 
 w^atched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, 
 whose affections must now enter into his account. There 
 is no Lethe for this. Ah, tliat he could pass again into 
 his neutral, godlike independence! Who can thus lose 
 
 25 all pledge, and, having observed, observe again from the 
 same unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted in- 
 nocence, must always be formidable, must always engage 
 the poet's and the man's regards. Of such an immortal 
 youth the force would be felt. He would utter opinions 
 
 30 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. 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 31 
 
 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 5 
 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. He 
 who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered 
 by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be good- 10 
 ness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our 
 own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have 
 the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which 
 when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued ad- 
 viser who was wont to importune me with the dear old 15 
 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 im- 
 pulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, 
 '^They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the 20 
 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 ; the only right is what is after my constitution ; the 
 only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry him- 25 
 self in the presence of all opposition as if every thing 
 were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to 
 think how easily w^e capitulate to badges and names, to 
 large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and 
 well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than 30 
 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 
 
32 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 me with his last news from Barbadoes, 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 in- 
 
 5 credible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. 
 Thy love afar is spite at home." Eough 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 
 
 10 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. I hope it 
 is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot 
 
 15 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, 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 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 thousandfold Eelief So- 
 cieties; — though I confess with shame I sometimes suc- 
 cumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar which 
 
 30by-and-by I shall have the manhood to withhold. 
 
 Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the excep- 
 tion 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 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 33 
 
 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 not an apology, but a 5 
 life. It 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. My life should be unique ; it should be 10 
 an alms, a battle, a conquest, a medicine. 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 15 
 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 20 
 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 be- 
 cause you will always find those who think they know 
 what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy 25 
 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. 
 
 The objection to conforming to usages that have be- 30 
 come 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 
 
34 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 Government or against it, spread your table like base 
 housekeepers, — under all these screens I have difficulty 
 to detect tlie precise man you are. And of course so 
 much force is withdrawn from your proper life. But do 
 6 your thing, and I shall know you. 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 3^our argument. I hear a 
 preacher announce for his text and.topic the expediency 
 
 10 of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know 
 beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spon- 
 taneous word ? Do I not know that with all this ostenta- 
 tion of examining the grounds of the institution he will 
 do no such thing ? Do I not know that he is pledged to 
 
 15 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 are the emptiest 
 affectation. Well, most men have bound their eyes with 
 one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves 
 
 20 to some one of these communities of opinion. This con- 
 formity 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 
 
 25 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 
 
 30 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, 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 35 
 
 not spontaneously moved but moved by a low usurping 
 wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, and 
 make the most disagreeable sensation ; a sensation of re- 
 buke and warning which no brave young man will suffer 
 twice. 5 
 
 For non-conformity the world whips you with its dis- 
 pleasure. And therefore a man must know how to esti- 
 mate 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 10 
 his o^vn he might well go home with a sad countenance ; 
 but the sour faces of the multitude, like their sweet 
 faces, have no deep cause — disguise no god, but are put 
 on and off as. the wind blows and a nevrspaper directs. 
 Yet is the discontent of the multitude more formidable 15 
 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 indig-20 
 nation 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. 25 
 
 The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our 
 consistency ; a reverence for our past act or word because 
 the eyes of others have no other data for computing our 
 orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint 
 them. 30 
 
 But why should 3^ou keep your head over your 
 shoulder? Why drag about this monstrous corpse of 
 your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have 
 stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should 
 
36 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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 
 5 in a new day. Trust your emotion. In your metaphysics 
 you have denied ]3ersonality 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 
 
 10 harlot, and flee. 
 
 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 his shadow on the 
 
 15 wall. Out upon your guarded lips ! Sew them up with 
 packthread, do. Else if you would be a man speak what 
 you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and 
 to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words 
 again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. 
 
 20 Ah, then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall be sure to be 
 misunderstood ! Misunderstood ! It is a right fool's 
 word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythag- 
 oras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and 
 Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and 
 
 25 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 and Himmaleh are insignifi- 
 
 30 cant 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; — read it forward, backward, or 
 ncross, it still spoils the same thing. In this pleasing 
 contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 37 
 
 day by day my honest thought without prospect or retro- 
 spect, 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 5 
 of 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. 10 
 
 Fear never but you shall be consistent in whatever 
 variet}^ of actions, so they be each honest and natural in 
 their hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmoni- 
 ous, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost 
 sight of when seen at a little distance; at a little height 15 
 of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage 
 of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. This 
 is only microscopic criticism. See the line from a suf- 
 ficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average 
 tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself and 20 
 will explain your other genuine actions. Your conform- 
 ity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have al- 
 ready done singly will justify you now. Greatness always 
 appeals to the future. If I can be great enough now to 
 do right and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right 25 
 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. A^^iat makes 
 the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field, 30 
 which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a 
 train of great days and victories behind. There they all 
 stand and shed an united light on the advancing actor. 
 He is attended as by a visible escort of angels to every 
 
38 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 man's eye. That is it which throws thunder into Chat- 
 ham's voice, and dignity into Washington's port, and 
 America into Adams's eye. Honor is venerable to us 
 because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient virtue. 
 5 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 lor our 
 love and homage, but is self-dependent, self-derived, 
 and therefore of an old immaculate pedigree, even if 
 shown in a young person. 
 
 10 I hope in these days we have heard the last of conform- 
 ity and consistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridic- 
 ulous henceforward. Instead of the gong for dinner, 
 let us hear a whistle from the Spartan fife. Let us bow 
 and apologize never more. A great man is coming to 
 
 15 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 
 
 20 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 moving wherever moves 
 a man ; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, 
 but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature. 
 
 25 He measures you and all men and all events. You are 
 constrained to accept his standard. Ordinarily, every 
 body 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 
 
 30 be so much that he must make all circumstances indif- 
 ferent — put all means into the shade. This all great 
 men are and do. Every true man is a cause, a country, 
 and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and 
 time fully to accomplish his thought; — and posterity 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 39 
 
 seem to follow his steps as a procession. A man Caesar 
 is born, and for ages after we have a Eoman 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 5 
 shadow of one man; as, the Eeformation, of Luther; 
 Quakerism, of Fox; Methodism, of Wesley; Abolition, 
 of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton called "the height of Eome f 
 and all history resolves itself very easily into the biogra- 
 phy of a few stout and earnest persons. 10 
 
 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 inter- 
 loper in the world which exists for him. But the man in 
 the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds 15 
 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, or 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 20 
 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 claim to 
 praise. That popular fable of the sot who was picked up 
 dead drunk in the street, carried to the duke^s house, 25 
 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 — 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 30 
 then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a 
 true prince. 
 
 Our reading is mendicant and sycophantic. In his- 
 tory our imagination makes fools of us, plays us false. 
 
40 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier 
 vocabulary than private John and Edward in a small 
 house and common days work : but the things of life are 
 the same to both : the sum total of both is the same. Why 
 sail this deference to Alfred and Scanderbeg and Gus- 
 tavus? 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 lustre 
 
 10 will be transferred from the actions of kings to those 
 of gentlemen. 
 
 The world has indeed 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 
 
 15 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, 
 
 20 and represent the Law in his person, was the hieroglyphic 
 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 ex- 
 plained when we inquire the reason of self-trust. Who 
 
 25 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, 
 without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of beauty 
 even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of 
 
 30 independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that 
 source, at once the essence of genius, the essence of vir- 
 tue, and the essence of life, which we call Spontaneity 
 or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as In- 
 tuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions. In that 
 
SELF-RELIANCE, 41 
 
 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 proceedeth 5 
 obviously from the same source whence their life and 
 being also proceedeth. 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 the fountain of thought. 10 
 Here are the lungs of that inspiration which giveth man 
 wisdom, of that inspiration of man which cannot be 
 denied without impiety and atheism. We lie in the lap 
 of immense intelligence, which makes us organs of its 
 activity and receivers of its truth. When we discern 15 
 justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of our- 
 selves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask 
 whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that 
 causes — all metaphysics, all philosophy is at fault. Its 
 presence or its absence is all we can affirm. Every man 20 
 discerns between the voluntary acts of his mind and his 
 involuntary perceptions. And to his involuntary per- 
 ceptions he knows a perfect respect 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. All my 25 
 wilful actions and acquisitions are but roving; — the 
 most trivial reverie, the faintest native emotion, are 
 domestic and divine. Thoughtless people contradict as 
 readily the statement of perceptions as of opinions, or 
 rather much more readily ; for they do not distinguish 30 
 between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose 
 to see this or that thing. But perception is not whimsi- 
 cal, but fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it 
 after me, and in course of time all mankind, — although 
 
42 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 it may chance that no one has seen it before me. For my 
 perception of it is as much a fact as the sum 
 
 The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so 
 pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. It must 
 5 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 centre of the present thought; and new date 
 and new create the whole. Whenever a mind is simple 
 
 10 and receives a divine wisdom, then- old things pass away, 
 — means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and 
 absorbs past and future into the present hour. All 
 things are ma.de sacred by relation to it, — one thing as 
 much as another. All things are dissolved to their 
 
 15 centre by their cause, and in the universal miracle petty 
 and particular miracles disappear. This is and must be. 
 If therefore a man claims to know and speak of God and 
 carries you backward to the phraseology of some old 
 mouldered nation in another country, in another world, 
 
 20 believe him not. Is the acorn better than the oak which 
 is its fulness and completion ? Is the parent better than 
 the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? 
 Whence then this worship of the past? The centuries 
 are conspirators against the sanity and majesty of the 
 
 25 soul. Time and space are but ph3^siological colors which 
 the eye maketh, but the soul is light; where it is, is 
 day; where it was, is night; and history is an imperti- 
 nence and an injury if it be any thing more than a cheer- 
 ful apologue or parable of my being and becoming, 
 
 30 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 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 43 
 
 what they are ; the}^ exist with God to-day. There is no 
 time to them. Tliere 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 5 
 is satisfied and it satisfies nature in all moments alike. 
 There is no time to it. But man postpones or remem- 
 bers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted 
 eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that sur- 
 round him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He 10 
 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 in- 
 tellects dare not yet hear God himself unless he speak 
 the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, 15 
 or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a 
 few texts, on a few lines. We are like children who 
 repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, 
 and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and char- 
 acter they chance to see, — painfully recollecting the exact 20 
 words they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the 
 point of view which those had who uttered these sayings, 
 they understand them and are willing to let the words 
 go; for at any time they can use words as good when 
 occasion comes. So was it with ns, so will it be, if we 25 
 proceed. If we live trul}^, 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 disburthen the memory of its hoarded treasures 
 as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice 30 
 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 
 
44 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 say is the far off remembering of the intuition. That 
 thought, by what I can now nearest approach to say it, 
 is this. Wlien good is near you, when you have life in 
 yourself, — it is not by any known or appointed way ; you 
 
 5 shall not discern the foot-prints 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 all other being. You take 
 the way from man, not to man. All persons that ever 
 
 10 existed are its fugitive ministers. There shall be no 
 fear in it. Fear and hope are alike beneath it. It asks 
 nothing. There is somewhat low even in hope. We are 
 then in vision. There is nothing that can be called grati- 
 tude, nor properly joy. The soul is raised over passion. 
 
 15 It seeth identity and eternal causation. It is a per- 
 ceiving that Truth and Eight are. Hence it becomes a 
 Tranquillity out of the knowing that all things go well. 
 Vast spaces of nature, the Atlantic Ocean, the South 
 Sea ; vast intervals of time, years, centuries, are of no ac- 
 
 20 count. This which I think and feel underlay that 
 former state of life and circumstances, as it does underlie 
 my present and will always all circumstances, and what 
 is called life and what is called death. 
 
 Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases 
 
 25 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 de- 
 grades the past ; turns all riches to poverty, all reputation 
 
 30 to a shame; confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves 
 Jesus and Judas equally aside. Why then do we prate 
 of self-reliance? Inasmuch as the soul is present there 
 will be power not confident but agent. To talk of reliance 
 is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather of that 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 45 
 
 wliich relies because it works and is. Who has more soul 
 than I masters me, tliough he should not raise his huger. 
 Eound him I must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. 
 Who has less I rule with like facility. We fancy it 
 rhetoric when we speak of eminent virtue. We do not 5 
 yet see that virtue is Height, and that a man or a com- 
 pany 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 10 
 this, as on every topic, the resolution of all into the ever- 
 blessed OxE. Virtue is the governor, the creator, the 
 reality. All things real are so by so much virtue as they* 
 contain. Hardship, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war, 
 eloquence, personal weight, are somewhat, and engage 15 
 my respect as examples of the soul's presence and impure 
 action. I see the same law working in nature for con- 
 servation and growth. The poise of a planet, the bended 
 tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital re- . 
 sources of every animal and vegetable, are also demon- 20 
 strations of the self-sufficing and therefore self-relying 
 soul. All histor}^, from its highest to its trivial passages, 
 is the various record of this power. 
 
 Thus all concentrates; let us not rove; let us sit at 
 home with the cause. Let us stun and astonish the in- 25 
 truding rabble of men and books and institutions by a 
 simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid them take the 
 shoes from off their feet, for God is here within. Let 
 our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our own 
 law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune be- 30 
 side our native riches. 
 
 But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of 
 man, nor is the soul admonished to stay at home, to put 
 itself in communication with the internal ocean, but it 
 
46 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of men. 
 (^We mu st go alone. Isolation must precede true society. 
 I like the silent church before the service begins, better 
 than any preaching. How far olf, how cool, how chaste 
 5 the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanc- 
 tuary. So let us always sit. Wh}' 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. 
 
 10 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 con- 
 spiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, 
 
 15 client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at 
 once at thy closet door and say, 'Come out unto us.' — Do 
 not spill thy soul; do not all descend; keep thy state; 
 stay at home in thine own heaven; come not for a mo- 
 ment into their facts, into their hubbub of conflicting 
 
 20 appearances, but let in the light of thy law on their con- 
 fusion. The power men possess to annoy me 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." 
 
 25 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, 
 courage and constanc}^ in our Saxon breasts. This is to 
 be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. 
 
 30 Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live 
 no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiv- 
 ing people with whom we converse. Say to them, 
 father, mother, wife, brother, friend, I have 
 lived with you after appearances hitherto. Hencefor- 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 47 
 
 ward I am the truth's. Be it known unto you that hence- 
 forward I obey no law less tlian the eternal law. 1 will 
 have no covenants but proximities. I shall endeavor to 
 nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the 
 chaste husband of one wife, — but these relations I must 5 
 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. If you can love me for what 
 I am, we shall be happier. If you cannot, I will still 
 seek to deserve that you should. I must be myself. 1 10 
 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 Avhatever inly rejoices me and the heart ap- 
 points. If you are noble, I will love you ; if you are not, 
 I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. 15 
 If you are true, but not in the same truth witli 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 20 
 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. — 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 25 
 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 anti-30 
 nomianism ; and the bold sensualist will use the name of 
 philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of conscious- 
 ness abides. There are two confessionials, in one or the 
 other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfil your 
 
48 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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 1 
 5 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 
 
 10 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 task-master. High be his 
 
 heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in 
 
 15 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 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 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, and so do lean and beg day and night continually. 
 Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, 
 
 30 our marriages, our religion we have not chosen, but 
 society has chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. The 
 rugged battle of fate, where strength is born, we shun. 
 
 If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises 
 they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 49 
 
 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 5 
 of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Ver- 
 mont, wdio in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, 
 farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a news- 
 paper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in 
 successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, 10 
 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 arise who shall reveal the resources of man 15 
 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, born to shed healing to the nations ; that he 
 should be ashamed of our compassion ; and that the mo- 20 
 ment 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. 25 
 
 It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance — a new 
 respect for the divinity in man — 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 30 
 speculative views. 
 
 1. In what prayers do men allow themselves! That 
 which they call a holy office is not so much as brave and 
 manly, Prayer looks abroad and asks for some foreign 
 
50 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 addition to come through some foreign virtue, and loses 
 itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural, and 
 mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer tliat craves a par- 
 ticular commodity — anything less than all good, is 
 
 5 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. It is the spirit of God pro- 
 nouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to 
 effect a private end is theft and meanness. It supposes 
 
 10 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 
 
 15 prayers heard throughout nature, though for cheap ends. 
 Caratach, 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. 
 
 20 Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Dis- 
 content is the want of self-reliance : it is infirmity of will. 
 Eegret 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 
 
 25 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 the soul. The secret of fortune is 
 joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is 
 
 30 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. AVe solicitously and 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 51 
 
 apologetically caress and celebrate him because he held 
 on his way and scorned our disapprobation, Tlie gods 
 love him because men hated him. "To the persevering 
 mortal,'^ said Zoroaster, "the blessed Immortals are 
 swift." 5 
 
 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." 
 Everywhere I am bereaved of meeting God in my brother, 10 
 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 Lavoisier, a Hutton, a Bentham, a Spurzheim, it im- 15 
 poses its classification on other men, and lo ! a new sys- 
 tem. In proportion always to the depth of the tliought, 
 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 20 
 are also classifications of some powerful mind acting on 
 the great elemental thought of Duty and man's relation 
 to the Highest. Such is Calvinism, Quakerism, Sweden- 
 borgianism. The pupil takes the same delight in sub- 
 ordinating every thing to the new terminology that a girl 25 
 does who has just learned botany in seeing a new earth 
 and new seasons therel)y. It will happen for a time 
 that the pupil will feel a real debt to the teacher — will 
 find his intellectual power has grown by the study of his 
 WTitings. This will continue until he has exhausted his 30 
 master's mind. But in all unbalanced minds the classi- 
 fication is idolized, passes for the end and not for a 
 speedily exhaustible means, so that the walls of the sys- 
 tem blend to their eye in the remote horizon with the 
 
52 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 walls of the universe; the luminaries of heaven seem to 
 them hung on the arch tlieir 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 
 5 from us.' They do not yet perceive tliat light, unsys- 
 tematic, 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 pin- 
 fold will be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will 
 
 10 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 idol of Travel- 
 ling, the idol of Italy, of England, of Egypt, remains for 
 
 15 all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, 
 or Greece venerable in the imagination, did so not by 
 rambling round creation as a moth round a lamp, but by 
 sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. 
 In manly hours we feel that duty is our place and that 
 
 20 the merry men of circumstance should follow as they 
 may. The soul is no traveller: the wise man stays at 
 home with the soul, and when his necessities, his duties, 
 on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign 
 lands, he is at home still and is not gadding abroad from 
 
 25 himself, and shall make men sensible by the expression 
 of his countenance that he goes, the missionary of wis- 
 dom 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 
 
 30 of the globe for the purposes of art, of study, and benev- 
 olence, 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, travels away from 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 53 
 
 himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. 
 In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become 
 old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins. 
 
 Travelling is a fool's paradise. We owe to our first 
 journeys the discovery that place is nothing. At home I 5 
 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. I seek the 10 
 Vatican 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 travelling is itself only a symptom 
 of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual 15 
 action. The intellect is vagabond, and the universal sys- 
 tem of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel 
 when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate ; 
 and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind? 
 Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves are 20 
 garnished with foreign ornaments; our opinions, our 
 tastes, our whole minds, lean, and follow the Past and 
 the Distant, as the eyes of a maid follow her mistress. 
 The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. 
 It was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. 25 
 It was an application of his own thought to the thing to 
 be done and the conditions to be observed. And why 
 need w^e copy the Doric or the Gothic model? Beauty, 
 convenience, grandeur of thouglit and quaint expression 
 are as near to us as to any, and if the American artist will 30 
 study with hope and love of 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 
 
54 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 will find themselves fitted, and taste and sentiment will 
 be satisfied also. 
 
 Insist on yourself ; never imitate. Your ow^n gift you 
 can present every moment with the cumulative force of 
 5a 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 
 
 10 could have taught Shakspeare ? Where is the master who 
 could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, 
 or Xewton? Every great man is an unique. The 
 Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not 
 borrow. If anybody will tell me whom the great man 
 
 15 imitates in the original crisis when he performs a great 
 act, I will tell him who else than himself can teach him. 
 Shakspeare will never be made by the study of Shak- 
 speare. Do that which is assigned thee and thou canst 
 not hope too much or dare too much. There is at this 
 
 20 moment, there is for me an utterance bare and grand as 
 that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the 
 Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different 
 from all these. Not possibly will the soul, all rich, all 
 eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat 
 
 25 itself ; but if I can hear what these patriarchs say, surely 
 I can reply to them in the same pitch of voice ; for the 
 ear and the tongue are two organs of one nature. Dwell 
 up there in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey 
 thy heart and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again. 
 
 30 4. As our Eeligion, 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 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 55 
 
 side as it gains on the other. Its progress is only appar- 
 ent like the workers of a treadmill. It undergoes con- 
 tinual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is 
 christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change 
 is not amelioration. For every thing that is given some- 5 
 thing is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old 
 instincts. AVliat a contrast between the well-clad, read- 
 ing, writing, thinking American, with a watch, a pencil 
 and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the naked New 
 Zealander, v/hose property is a club, a spear, a mat and 10 
 an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under. But 
 compare the health of the two men and you shall see 
 that the aboriginal strength, the white man has lost. If 
 the traveller tell us truly, strike the savage with a broad 
 axe and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and heal as 15 
 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 got a fine Geneva 20 
 watch, but he has lost his skill to tell the hour by the 
 sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac 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 he 
 does not observe ; the equinox he knows as little ; and the 25 
 whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his 
 mind. His note-books impair his memory; his libraries 
 overload his wit ; the insurance-office increases the num- 
 ber of accidents; and it may be a question whether 
 machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost 30 
 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? 
 
56 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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 the great men of the iirst and of the last ages; 
 5 nor can all the science^ art, religion, and philosophy of 
 the nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than 
 Plutarch's heroes, three or four and twenty centuries ago. 
 Not in time is the race progressive. Phocion, Socrates, 
 Anaxagoras, Diogenes, are great men, but they leave no 
 
 10 class. He who is really of their class will not be called 
 by their name, but be wholly 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 compen- 
 
 15 sate its good. Hudson and Behring accomplished so 
 much in their fishing-boats as to astonish Parry and 
 Franklin, whose equipment exhausted the resources of 
 science and art. Galileo, with an opera-glass, discovered 
 a more splendid series of facts than any one since. 
 
 20 Columbus 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 im- 
 
 25 provements of the art of war among the triumphs of 
 science, and yet Napoleon 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 Cases, "with- 
 
 30 out abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries and 
 carriages, until, in imitation of the Eoman custom, the 
 soldier should receive his supply of corn, grind it in his 
 hand-mill and bake his bread himself.'' 
 
 Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 57 
 
 water of which it is composed does not. The same par- 
 ticle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity 
 is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation 
 to-day, die, and their experience with them. 
 
 And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance 5 
 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 what they 
 call the soul's progress, namely, the religious, learned and 
 civil institutions, as guards of property, and they dep-10 
 recate 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, ashamed 
 of what he has, out of new respect for his being. Es-15 
 pecially 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 revolu- 
 tion or no robber takes it away. But that which a man 20 
 is, does always by necessity acquire, and what the man 
 acquires, is permanent and 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 is put. ''Thy lot or portion of 25 
 life," said the Caliph Ali, "is seeking after thee ; there- 
 fore 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 con- 
 ventions; the greater the concourse and with each new 30 
 uproar of announcement. The delegation from Essex ! 
 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 
 
58 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 manner the reformers summon conventions and vote and 
 resolve in multitude. But not so, 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 from 
 5 himself all external 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 
 
 10 all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is 
 in the soul, that he is weak only 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 
 
 15 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. 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 
 
 20 with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the 
 Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel 
 of Chance, and shalt always drag her after thee. A 
 political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick 
 or the return of your absent friend, or some other quite 
 
 25 external event raises your spirits, and you think good 
 days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. It can 
 never be so. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. 
 Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of prin- 
 ciples. 
 
COMPENSATION 
 
 Ever since I was a boy I have wished to write a dis- 
 course 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 too from which the doctrine is to be 5 
 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 trans- 
 actions of the street, the farm and the dwelling-house; 
 the greetings, the relations, the debts and credits, the 10 
 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 15 
 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 20 
 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 25 
 of the Last Judgment. He assumed that judgment is 
 not executed in this world; that the wicked are success- 
 
 59 
 
60 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 ful; that the good are miserable; and then urged from 
 reason and 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 
 5 observe when the meeting broke up they separated with- 
 out 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, 
 
 10 wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had by unprincipled men, 
 whilst the saints are poor and despised; and that a com- 
 pensation is to be made to these last hereafter, by giving 
 them the like gratifications another day, — bank-stock 
 and doubloons, venison and champagne? This must be 
 
 15 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 
 
 20 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 revenge to-morrow." 
 
 The fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad 
 are successful ; that justice is not done now. The blind- 
 
 25ness of the preacher consisted in deferring to the base 
 estimate of the market of what constitutes a manly suc- 
 cess, 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 
 
 30 standard of good and ill, of success and falsehood, and 
 summoning the dead to its present tribunal. 
 
 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 
 
COMPENSATION 61 
 
 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 5 
 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 10 
 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 15 
 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^ or action and reaction, we meet in every 20 
 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 
 systole and diastole of the heart; in the undulations of 
 fluids and of sound; in the centrifugal and centripetal 25 
 gravity; in electricity, galvanism, and chemical affinity. 
 Superinduce magnetism at one end of a needle, the oppo- 
 site 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 30 
 nature, so that each thing is a half, and suggests another 
 thing to make it whole ; as, spirit, matter ; man, woman ; 
 subjective, objective; in, out; upper, under; motion, 
 rest; yea, nay. 
 
62 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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 
 5 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 bound- 
 aries. For example, in the animal kingdom the physiol- 
 ogist has observed that no creatures are favorites, but a 
 
 10 certain compensation balances every gift and every de- 
 fect. 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 extrem- 
 ities are cut short. 
 
 15 The theory of the mechanic forces is another example. 
 What we gain in power is lost in time, and the converse. 
 The jjeriodic or compensating errors of the planets is 
 another instance. The influences of climate and soil in 
 political history are another. The cold climate invigor- 
 
 20ates. 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. 
 
 25 Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal 
 penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its modera- 
 tion with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain 
 of folly. For every thing you have missed, you have 
 gained something else ; and for every thing you gain, you 
 
 30 lose something. If riches increase, they are increased 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 
 
COMPENSATION 63 
 
 seek a level from their loftiest tossing than the varieties 
 of condition tend to equalize themselves. There is always 
 some levelling circumstance that puts down the overbear- 
 ing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, substantially on 
 the same ground with all others. Is a man too strong 5 
 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 10 
 his grim scowl to courtesy. Thus she contrives to in- 
 tenerate 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. 15 
 It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of 
 his manly attributes. To preserve for a short tyiie so 
 conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is con- 
 tent to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect 
 behind the throne. Or do men desire the more substan-20 
 tial and permanent grandeur of genius? ISTeither has 
 this an immunity. He who by force of will or of thought 
 is great and overlooks thousands, has the responsibility 
 •of overlooking. With every influx of light comes new 
 danger. Has he light ? he must bear witness to the light, 25 
 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 30 
 and afflict them by faithfulness to his truth and become 
 a bj^ord and a hissing. 
 
 This Law writes the laws of the cities and nations. It 
 "will not be baulked of its end in the smallest iota. It is 
 
64 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 in vain to build or plot or combine against it. Things 
 refuse to be mismanaged long, lies riolunt diu male ad- 
 ministrari. Though no checks to a new evil appear, the 
 checks exist, and will appear. If the government is 
 5 cruel, the governor's life is not safe. If you tax too high, 
 the revenue will yield nothing. If you make a criminal 
 code sanguinary, juries will not convict. Nothing ar- 
 bitrary, nothing artificial can endure. The true life and 
 satisfactions of man seem to elude the utmost rigors or 
 
 10 felicities of condition and to establish themselves with 
 great indifferency under all varieties of circumstance. 
 Under all governments the influence of character re- 
 mains the same, — in Turkey and New England about 
 alike. Under the primeval despots of Egypt, history 
 
 15 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. Every thing 
 in nature contains all the powers of nature. Every 
 
 20 thing 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, 
 
 25but 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, 
 
 30 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. The micro- 
 scope cannot find the animalcule which is less perfect 
 
COMPENSATION 65 
 
 for being little. Eyes, ears, taste, smell, motion, re- 
 sistance, 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 5 
 his parts in every moss and cobweb. 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 10 
 soul which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a 
 law. We feel its inspirations; out there in history we 
 can see its fatal strength. It is almighty. All nature 
 feels its grasp. "It is in the world, and the world was 
 made by it." It is eternal but it enacts itself in time and 15 
 space. Justice is not postponed. A perfect equity ad- 
 justs its balance in all parts of life. Ot kv^ol At6s dd 
 cvTrtTTTovo-t. The d ice of God are always loaded. The 
 world looks like a multiplication-table, or a mathematical 
 equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. 20- 
 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 retri- 
 bution is the universal necessity by which the whole 25 
 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 30 
 nature ; and secondly in the circumstance, or in apparent 
 nature. Men call the circumstance the retribution. The 
 casual retribution is in the thing and is seen by the soul. 
 The retribution in the circumstance is seen bv the under- 
 
66 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 standing; 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 offence, but they follow because they ac- 
 5 company it. Crime and punishment grow out of one 
 stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens 
 within the flower of the pleasure Avhich concealed it. 
 Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot 
 be severed ; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the 
 
 10 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 appro- 
 priate; for example, — to gratify the senses we sever the 
 pleasure of the senses from the needs of the character. 
 
 15 The ingenuity of man has 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 
 
 20 leave it bottomless; to get a o?ie 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 
 
 25 body would have the power over things to its own ends. 
 
 The soul strives amain 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 him- 
 
 30 self; 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 
 
COMPENSATION 67 
 
 great is to get only one side of nature, — the sweet, with- 
 out tlie other side, — the bitter. 
 
 Steadily is this dividing and detaching counteracted. 
 Up to this day it must be owned no projector has had the 
 smallest success. The parted water reunites behind our 5 
 hand. Pleasure is taken out of pleasant things, profit 
 out of profitable things, power out of strong things, the 
 moment we seek to separate them from the whole. We 
 can no more halve things and get the sensual good, by 
 itself, than we can get an inside that shall have no out- 10 
 side, or a light without a shadow. "Drive out nature 
 with a fork, she comes running back." 
 
 Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which 
 the unwise seek to dodge, which one and another brags 
 that he does not know, brags that they do not touch him ; 15* 
 — 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 appearance, it is because he has resisted his life 
 and fled from himself, and the retribution is so much 20 
 death. So signal is the failure of all attempts to make 
 this separation of the good from the tax, that the experi- 
 ment 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 25 
 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 mer- 
 maid's head but not the dragon's tail, and thinks he can 
 cut off that which he would have from that which he 30 
 would not have. "How secret art thou who dwellest in 
 the highest heavens in silence, thou only great God, 
 sprinkling with a.n unwearied providence certain penal 
 blindnesses upon such as have unbridled desires!" 
 
68 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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, Supreme Mind; but having tradi- 
 
 Stionally ascribed to him many base actions, they in- 
 voluntarily made amends to Reason by tying up the 
 hands of so bad a god. He is made as helpless as a king 
 of England. Prometheus knows one secret which Jove 
 must bargain for ; Minerva, another. He cannot get his 
 
 10 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 
 
 15 its moral aim. The Indian mythology ends in the same 
 ethics; and indeed it would seem impossible for any 
 fable to be invented and get any currency which was not 
 moral. .Aurora forgot to ask youth for her lover, and so 
 though Tithonus is immortal, he is old. Achilles is not 
 
 20 quite invulnerable; for Thetis held him by the heel when 
 she dipped him in the Styx and the sacred waters did not 
 wash that part. Siegfried, in the Nibelungen, 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 
 
 25 covered is mortal. And so it always is. There is a crack 
 in every thing God has made. Always it would seem 
 there is this vindictive circumstance stealing in at un- 
 awares even into the wild poesy in which the human 
 fancy attempted to make bold holiday and to shake it- 
 
 30 self 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 ISTemesis, who keeps 
 
COMPENSATION 69 
 
 watch in the Universe and lets no offence go unchastised. 
 The Furies, 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 5 
 the wrongs of their owners; that the belt which Ajax 
 gave Hector 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 erected a statue 10 
 to TJieagenes, 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 ped- 
 estal and was crushed to death beneath its fall. 
 
 This voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It 15 
 came from thought above the will of the writer. That 
 is the best part of each writer which has nothing private 
 in it; that is the best part of each 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 20 
 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 world that I would know. The name and cir- 
 cumstance of Phidias, however convenient for history, 25 
 embarrasses 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, of you will, modified in 
 doing, by the interfering volitions of Phidias, of Dante, 
 of Shakspeare, the organ whereby man at the moment 30 
 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 
 
70 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 qualification. Proverbs, like the sacred books of each 
 nation, are the sanctuary of the Intuitiuus. That which 
 the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow 
 the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to 
 5 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 all languages by 
 flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as 
 omnipresent as that of birds and flies. 
 
 10 All things are double, one against another. — Tit for 
 tat; 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 
 
 15 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 
 
 20 of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own. 
 — Bad counsel confounds the adviser. — -The devil is an 
 
 It is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our 
 action is overmastered and characterized above our will 
 
 25 by the laws of nature. W^e aim at a petty end quite aside 
 from the public good, but our act arranges itself by ir- 
 resistible magnetism in a line with the poles of the world. 
 A man cannot speak but he judges himself. AVith his 
 will or against his wall he draws his portrait to the eye 
 
 30 of his companions by every word. Every opinion reacts 
 on him who utters it. It is a threadball thrown at a 
 mark, but the other end remains in the thrower's bag. 
 Or rather, it is a harpoon thrown at the whale, unwind- 
 ing, as it flies, a coil of cord in the boat, and, if the har- 
 
COMPENSATION 71 
 
 poon is not good, or not well thrown, it will go nigh to 
 cut the steeisnian 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. The exclusive in fashionable life 5 
 does not see that he excludes himself from enjoyment, in 
 the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in re- 
 ligion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on 
 himself, in striving to shut out others. Treat men as 
 pawns and ninepins, and you shall suffer as well as they. 10 
 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. 15 
 
 All infractions of love and equity in our social rela- 
 tions 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 20 
 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 ; 25 
 there is war between us ; there is hate in him and fear in 
 me. 
 
 All the old abuses in society, the great and universal 
 and the petty and particular, all unjust accumulations 
 of property and power, are avenged in the same manner. 30 
 Fear is an instructor of great sagacity and the herald 
 of all revolutions. One thing he always teaches, that 
 there is rottenness where he appears. He is a carrion 
 crow, and though you see not well what he hovers for, 
 
72 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 there is death somewhere. Our property is timid, our 
 laws are timid, our cultivated classes are timid. Eear 
 for ages has boded and mowed and gibbered over govern- 
 ment and property. That obscene bird is not there for 
 
 5 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, 
 
 10 the awe of prosperity, the instinct which leads every 
 generous soul to impose on itself tasks of a noble ascetic- 
 ism 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 
 
 15 is best to pay scot and lot as they go along, and that a 
 man often pays dear for a small frugality. The bor- 
 rower runs in his own debt. Has a man gained any thing 
 who has received a hundred favors and rendered none? 
 Has he gained by borrowing, through indolence or 
 
 20 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 
 
 26 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." 
 
 30 A wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, 
 and know that it is always 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 
 
COMPENSATION 73 
 
 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 5 
 is levied. He is great who confers the most benefits. 
 He is base, — and that is the one base thing in the uni- 
 verse, — 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. But the benefit we 10 
 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. Pay it away quickly in some sort. 
 
 Labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws. 15 
 Cheapest, says 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 skilful gardener, or to buy good 
 sense applied to gardening; in your sailor, good sense 20 
 applied to navigation ; in the house, good sense applied to 
 cooking, sewing, serving; in your agent, good sense ap- 
 plied 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 25 
 life there can be no cheating. The thief steals from him- 
 self. 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, 30 
 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 
 
74 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 extort the benefit, cannot extort the knowledge of 
 material and moral naiure which his honest care and 
 pains yield to the operative. The law of nature is, Do 
 the thmg, and you snail have the power; but they who 
 5 do not the thing have not the power. 
 
 Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpen- 
 ing of a stake to the construction of a city or an epic, is 
 one immense illustration of the perfect compensation of 
 the universe. Everywhere and always this law is sub- 
 10 lime. The absolute balance of Give and Take, the 
 doctrine that every thing 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 
 15 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 ever implicated in 
 those processes with which he is conversant, the stern 
 ethics which sparkle on his chisel-edge, which are meas- 
 20ured 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 
 25 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, and the earth is made of glass. 
 30 There is no such thing as concealment. Commit a crime, 
 alid 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, you cannot wipe out the foot-track, you cannot 
 
COMPENSATION 75 
 
 draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet or clew. Al- 
 ways some damning circumstance 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 5 
 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 every thing to its own nature, so 
 that you cannot do him any harm ; but as the royal 10 
 armies sent against Napoleon, when he approached cast 
 down their colors and from enemies became friends, so 
 do disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offence, poverty, 
 prove benefactors. 
 
 Winds blow and waters roll 15 
 
 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 in- 
 jurious to him, so no man had ever a defect that was not 20 
 somewhere made useful to him. The stag in the fable 
 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 25 
 thoroughly understands a truth until first lie has con- 
 tended against it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance 
 with the hindrances or talents of men until he has suf- 
 fered from the one and seen the triumph of the other over 
 his own want of the same. Has he a defect of temper 30 
 that unfits him to live in society? Thereby he is driven 
 to entertain himself alone and acquire habits of self-help ; 
 
76 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 and thus, like the wounded oyster he mends his shell 
 with pearl. 
 
 Our strength grows out of our weakness. Not until we 
 are pricked and stung and sorely shot at, awakens the 
 5 indignation which arms itself with secret forces. A 
 great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits 
 on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he 
 is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn 
 something ; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood ; 
 
 10 he has gained facts ; learns his ignorance ; is cured of the 
 insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. 
 The wise man always 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 
 
 15 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 as- 
 surance of success. But as soon as honied words of 
 
 20 praise are spoken for me I feel as one that lies unpro- 
 tected before his enemies. In general, every evil to 
 which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As the Sand- 
 wich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the 
 enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the 
 
 25 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 institu- 
 tions, nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of wisdom. Men 
 
 30 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 any one but himself, 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 
 
COMPENSATION 77 
 
 things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfilment 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, the better for 5 
 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 10 
 many or one, a tyrant or a mob. A mob is a society of 
 bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason and 
 traversing its work. The mob is man voluntarily de- 
 scending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of 
 activity is night. Its actions are insane, like its whole 15 
 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 20 
 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 en- 
 lightens the world ; every suppressed or expunged word 25 
 reverberates through the earth from side to side. The 
 minds of men are at last aroused ; reason looks out and 
 justifies her own and malice finds all her work in vain. 
 It is the whipper who is whipped and the tyrant who is 
 undone. 30 
 
 Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circum- 
 stances. The man is all. Ever3'thing has two sides, a 
 good and an evil. Every advantage has its tax. I learn 
 
78 EMERSON'S -ESS A YS 
 
 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 
 5 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 
 
 10 circumstance, whose waters ebb and flow with perfect 
 balance, lies the aboriginal abyss of real Being. Ex- 
 istence, 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 
 
 15 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 back-ground the living 
 universe paints itself forth; but no fact is begotten by 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 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 out- 
 witted the law? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity 
 and the lie with him he so far decreases from nature. In 
 
 30 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 bousrht bv anv loss. There is no 
 
COMPENSATION 79 
 
 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 5 
 excess to love, none to knowledge, none to beaut}^, when 
 these attributes are considered in the purest sense. The 
 soul refuses all limits. It affirms in man always an 
 Optimism, never a Pessimism. 
 
 His life is a progress, and not a station. His instinct 10 
 is trust. Our instinct uses "more^' and "less" in appli- 
 cation to man, always 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 therefore no tax 15 
 on the good of virtue, for that is the incoming of God 
 himself, or absolute existence, without any comparative. 
 All external 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, 20 
 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 responsibility. I do not wish more external goods, 25 
 — neither possessions, nor honors, nor powers, nor per- 
 sons. 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 30 
 the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn the wisdom 
 of St. Bernard, "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." 
 
80 EMERSON'S ESSAYS] 
 
 In the nature of the soul is the compensation for the 
 inequalities of condition. The radical tragedy of nature 
 seems to he the distinction of More and Less. How can 
 Less not feel the pain ; how not feel indignation or malev- 
 5olence towards More. Look at those who have less 
 faculty, and one feels sad and knows not well what to 
 make of it. Almost he 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 
 
 10 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 
 
 15 great neighbors, I can get 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 
 
 20 is the eternal nature of the soul to appropriate and make 
 all things its own. Jesus and Shakespeare are frag- 
 ments of the soul, and by love I conquer and incorporate 
 them in my own conscious domain. His virtue, — is not 
 that mine? His wit, — if it cannot be made mine, it is 
 
 25 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. Evermore it is the order of nature to grow, 
 
 30 and every soul is by this intrinsic necessity quitting its 
 whole S3^stem 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 
 
COMPENSATION 81 
 
 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 always seen, and not, as in most men, an 5 
 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 10 
 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 cooperating with the divine ex- 
 pansion, this growth comes by shocks. 
 
 We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our 15 
 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 re-create that beautiful 20 
 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 Al-25 
 mighty 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 mon- 
 sters who look backwards. 
 
 And yet the compensations of calamity are made ap- 30 
 parent 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 
 
82 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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 as- 
 pect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates 
 
 5 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 con- 
 
 10 strains the formation of new acquaintances and the 
 reception of new influences that prove of the first im- 
 portance 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, 
 
 15 by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener 
 is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and 
 fruit to wide neighborhoods of men. 
 
NATURE 
 
 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. 
 
 There are days 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, 5 
 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 may lo 
 be looked for with a little more assurance in that pure 
 October weather, which we distinguish by the name of 
 the Indian Summer. The day, immeasurably long, sleeps 
 over the broad hills and warm wide fields. To have lived 
 through all its sunny hours, seems longevity enough. 15 
 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 
 
 83 
 
84 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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 
 
 ' 5 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 
 dail}^ wrap us in their bosom. How willingly we would 
 
 10 escape the barriers which render them comparatively im- 
 potent, 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 stimu- 
 lating and heroic. The anciently reported spells of these 
 
 15 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 his- 
 tory, or church, or state, is interpolated on the divine 
 
 20 sky and the immortal year. How easily we might walk 
 onward into the 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 
 
 25 of the present, and we were led in triumph by nature. 
 
 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 per- 
 
 SOsuade 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 af- 
 finity ! Ever an old friend, ever like a dear friend and 
 
NATURE 85 
 
 brother, when we chat affectedly with strangers, comes 
 in this honest face, and takes a grave liberty with us, 
 and shames ns 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 5 
 much scope, just as we need water for our bath. There 
 are all degrees of natural influence, from these quaran- 
 tine powers of nature, up to her dearest and gravest min- 
 istrations to the imagination and the soul. There is 
 the bucket of cold water from the spring, the wood- 10 
 fire to which the chilled traveller 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 15 
 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 and Uriel, the upper sky would 
 be all that would remain of our furniture. 20 
 
 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 bloAving of sleet over a wide sheet of 
 water, and over plains; the waving rye-field; the mimic 25 
 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 windharps; the 
 crackling and spurting of hemlock in the flames, or of 30 
 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. 
 
86 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 But I go with my friend to the shore of our little river, 
 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 
 5 of sunset and moonlight, too bright almost for spotted 
 man to enter without noviciate and probation. We pene- 
 trate 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 royal revel, the 
 
 10 proudest, most heart-rejoicing festival that valor and 
 beauty, power and taste, ever decked and enjoyed, es- 
 tablishes 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 
 
 15 the poorness of our invention, the ugliness of towns 
 and palaces. Art and luxury have early learned that 
 they must work as enchantment and sequel to this origi- 
 nal beauty. I am over-instructed for my return. Hence- 
 forth I shall be hard to please. I cannot go back to toys. 
 
 20 1 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 
 
 25 enchantments, is the rich and royal man. Only as far 
 as the 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, villas, garden- 
 houses, islands, parks, and preserves, to back their faulty 
 
 30 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 
 
NATURE 87 
 
 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 V-ersailles, or Paphos, or Ctesi- 5 
 phon. 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 bawbles. When the 
 rich tax the poor with servility and obsequiousness, they 
 should consider the effect of men reputed to be the pos- 10 
 sesors of nature, on imaginative minds. Ah ! if the rich 
 were rich as the poor fancy riches ! A hoy hears a mili- 
 tary 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 15 
 Notch Mountains, for example, which converts the 
 mountains into an ^olian harp, and this supernatural 
 tiralira restores to him the Dorian mythology, Apollo, 
 Diana, and all divine hunters and huntresses. Can a 
 musical note be so lofty, so haughtily beautiful! To 20 
 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 25 
 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 ground- 
 work from which he has delineated .estates of romance, 
 compared with which their actual possessions are shanties 30 
 and paddocks. The muse herself betrays her son, and 
 enhances the gifts of wealth 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 
 
88 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 patrician genii to patricians, a kind of aristocracy in 
 nature, a prince of the power of the air. 
 
 The moral sensibility which makes Edens and Tempes 
 so easily, may not be always found, but the material land- 
 5 scape is never far off. We can find these enchantments 
 without visiting the Como Lake, or the Madeira Islands. 
 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 
 
 10 hillock as well as from the top of the Alleghanies. The 
 stars at night stoop down over the brownest, homeliest 
 common, with all the spiritual magnificence which they 
 shed on the Campagna, or on the marble deserts of 
 Egypt. The uprolled clouds and the colors of morning 
 
 15 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 noth- 
 ing so wonderful in any particular landscape, as the 
 necessity of being beautiful under which every landscape 
 
 20 lies. Nature cannot be surprised in undress. Beauty 
 breaks in everywhere. 
 
 But it is very easy to outrun the sympathy of readers 
 on this topic, which schoolmen called natura naturata, 
 or nature passive. One can hardly speak directly of it 
 
 25 without excess. It is as easy to broach in mixed com- 
 panies what is called "the subject of religion." A sus- 
 ceptible 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 
 
 30 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 in 
 nature is barren and unworthy. The fop of fields is no 
 better than his brother of Broadway. Men are naturally 
 
NATURE 89 
 
 hunters and inquisitive of wood-craft, and I suppose that 
 such a gazetteer as wood-cutters and Indians should 
 furnish facts for, would take place in the most sump- 
 tuous drawing-rooms of all the "Wreaths" and "Flora's 
 chaplets" of the book-shops; yet ordinarily, whether we 5 
 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, 
 who ought to be represented in the mythology as the most 
 continent of gods. I would not be frivolous before the ad- 10 
 mirable reserve and prudence of time, yet I cannot re- 
 nounce the right of returning often to this old topic. The 
 multitude of false churches accredits the true religion. 
 Literature, poetry, science, are the homage of man to this 
 unfathomed secret, concerning which no sane man can 15 
 affect an indifference or incuriosity. Nature is loved by 
 what is best in us. It is loved as the city of God, al- 
 though, or rather because there is no citizen. The sun- 
 set is unlike anything that is underneath it: it wants 
 men. And the beauty of nature must always seem unreal 20 
 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, 25 
 that we turn from the people, to find relief in the 
 majestic men that are suggested by the pictures and the 
 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 30 
 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 
 
90 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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 
 6 stream of zeal sparkles with real fire, and not with reflex 
 rajs 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 
 
 10 phrenology and palmistry. 
 
 But taking timely warning, and leaving many things 
 unsaid on this topic, let us not longer omit our homage 
 to the Efficient Nature, natura naturans, the quick 
 cause, before which all forms flee as the driven snow; 
 
 15 itself secret, its works driven before it in flocks and mul- 
 titudes, (as the ancient represented nature by Proteus, 
 a shepherd,) and in undescribable variety. It publishes 
 itself in creatures, reaching from particles and spicula, 
 through transformation on transformation to the highest 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 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 meas- 
 ures, and exchange our Mosiac and Ptolemaic schemes 
 for her large style. We knew nothing rightly, for want 
 
 30 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 disin- 
 tegrated the thinnest external plate into soil, and opened 
 the door for the remote Flora, Fauna, Ceres, and Po- 
 
NATURE 91 
 
 mona, to come in. How far off yet is the trilobite ! how far 
 the quadruped I how inconceivably remote is man! All 
 duly arrive, and then race after race of men. It is a long 
 way from granite to the oyster ; farther yet to Plato, and 
 the preaching of the immortality of the soul. Yet all 5 
 must come, as surely as the first atom has two sides. 
 
 Motion or change, and identity or rest, are the first 
 and second secrets of nature: Motion and Eest. The 
 whole code of her laws may be written on the thumbnail, 
 or the signet of a ring. The whirling bubble on the 10 
 surface of a brook, admits us to the secret of the mechan- 
 ics of the sky. Every shell on the beach is a key to it. 
 A little water made to rotate in a cup explains the forma- 
 tion of the simpler shells; the addition of matter from 
 year to year, arrives at last at the most complex form ; 15 
 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, 20 
 and betrays the same properties. 
 
 Nature is always consistent, though she feigns to con- 
 travene 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, 25 
 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 omni- 
 presence. The direction is forever onward, but the artist 
 still goes back for materials, and begins again with the 30 
 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 
 
92 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 ever upward toward consciousness; the trees are imper- 
 fect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment^ 
 rooted in the ground. The animal is the novice and pro- 
 bationer of a more advanced order. The men, though 
 Syoung, 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 
 
 10 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 ridicu- 
 lous tenderness. 
 
 Things are so strictly related, that according to the 
 
 15 skill of the eye, from any one object the parts and proper- 
 ties 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 makfes us all one, and reduces to 
 
 20 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, 
 
 25 and is directly related, there amid essences and billets- 
 doux, to Himmaleh mountain-chains, 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. 
 
 30 Nature who made the mason, made the house. We may 
 easily hear too much of rural influences. The cool dis- 
 engaged air of natural objects, makes tliem 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 
 
NATURE 93 
 
 eat roots ; but let us be men instead of woodchucks, and 
 the oak and the elm shall gladly serve us, though we sit 
 in chairs of ivory on carpets of silk. 
 
 This guiding identity runs through all the surprises 
 and contrasts of the piece, and characterizes every law. 5 
 Man carries the world in his head, the whole astronomy 
 and chemistry suspended in a thought. Because the his- 
 tory 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 10 
 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 15 
 experiment. The common sense of Franklin, Dalton, 
 Davy, and Black, is the same common sense which made 
 the arrangements which now it discovers. 
 
 If the identity expresses organized rest, the counter 
 action runs also into organization. The astronomers 20 
 said, ^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 forces. Once heave the 25 
 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?' ^N'ature, meanwhile, 30 
 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 to the con- 
 
94 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 sequences of the act. That famous aboriginal push 
 propagates itself through all the balls of the system, and 
 through every atom ol ever}- ball, through all the races of 
 creatures, and through the history and performances of 
 5 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 
 
 10 in its proper path, a shove to |)ut 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 
 
 15 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? 
 
 20 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 aim; makes them a 
 little wrong-headed in that direction in which they are 
 Tightest, and on goes the game again with new whirl, for 
 
 25 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 gingerbread-dog, individualizing 
 
 30 everything, generalizing nothing, delighted with every 
 new thing, lies down at night overpowered by the fatigue, 
 which this day of continual pretty madness has incurred. 
 But Nature has answered her purpose with the curly, 
 dimpled lunatic. She has tasked every faculty, and has 
 
NATURE 95 
 
 secured the symmetrical growth of the bodily frame, by 
 all these attitudes and exertions, — an end of the first im- 
 portance, which could not be trusted to any care less per- 
 fect than her own. This glitter, this opaline lustre plays 
 round the top of every toy to his eye, to ensure his fidelity, 5 
 and he is deceived to his good. We are made alive and 
 kept alive by the same arts. Let the stoics 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 vege- 
 table life does not content itself with casting from the 10 
 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 15 
 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 at a sudden noise, pro- 
 tects us, through a multitude of groundless alarms, from 
 some one real danger at last. The lover seeks in mar- 20 
 riage his private felicity and perfection, with no pros- 
 pective end; and nature hides in his happiness her own 
 ■end, namely, progen^^ or the perpetuity of the race. 
 
 But the craft with which the world is made, runs also 
 into the mind and character of men. No man is quite 25 
 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 30 
 the size of the partisans, and the contention is ever hot- 
 test on minor matters. Not less remarkable is the over- 
 faith of each man in the importance of what he has to 
 do or say. The poet, the prophet, has a higher value for 
 
96 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 what he utters than any hearer, and therefore it gets 
 spoken. The strong, self-complacent Luther declares 
 with an emphasis, not to be mistaken, that "God him- 
 self cannot do without wise men/' Jacob Behmen and 
 5 George Fox betray their egotism in the pertinacity of 
 their controversial tracts, and James Xaylor once suf- 
 fered himself to be worshipped as the Christ. Each 
 prophet comes presently to identify himself with his 
 thought, and to esteem his hat and shoes sacred. How- 
 
 10 ever 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 per- 
 son writes a diary, in which, when the hours of prayer 
 
 15 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 
 
 20 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 ex- 
 perience, and with hesitation, yet with firmness, exposes 
 
 25 the pages to his eye. Will they not burn his eyes ? The 
 friend coldly turns them over, and passes from the writ- 
 ing to conversation, with easy transition, which strikes 
 the other party with astonishment and vexation. He 
 cannot suspect the writing itself. Days and nights of 
 
 30 fervid life, of communion with angels of darkness and of 
 light, have engraved their shadowy characters on that 
 tearstained book. He suspects the intelligence or the 
 heart of his friend. Is there then no friend ? He can- 
 not yet credit that one may have impressive experience. 
 
NATURE 97 
 
 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. 5 
 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, 10 
 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 im- 
 portance. My work may be of none, but I must not think 
 it of none, or I shall not do it with impunity. 15 
 
 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 20 
 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 25 
 with all our arts and performances. Our music, our 
 poetry, our language itself are not satisfactions, but sug- 
 gestions. 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 30 
 and beauty from the intrusion of deformity or vulgarity 
 of any kind. But what an operose method ! Wliat a 
 train of means to secure a little conversation ! This 
 palace of brick and stone, these servants, this kitchen. 
 
98 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 these stables, horses and equij^age, this bankstock, and 
 file of mortgages; trade to all the world, country-house 
 and cottage by the waterside, all for a little conversation, 
 high, clear, and spiritual ! Could it not be had as well 
 5 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. Conver- 
 sation, character, were the avowed ends; wealth was 
 good as it appeased the animal cravings, cured the 
 
 10 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 head- 
 
 15 ache, 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 
 
 20 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 2^oor men, that is, 
 men who would be rich ; this is the ridicule of the class, 
 
 25 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 
 
 30 aimless society, of aimless nations. Were the ends of 
 nature so great and cogent as to exact this immense 
 sacrifice of men? 
 
 Quite analogous to the deceits in life, there is, as 
 might be expected, a similar effect on the eye from the 
 
NATURE 99 
 
 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, 5 
 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 some pavilions 
 and gardens of festivity beyond. It is an odd jealousy : 
 but the poet finds himself not near enough to his ob-10 
 ject. The pine-tree, the river, the bank of flowers before 
 him, does not seem to be nature. Nature is still else- 
 where. This or this is but outskirt and far-off reflection 
 and echo of the triumph that has passed by, and is now 
 at its glancing splendor and heyday, perchance in the 15 
 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 20 
 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 the men and women, as 
 among the silent trees, always a referred existence, an 
 absence, never a presence and satisfaction. It is that 25 
 beauty can never be grasped? in persons and in land- 
 scape is equally inaccessible? The accepted and be- 
 trothed lover has lost the wildest charm of his maiden in 
 her acceptance of him. She was heaven whilst he pur- 
 sued her as a star: she cannot be heaven, if she stoops 30 
 to such a one as he. 
 
 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 sup- 
 
100 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 pose somewhere in the universe a slight treachery and 
 derision? Are we not engaged to a serious res.entment 
 of this use that is made of us? Are we tickled trout, 
 and fools of nature ? One look at the face of heaven and 
 dearth 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 (Edipus ar- 
 rives : he has the whole mystery teeming in his brain. 
 
 10 x\las ! 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 
 
 15 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 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 hearts, and the fathomless powers of gravity and chem- 
 istry, and, over them, of life, preexisting within us in 
 their highest form. 
 
 The uneasiness which the thought of our helplessness 
 in the chain of causes occasions us, results from looking 
 
 30 too much at one condition of nature, namel}^, Motion. 
 But the drag is never taken from the wheel. Wherever 
 the impulse exceeds, the Eest or Identity insinuates its 
 compensation. All over the wide fields of earth grows 
 the prunella or self-heal. Aiter every foolish day we 
 
NATURE ' 101 
 
 sleep off the fumes and furies of its hours; and though 
 we are always engaged with particulars, and often en- 
 slaved 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 em- 5 
 bodied, a present sanity to expose and cure the insanity 
 of men. Our servitude to particulars betrays 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 10 
 by electro-magnetism, your salad shall be grown from the 
 seed, whilst your fowl is roasting for dinner : it is a sym- 
 bol of our modern aims and endeavors, — of our conden- 
 sation and acceleration of objects : but nothing is gained : 
 nature cannot be cheated : man's life is but seventy salads 15 
 long, grow they swift or grow they slow. In these checks 
 and impossibilities, however, we find our advantage, not 
 less than in the 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 centre to the 20 
 poles of nature, and have some stake in every possibility, 
 lends that sublime lustre to death, which philosophy and 
 religion have too outwardly and literally striven to ex- 
 press in the popular doctrine of the immortality of the 
 soul. The reality is more excellent than the report. 25 
 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 pre- 
 cipitated, and the volatile essence is forever escaping 30 
 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 im- 
 prisoned, man crystallized, man vegetative, speaks to man 
 
102 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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 
 distils its essence into every drop of rain. Every moment 
 
 5 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 en- 
 veloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of cheer- 
 ful labor ; we did not guess its essence, until after a long 
 
 10 time. 
 
FRIENDSHIP 
 
 A ruddy drop of manly blood 
 The surging sea outweighs; 
 The world uncertain comes ai-^ goes, 
 The lover rooted stays. 
 I fancied he was fled, 
 And, after many a year, 
 Glowed unexhausted kindliness 
 ^Like daily sunrise there. 
 My careful heart was free again,— 
 O friend, my bosom said, 
 Through thee alone the sky is arched, 
 Through thee the rose is red. 
 All things through thee take nobler form 
 And look beyond the earth, 
 The mill-round of our fate appears 
 A sun-path in thy worth. 
 Me too thy nobleness has taught 
 To master my despair; 
 The fountains of my hidden life 
 Are through thy friendship fair. 
 
 We have a great deal more kindness than is ever 
 spoken. Maugre 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 ! Eead the language of these 
 wandering eye-beams. The heart knoweth. 
 
 103 
 
104 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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 towards others are likened to the material 
 5 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. 
 
 Our intellectual and active powers increase with our 
 
 10 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 df gentle 
 thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen 
 
 15 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 an- 
 nounced, and an uneasiness betwixt pleasure and pain 
 invades all the hearts of a household. His arrival almost 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 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 
 
 30 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, grace- 
 ful, rich communications, drawn from the oldest, secret- 
 est experience, so that they who sit by, of our own 
 
FRIENDSHIP 105 
 
 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 5 
 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. 
 
 Pleasant are these jets of affection which relume 10 
 a young world for me again. Delicious is 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 meta- 15 
 morphosed; 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 some- 
 where in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and 20 
 it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand 
 years. 
 
 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 25 
 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. Who hears me, who understands me, becomes 
 mine, — a possession for all time. Nor is Nature so poor 30 
 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 them- 
 selves, we shall by and by stand in a new world of our 
 
106 ■ EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims in a 
 traditionary globe. My friends have come to me un- 
 sought. The great God gave them to me. By oldest 
 right, by the divine affinity of virtue with itself, I find 
 5 them, or rather not I, but the Deity in me and in them 
 derides and cancels the thick walls of individual char- 
 acter, relation, age, sex, 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 
 
 10 new and noble depths, and enlarge the meaning of all 
 my thoughts. These are new poetry of the first Bard, — 
 poetry without stop, — hymn, ode and epic, poetry still 
 flowing, Apollo and the Muses chanting still. Will these 
 too separate themselves from me again, or some of them ? 
 
 15 1 know not, but I fear it not ; for my relation to them is 
 so pure that we hold by simple affinity, and the Genius 
 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. 
 
 20 I confess to an extreme tenderness of nature on this 
 point. It is almost dangerous to me to "crush the 
 sweet poison of misused wine" of the affections. A 
 new person is to me a great event and hinders me from 
 sleep. I have often had fine fancies about persons whicH 
 
 25 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 
 
 30 praised, as the lover when he hears applause of his en- 
 gaged 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 in- 
 
FRIENDSHIP 107 
 
 struments, — fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds 
 new and larger from his mouth. 
 
 Yet the systole and diastole of the heart are not with- 
 out their analogy in the ebb and iiow of love. Friend- 
 ship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be 5 
 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 afterwards 10 
 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 meta- 15 
 physical foundation of this Elysian temple ? 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 20 
 unsightly to science, though for chaplets and festoons we 
 cut the stem short. And I must hazard the production 
 of the bald fact amidst these pleasing reveries, though it 
 should prove an Egyptian skull at our banquet. A man 
 who stands united with his thought conceives magnifi-25 
 cently of himself. He is conscious of a universal suc- 
 cess, 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 30 
 consciousness tantamount to mine. Only the star daz- 
 zles ; the planet has a faint, moonlike 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 
 
108 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 cloaks, I shall not like him, unless he is at least a poor 
 Greek like me. I cannot deny it, friend, that the vast 
 shadow of the Phenomenal includes thee also in its pied 
 and painted immensity, — thee also, compared with whom 
 
 sail else is shadow. Thou art not Being, as Truth is, as 
 Justice is, — thou art not my soul, but a picture and ef- 
 figy of that. Thou hast come to me lately, and already 
 thou art seizing thy hat and cloak. Is it not that the 
 soul puts forth friends as the tree puts forth leaves, and 
 
 10 presently, by the germination of new buds, extrudes the 
 old leaf ? The law of nature is alternation for evermore. 
 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 
 
 15 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 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 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, 
 
 30 and so thou art to me a delicious torment. Thine ever, 
 or never. 
 
 Yat these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for 
 curiosity and not for life. They are not to be indulged. 
 
FRIENDSHIP 109 
 
 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, instead of the 
 tough fibre of the human heart. The laws of friend- 
 shjp are austere and eternal, of one web with the laws of 5 
 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 10 
 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 15 
 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 inter- 
 views have been compassed with long foresight we must 20 
 be tormented presently by baffled blows, by sudden, un- 
 seasonable 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. 25 
 
 I ought to be equal to every relation. It makes no 
 difference how many friends I have and what content I 
 can flnd in conversing with each, if there be one to whom 
 I am not equal. If I have shrunk unequal from one con- 
 test, the joy I find in all the rest becomes mean and 30 
 cowardly. I should hate myself, if then I made my other 
 friends my asylum : — 
 
 The valiant warrior famoused for fighf^ 
 After a hundred victories, once foiled, 
 
1 10 EMERSON'S ESS A YS 
 
 Is from the book of honor razed quite 
 And all the rest forgot for which he toiled. 
 
 Our impatience is thus sharply rebuked. Bashfulness 
 and apathy are a tough husk in which a delicate organi- 
 
 5zation is protected from premature ripening. It wc^ld 
 be lost if it knew itself before any of the best souls were 
 yet ripe enough to know and own it. Eespect the Natur- 
 langsamkeit which hardens the ruby in a million years, 
 and works in duration in which Alps and Andes come 
 
 10 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 
 
 15 an audacious trust in the truth of his heart, in the 
 
 breadth, impossible to be overturned, of his foundations. 
 
 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 
 
 20 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. 
 
 I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with 
 roughest courage. When they are real, they are not 
 
 25 glass threads or frostwork, 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 
 
 30 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 
 
FRIENDSHIP 111 
 
 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 cove- 
 nant comes up, like an Olympian, to the great games 
 where the first-born of the world are the competitors. 5 
 He proposes himself for contests 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 10 
 speed 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 15 
 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 under- 
 most garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second 
 thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him 20 
 with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemi- 
 cal atom meets another. Sincerity is the luxury allowed, 
 like 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. 25 
 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 under a certain religious frenzy cast 30 
 off this drapery, and omitting all compliment and com- 
 monplace, 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. 
 
112 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 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 rela- 
 tions with him. xn'o man would think of speaking falsely 
 5 with him, or of putting him off with any chat of markets 
 or reading-rooms. But every man was constrained by so 
 much sincreity to the like plaindealing, and what love 
 of nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth he had, he 
 did certainly show Jiim. But to most of us society shows 
 
 10 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 
 
 15 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 in- 
 genuity, but me. My friend gives me entertainment 
 without requiring any stipulation on my part. A friend 
 
 20 therefore is a sort of paradox 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 
 
 25 a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of 
 nature. 
 
 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 admira- 
 
 SOtion, 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 w^e so pure that we can offer him tenderness ? 
 Vfhen a man becomes dear to me I have touched the goal 
 
FRIENDSHIP lU 
 
 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, — ''I 
 offer myself faintly and bluntly to those whose I ef- 
 fectually am, and tender myself least to him to whom I 5 
 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. We chide the citizen because he makes love a 10 
 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 15 
 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 friend- 
 ship to signify modish and worldly alliances. I much 20 
 prefer the company of ploughboys and tin-peddlers to the 
 silken and perfumed amity which celebrates its days of 
 encounter by a frivolous display, by rides in a curricle 
 and dinners at the best taverns. The end of friendship 
 is a commerce the most strict and homely that can be 25 
 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. 30 
 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 
 
114 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 something usual and settled, but should be alert and 
 inventive and add rhyme and reason to what was 
 drudgery. 
 
 Friendship may be said to require natures so rare and 
 5 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 
 
 10 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 
 
 15 and between whom subsists a lofty intelligence. But I 
 find this law of one to one 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 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 is never such discourse between two, across the table, as 
 takes place when you leave them alone. In good com- 
 pany the individuals merge their egotism into a social 
 soul exactly co-extensive with the several consciousnesses 
 there present. No partialities of friend to friend, no 
 
 30 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 conven- 
 tion, which good sense demands, destroys the high free- 
 
FRIENDSHIP 115 
 
 dom of great conversation, which requires an absolute 
 running of two souls into one. 
 
 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 5 
 to each other, will never suspect the latent powers of 
 each. We talk sometimes of a great talent for conversa- 
 tion, as if it w;ere a permanent property in some individ- 
 uals. Conversation is an evanescent relation, — no more. 
 A man is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he 10 
 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. 15 
 
 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. 20 
 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 con- 25 
 cession. 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 30 
 of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, 
 mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep 
 identity which, beneath these disparities, unites them. 
 
 He only is fit for this society who is magnanimous; 
 
116 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 who is sure that greatness and goodness are always econ- 
 omy ; who is not swift to intermeddle with his fortunes. 
 Let him not intermeddle with this. Leave to the dia- 
 mond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the births 
 5 of the eternal. Friendship demands a religious treat- 
 ment. We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are 
 self-elected. Eeverence 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 
 
 10 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 be a stranger in a thousand 
 particulars, that he may come near in the holiest ground. 
 
 15 Leave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as property, 
 and to suck a short and all-confounding pleasure, instead 
 of the pure nectar of God. 
 
 Let us buy our entrance to this guild by a long pro- 
 bation. Why should we desecrate noble and beautiful 
 
 20 souls by intruding on them? Why insist on rash per- 
 sonal relations with your friend ? Why go to his house, 
 or know his mother and brother and sisters? Wliy be 
 visited by him at your own ? Are these things material 
 to our covenant ? Leave this touching and clawing. Let 
 
 25 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 
 
 30 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 
 
FRIENDSHIP 117 
 
 of his mien and action, do not pique yourself on reduc- 
 ing, but rather fortify and enhance. Worship liis supe- 
 riorities ; wish him not less by a thought, but hoard and 
 tell them all. Guard him as thy counterpart. Let him 
 be to thee for ever a sort of beautiful enemy, untamable, 5 
 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. Me it suf- 10 
 fices. 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. 15 
 
 Eespect 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 20 
 on even terms. Crimen quos inquinat, cequat. 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 be- 
 tween two spirits, never mutual respect, until in their 25 
 dialogue each stands for the whole world. 
 
 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 3^ou should say to the select 30 
 soul, 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 
 
118 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 speak. Wait until the necessary and everlasting over- 
 powers 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 
 5 nearer a man by getting into his house. If unlike, his 
 soul only flees the faster from you, and ypu shall never 
 catch 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 introduc- 
 
 lOtions, 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 
 
 15 shall not want them, for we are already they. In the 
 last analysis, love is only the reflection of a man's owi^ 
 worthiness from other men. Men have sometimes ex- 
 changed names with their friends, as if they would 
 signify that in their friend each loved his own soul. 
 
 20 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 
 
 25 universal power, souls are now acting, enduring and dar-. 
 ing, which can love us and which we can love. We may 
 congratulate ourselves that the period of nonage, of 
 follies, of blunders and of shame, is passed in solitude, 
 and when we are finished men we shall grasp heroic 
 
 30 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 
 
FRIENDSHIP 119 
 
 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 spec- 5 
 tres and shadows merely. 
 
 It is foolish to be afraid of making our ties too spir- 
 itual, 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 10 
 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 pur- 
 sue persons, or w^e read books, in the instinctive faith 
 that these will call it out and reveal us to ourselves. 15 
 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 fare- 
 well, and defy them, sa3dng, "Who are you? Unhand 20 
 me : I will be dependent no more." Ah ! seest thou not, 
 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; he 
 looks to the past and the future. He is the child of all 25 
 my foregoing hours, the prophet of those to come, and 
 the harbinger of a greater friend. 
 
 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 30 
 admit or exclude it on the slightest cause. I cannot afford 
 to speak much Avith 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 in the firma- 
 
120 EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 ment. 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. 
 5 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 
 
 10 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 
 
 15 if you come, perhaps you will fill my mind only with 
 new visions ; not with yourself but with your lustres, and 
 I shall not be able any more than now to converse with 
 you. So I will owe to my friends this evanescent inter- 
 course. I will receive from them not what they have but 
 
 20 what they are. They shall give me that which properly 
 tJiey cannot give, but which emanates from them. But 
 they shall not hold me by any relations less subtle and 
 pure. We will meet as though we met not, and part as 
 though we parted not. 
 
 25 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 
 
 30 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 
 
FRIENDSHIP 121 
 
 soar and burn with the gods of the empyrean. 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 5 
 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 mag- 
 nanimity and trust. It must not surmise or provide for 10 
 infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it may deify 
 both. 
 
NOTES 
 
 MANNERS 
 
 This essay is from the Second Series, 1844. The subject of 
 manners always interested Emerson; he has written on it 
 repeatedly. In the pubhshed Journal there are twenty direct 
 comments on manners, courtesy, society, and the like that are 
 not later used in the essays and lectures; 1824, 1826 (two), 
 1833, 1835 (three), 1837 (two), 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, 1849, 
 1850, 1851, 1852, 1856, 1858, 1860. In the winter of 1836-37 
 he gave a lecture on '' Manners" in Boston; and in the winter 
 of 1841-2 another, the one which formed the basis of this essay. 
 The next winter in New York in a course on New England he 
 gave a lecture on "New England Manners and Customs." 
 Besides this essay there are several which treat either exclusively 
 or at some length of the same subject: "Behaviour" in Conduct 
 of Life, "Social Aims" in Letters and Social Ai7ns, "Domestic 
 Life" in Society and Solitude. Chapters vi and xi in English 
 Traits also give many observations on the subject that throw 
 sidehghts on the essay under discussion. He alludes to manners 
 in his letters, most pointedly in one to Elizabeth Hoar (1848), 
 printed in Cabot's A Memoir, pp. 550-552. Among the poems 
 called Elements is one on manners. Quotations from the entry 
 in the Journal, first cited, show that always manners interested 
 Emerson both as a practical social asset and as a symbol of a 
 great spiritual fact: "It certainly is worth one's while, who con- 
 siders what sway elegant manners bear in society, and how 
 wealth, genius and moral worth do feel their empire; it becom.es 
 a clear command of reason to cultivate them. ... I speak here 
 of no transient success, but of the manners of a sensible man 
 when they become the chief channel in which a man's sense 
 runs; of those which are the plain index of fine sense and fine 
 
 123 
 
124 NOTES 
 
 feelings, which impress all and offend none. . . . This is a species 
 of second philosophy, and may be termed the philosophy of 
 life." 
 
 Introductory poems. The first four lines are from Ben Jon- 
 son's Masque, Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly, the rest from 
 his Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue. 
 
 Page 2, line 2. Belzoni, Giovanni Battista (1778-1823), was 
 an Italian explorer of Egyptian antiquities. In 1819 he published 
 in England an account of his discoveries. 
 
 2, 1. 5. rock-Tibboos, or Tibbus ("Men of the Rocks"), a 
 peculiar people that have somewhat puzzled ethnologists as 
 to their race and speech. They dwell in Borku, or Borgu, a 
 region between the Sahara and Sudan. 
 
 2, 1. 9. Bomoos, inhabitants of Bornu, a country of central 
 Sudan, on the south and west of Lake Chad. 
 
 2, 1. 30. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), an EHzabethan writer 
 and courtier. The "novel" referred to is Arcadia. 
 
 2, 1. 31. Gentleman. The evolution of the gentleman in the 
 modern sense is connected with the rise of the individual in 
 history. The following books are offered as suggestions in 
 finding material for discussing this: Gilbert Murray's Euripides 
 and his Age, Cicero's Letters (E. S. Schuckburgh's translation 
 in four volumes or G. E. Jean's Life and Letters of Cicero), 
 Strachan-Davidson's Cicero, Mackail's Latin Literature (dis- 
 cussion of suppression of liberty in literature under the emperors), 
 J. H. Robinson's Petrarch, H. D. Traill's Social England (6 vol- 
 umes) especially the chapters on social life, Rousseau's Social 
 Contract, and J. H. Robinson's The Development of Modern 
 Europe. 
 
 5, 1. 7. Lundy's Lane, near Niagara Falls, where on July 25, 
 1814, a drawn battle was fought between the Americans and the 
 British. 
 
 5, 1. 16. Lord Falkland (1610-1643), an English writer, active 
 in poUtics. Emerson was much interested in the account of 
 Falkland given by Clarendon; see Journal IV, 264. 
 
 5, 1. 29. Saladin, Sapor, et cetera. Emerson is given to the 
 insertion of groups of names, often containing some little known, 
 but all belonging to people to whose lives he owed some flash 
 of inspiration. His reverence for the individual Hes at the base 
 of this study of biography. Note other examples of this practice 
 in this book. 
 
NOTES 125 
 
 Saladin (1138-1193), a King of Armenia, famous for his con- 
 quests in Egypt, Syria, and against the Christians under Richard 
 the Lionhearted of England; see Scott's Talisman. 
 
 Sapor, a Persian monarch, either of the third or the fourth 
 century A. D., who won against the Romans in the east. 
 
 The Cid, Ruy Diaz de Bevar, a semi-mythical hero of the 
 Spanish wars against the Moors in the eleventh century, became 
 a hero of romances, ballads and chronicles. His name occurs 
 several times in the Journal. See Southey's Chronicle of the Cid 
 and Lockhart's Spanish Ballads. 
 
 Julius Csesar (102-44 B. C), Scipio (185-129 B. C), Alexander 
 (356-323 B. C), and Pericles (490-420 B. C.) are names from Plu- 
 tarch's Lives of Greeks and Romans, a book which, with the Morals 
 of the same author, influenced Emerson deeply. See J. and W. 
 Langhorne's translation of the former, and Goodwin's edition 
 of an EngUsh translation of the latter. 
 
 Scipio, the third great bearer of the name, brother-in-law of 
 the Gracchi, was one of Rome's most praised statesmen and war- 
 riors in the days of her earliest foreign conquests. He was a 
 patron of philosophers and poets. 
 
 Pericles, the great Athenian statesman and patron of phil- 
 osophy, art, and the drama, receives a finely imaginative inter- 
 pretation in Landor's Pericles and Aspasia. 
 
 6, 1. 10. Diogenes (412-323 B. C.), Socrates (c. 470-399 
 B. C.), and Epaminondes (418-362 B. C.) were Greeks, who by 
 reason of their lofty character and the circumstances of their 
 lives, are apt illustrations here. Diogenes, the Cynic, and his 
 frugal life are too well known to need comment. Socrates 
 Emerson vividly characterizes in "Plato; or the Philosopher" 
 in "Representative Men.'^ See his Apologia in Jowett's trans- 
 lation of Plato's Dialogues. Epaminondes was of a noble but 
 impoverished family. Primarily a general, he would yet have 
 ranked high without his brilliant military career for his purity, 
 uprightness, and high culture. 
 
 6. 1, 14. My contemporaries. Edward Emerson finds him- 
 self reminded by this passage of Henry Thoreau. 
 
 7, 1. 20. Faubourg St. Germain, the section of Paris where 
 lived the nobihty. 
 
 8, 1. 1. Cortez (1485-1547), the Spanish conqueror of Mexico. 
 See Prescott's Conquest of Mexico. 
 
 Nelson (1758-1805), the British naval hero, who met his 
 
126 NOTES 
 
 death at the battle of Trafalgar. See Mahan's Life of Nelson 
 and Southey's Nelson. 
 
 Napoleon (1769-1821). Emerson was singularly attracted 
 to the French conqueror. There are constant references to him 
 in his works. See "Napoleon; or the Man of Action" in 
 Representative Men. The victory of Marengo (June 14, 1800) was 
 of especial importance in Napoleon's career, for it came at the 
 beginning of the first consulate when republican opposition was 
 gathering strongly and might, without this victory to turn the 
 scale, have put an end to his power. 
 
 8, 1. 4, Funded talent. A funded debt is one that has been 
 converted into bonds redeemable in a definite period. It is 
 therefore synonymous with surety of payment. 
 
 8, 1. 28. One of the estates. This term, which really means 
 one of the orders that form a state — the nobility, the clergy, and 
 the people — is most commonly associated with France, where the 
 three estates assembled in a body called the states-general to 
 meet emergencies. The last states-general began the French 
 Revolution. 
 
 11, 1. 5. Vich Ian Vohr. See Scott's Waverley, chapter 16. 
 
 12, 1. 3. Amphitryon, a hero of Greek mythology, subject 
 of a lost tragedy by Sophocles and of comedies by Plautus and 
 Moliere. From a hne in the latter's comedy, "Le veritable 
 Amphitryon est I'Amphitryon oii Ton dtne," the name has 
 become synonymous with a generous host. 
 
 12, 1. 10. Tuileries, palace and garden of the late French 
 empire, situated in the heart of Paris. 
 
 12, 1. 10. Escurial, a very remarkable Spanish building of 
 the late sixteenth century. It is thirty miles northwest of 
 Madrid. 
 
 13, 1. 1. Madame de Stael (1766-1817), the French novelist 
 and essayist, was the most distinguished and typical product of 
 the period of sensibility. 
 
 13, 1. 8. Hazlitt, William (1778-1830), was an English 
 essayist and critic. He made an English translation of the 
 essays of Montaigne that took the place of the translation that 
 was put out in the late seventeenth century by Cotton. It was 
 the old Cotton translation, however, that fell into Emerson's 
 hands in his early days out of college. 
 
 13, 1. 9. Montaigne, Michel de (1533-1592), invented and 
 perfected the essay as we know it in modern Uterature. To 
 
NOTES 127 
 
 Emerson he stands as a mind excellent for its questioning attitude. 
 His critical estimate of Montaigne in Representative Men is the 
 most masterly in the English language 
 
 16, 1. 32. dry light. Pure light. 
 
 16, 1. 4. Creole natures. The Creoles of Louisiana, descen- 
 dants of old French settlers, are shown in the delightful pages 
 of G. W. Cable's Old Creole Days. 
 
 16, 1. 34. Fox, Charles James (1749-1806), an English states- 
 man and orator, was uniformly opposed in the years 1774-1782 
 to North's project of coercion of the colonies. Later as a sup- 
 porter of the French Revolution he was a sturdy opponent of 
 Pitt and became exceedingly unpopular from 1790-1800. The 
 scene alluded to here occurred May 6, 1791. 
 
 18, 1. 16. like Circe. She turned the followers of Odysseus 
 into swine by her magic cup. See Butcher and Lang's transla- 
 tion of Homer's Odyssey, Book X. The use of "horned" gives 
 a comical turn to the humor of the passage. 
 
 18, 1. 20. Captain Symmes, a real person. All the others are 
 fictitious names. Symmes claimed to have discovered a flowery 
 path into the earth. 
 
 18, 1. 31. the clerisy, the educated class, or scholars in the 
 wide sense in which Emerson used that word. 
 
 19, 1. 18. The epitaph of Sir Jenkins Grant. The source of 
 this has never been traced. Mr. Edward Emerson thinks it 
 unlikely that his father composed it. 
 
 19, 1. 29. Some friend of Poland. The partition of Poland 
 in 1772 among the three powers, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, 
 and its constantly recurring efforts for freedom, aroused great 
 interest and sympathy among the liberty lovers of Europe, 
 especially after the revolt of 1830 when Europe was filled with 
 Polish exiles. 
 
 19, 1. 29. Philhellene, a lover of the Greeks. The Greek 
 uprising against the Turks in 1821 roused much sympathy and 
 help from other nations. The best known Philhellene was Lord 
 Byron, who died in 1824 at Missolonghi, whither he had gone to 
 take active part with the Greeks. 
 
 20, L 17. "As Heaven and Earth" etc., Keats, Hyperion, 
 Book II. 
 
 20, 1. 27. Ethnical circle, a group bound together by common 
 characteristics. 
 
 22, 1. 33. Minerva, in Greek Athene, was the goddess of wis- 
 
128 NOTES 
 
 dom and womanly skill. Juno, in Greek Hera, was among the 
 Romans the protective principle of womanhood in maiden, wife, 
 and mother. Polymnia, or Polyhymnia, was the muse of sacred 
 hymns. There is probably significance in Emerson's use of 
 precisely these three names as typical of the ideal woman of 
 action and thought. 
 
 23, 1. 4. Delphic Sibyls. There was a Delphian Sibyl among 
 the ten mentioned by Lactantius. Plato, however, speaks of 
 but one Sibyl. The most famous was the Erythraean at Cumae, 
 whom iEneas consulted in the sixth book of the Mneid. It is 
 probable that Emerson means the Pythian priestess who voiced 
 the oracle at Delphi. 
 
 23, 1. 15. Hafiz was the nom de plume of Shams-ud-din 
 Mohammed, a native of Shiraz. He died about 1388. His 
 poetry is lyrical, full of fervent love and splendid nature descrip- 
 tions, which some interpret mystically; for Hafiz was a dervish. 
 John Richardson brought out A Specimen of Persian Poetry in 
 London in 1802, in which were translations of some of Hafiz's 
 poems; but Emerson knew them through the German and the 
 French. 
 
 23, 1. 15. Firdousi was the nom de plume of Abri'l Kasim 
 Mansur, a Persian poet of the tenth century A. D., who wrote a 
 poetic history of Persia, ''The Book of the Kings," of which an 
 English abridgment was pubhshed in London in 1832. Arnold's 
 Sohrab and Rustum is one incident from the poem. Firdousi 
 also wrote a Persian version of the story of Joseph and Potiphar's 
 wife. 
 
 23, 1. 29. the seven poets. Seven was a sacred number 
 among the Persians. The poets referred to here are the seven 
 mystics. The first died about 874 A. D., and the last 1317. 
 
 24, 1. 10. the Golden Book, a traditionary element in fairy 
 lore and tales. The Golden Book of Venice preserves the name 
 today. 
 
 25, 1. 18. Osman appears in Emerson's Journal and pubhshed 
 writings as an ideal man meant to represent Emerson as he wished 
 to be. 
 
 26, 1. 2. The fable was original with Emerson. 
 
 26, 1. 4. Silenus, a satyr of Roman mythology. 
 
NOTES 129 
 
 SELF-RELIANCE 
 
 This is an essay from the First Series, 1841. Edward Emerson, 
 tracing the idea of self-reliance in his father's Journal of 1832 
 makes this comment, "Thus it appears that the writings of 
 Landor, read the year before Mr. Emerson sought him out 
 in Rome, may have given the original push toward the writing of 
 this essay on Self -Reliance." The suggestion is interesting. In 
 1830, a year especially marked for new literary influences in 
 Emerson's life — Goethe, Carlyle, Confucius, Zoroaster — he read 
 some of Landor' s Imaginary Conversations. The characteriza- 
 tions impressed him. "He has the merit of not explaining" 
 he said, "he writes for the immortals." Entries on self-reliance 
 began in the Journal of 1828; from 1830 they grew more numer- 
 ous and closer in meaning to the ideas here. Some of this 
 essay appeared in the Journal of 1832; other parts are from the 
 following lectures; — Individualism from the Boston course of 
 1836-37; School, Genius, Duty, from the Boston course of 1838- 
 39. In connection with this read the essays on Character, 
 Heroism, Politics, The American Scholar, The Divinity School 
 Address. 
 
 27. The Latin motto is from Persius, Satire I, 7. "Seek 
 naught outside thyself." The first poem, from Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, two of Shakespeare's most famous contemporaries, 
 depicts man as the perfect master of his fate. The second, 
 Emerson's own composition, is an allusion to the story of 
 Romulus and Remus. It emphasizes the effect of self-reliance 
 on the individual himself. The exact bearing of each on the 
 lesson of the essay is worthy of study. 
 
 27, 1. 1. Emerson strikes at the start the note of the dignity 
 and importance of the individual and his place in the world. 
 Compare the various ways in which the same idea is looked at 
 in the paragraphs that follow. 
 
 27, 1. 1. an eminent painter. This may mean Washing- 
 ton Allston or Christopher Pearse Cranch. Both wrote 
 verses as well as painted, and both were personally known to 
 Emerson. 
 
 30, 1. 23. Lethe, the underworld river of forgetfulness from 
 which the dead drank that they might remember no more their 
 life on earth. 
 
 30, 1. 31. The contrast between "private" and "necessary" 
 
130 NOTES 
 
 is worthy of note. The "necessary" to Emerson is what in 
 man's thought and action springs from Reason. 
 
 31, 1. 20. If I am the Devil's child etc. This extreme ex- 
 pression of Emerson's independence of thought must be accepted 
 with the mental reservation that he knew he was not the Devil's 
 child, and so means only that he will give no one right of judgment 
 over the right and wrong of his actions. " It is when a man does 
 not listen to truth but to others that he is depraved and mis- 
 led." Journal II, 310. 
 
 36, 1. 9. Joseph. See Genesis XXXIX. 
 
 36, 1. 22. Pythagoras, Socrates, etc., all suffered from opposi- 
 tion, more or less violent. Pythagoras (582-500 B. C.) was 
 exiled. Socrates (470-399 B. C.) was condemned to death by 
 a public trial. Luther (1483-1546) was excommunicated. 
 Copernicus (1473-1543) was laughed to scorn and persecuted 
 by the church. Galileo (1564-1642) was imprisoned by the 
 Inquisition. Newton (1642-1727) struggled long for accept- 
 ance. 
 
 36, 1. 31. acrostic. See the Dictionary. Does Emerson use 
 the word correctly? 
 
 37, 1. 1. Note the emphasis that must be given ''honest" not 
 to misread this paragraph. 
 
 38, 1. 1. Chatham. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708- 
 1778), was a noted English statesman and orator, who upheld 
 the rights of the Americans in opposition to Lord North. 
 
 38, 1. 3. Adams's eye. Samuel Adams, the Revolutionary 
 orator and patriot. 
 
 39, 1. 7. Fox, George (1624-1691), was the founder of Quaker- 
 ism, first known as the Friends' Society of England. Emerson 
 was much impressed by the Quaker faith. He had a dear friend, 
 Mary Rotch, among them. 
 
 Wesley, John (1703-1791), was an Enghsh evangelist whose 
 preaching stirred all England. He was the founder of Method- 
 ism, See Southey's Lije of Wesley. 
 
 Clarkson, Thomas (1760-1846), was the man largely instru- 
 mental in the passing of an act of Parliament against the slave 
 trade. 
 
 39, 1. 8. " the height of Rome," Milton, Paradise Lost, IX, 
 510. 
 
 39, 1. 24. That popular fable of the sot is a story used often. 
 There are versions of it in Arabian Nights and in Shakespeare's 
 
NOTES 131 
 
 Taming of the Shrew, Induction. Is its use here completely- 
 appropriate? Why? 
 
 40, 1. 5. Scanderbeg, or Iskander Bey, was really George 
 Castriota (1403-1468). He was an apostate from the faith of 
 Mahomet, and turned his warlike powers against the Turks. 
 
 Gustavus II (1594-1632), the great king of Sweden, was a 
 noted soldier and a wise and prudent ruler. 
 
 40, 1. 25. Trustee. Here means the one trusted, as 
 "employee" means the one employed. 
 
 40. 1. 27. parallax. By moving from one place to another a 
 person may create an apparent displacement of a heavenly 
 body. To astronomers this apparent displacement furnishes a 
 basis of measurement for the size and distance of the star or 
 planet. "Without parallax" signifies an extreme distance; 
 here it has the connotation of mystery. 
 
 40, 1. 32. Spontaneity, Instinct, Intuition. These words are 
 synonyms of Reason. See the Introduction, p. xxiv. 
 
 41, 1. 29. perceptions Emerson uses to mean the revelations 
 that come to the mind by Intuition, as opposed to knowledge 
 gained by a conscious process of thought. 
 
 43, 1. 16. David, Jeremiah, Paul stand for the authority of 
 the past to which Emerson felt there w^as a too bhnd adherence. 
 
 44, 1. 9. from man, not to man. The constant insistence on 
 spiritual solitude for true independence is to be noted. 
 ^' 44, 1. 28. Becomes here means cessation of motion. To 
 deny the active union of the Great of the past with the Reason 
 of the universe is to refuse the lesson they teach. 
 
 45, 1. 16. impure action. The divine Reason acts on men 
 engaged in helpful, necessary work, often without their will. 
 Pure action would mean action through a mind consciously and 
 perfectly yielding itself to Intuition. 
 
 46, 1. 27. Thor, the thundergod of the Scandinavian mythol- 
 ogy, was likewise the god of warlike courage. Woden, his father, 
 was the king of the gods, mighty and prudent. 
 
 47, 1. 30. antinomianism is the opinion that Christians by 
 reason of justification by faith are freed from all necessity to 
 observe the Divine law. For a pleasant picture of an antinomian 
 see George Borrow, Lavengro, chapter XXIII. 
 
 50, 1. 16. Bonduca, by John Fletcher is based on the struggle 
 of the Britons against the Roman legions in the first century 
 A. D. The leaders were Caractacus and Boadicea, of two dif- 
 
132 NOTES 
 
 ferent tribes. They appear as Caratach and Bonduca in the 
 play. 
 
 50, 1. 25. Emerson used no word superfluously; the adverb 
 "foolishly" is emphatic. 
 
 51, 1. 4. Zoroaster founded the old religion of Persia. In 
 1830 Emerson became acquainted with the teachings of Zoroaster 
 through the works of De Gerando and Auquetil Duperron. 
 
 51, 1. 14. Locke, Lavoisier, etc. John Locke (1632-1704), 
 author of the Essay on the Human U7ider standing and certain 
 treatises on civil and religious liberty. He repudiates innate 
 ideas and intuition as a source of knowledge, and substitutes a 
 gradual acquisition of ideas by experience. 
 
 Antoine Lavoisier (1743-94) was the founder of modern 
 chemistry. He proved by experimenting with the balance 
 that chemical change affects the composition without reducing 
 the amount of matter. He proved also that every chemical 
 change may be represented by an equation, and other facts of 
 importance in regard to compounds. 
 
 James Hutton (1726-1797) was an eminent geologist. His 
 Theory of the Earth with Proofs and Illustrations appeared in 1795. 
 
 Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), the great English utilitarian, 
 set out in a number of remarkable books principles of moral 
 legislation and political economy. His favorite phrase, which 
 serves as a keynote to his teaching is "the greatest happiness 
 for the greatest number." 
 
 Johann Spurzheim (1776-1832) was a phrenologist much better 
 known in Emerson's day than in ours. He died in Boston soon 
 after coming there from Germany to deliver lectures. 
 
 51, 1. 23. Calvinism, a sect of Christianity founded by John 
 Calvin (1509-1564) held the behef in predestination. 
 
 Swedenborgism was the teaching of Emanuel Swedenborg 
 (1698-1772). See Emerson's essay on him in Representative Men. 
 
 52, 1. 21. the wise man stays at home etc. 
 
 "Nor scour the seas nor sift mankind 
 A poet or a friend to find. 
 Behold he watches at the door! 
 Behold his shadow on the floor!" — Saadi, Emerson. 
 54, 1. 11. Bacon, Francis (1561-1626), the famous Elizabethan 
 statesman and man of letters. His philosophical work contrib- 
 uted much to arouse the spirit of careful experiment and scienti- 
 fic methods in observation. His essays are among the finest in 
 
NOTES 133 
 
 our language. Compare his essay on Friendship with Emerson's 
 on the same subject. 
 
 54, 1. 21. chisel of Phidias. Phidias, born about 500 B.C., was 
 the greatest sculptor of Greece. The names of Phidias, The 
 Egyptian, Moses, and Dante here stand for the highest inspira- 
 tion in religious art, architecture and literature. 
 
 66, 1. 8. Phocion (c.402-317 B. C), an Athenian general of 
 humble birth. See Plutarch's Lives. 
 
 Anaxagoras (c. 500-428 B. C.) was the last of the old Ionic 
 philosophers, teacher to Pericles, Euripides, and possibly Soc- 
 rates. He defined a new principle, mind, as working in matter. 
 
 56, 1.16. Hudson, Henry (d.l611), a navigator who discov- 
 ered the river and bay that bear his name. 
 
 66, I. 16. Behring, Vitus (1680-1741), a Danish discoverer 
 for whom Behring Strait and Sea were named. 
 
 56, 1. 16. Parry and Franklin were Arctic explorers early in 
 the last century. 
 
 56, 1. 27. Bivouac. For Emerson's account of Napoleon's 
 methods in war see Representative Men. Count de las Cases 
 went with Napoleon to St. Helena and wrote an account of 
 the exile, Memoriel de Ste. Helene. " Las Casas " is a mistake 
 on Emerson's part. 
 
 57, 1. 26. Caliph All (600-661) was a cousin of Mahomet, and 
 his first convert. See Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship. The 
 maxims and poems attributed to him are pronounced by scholars 
 to be largely of later origin. 
 
 68, 1. 20. Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. That 
 is the laws are themselves the judges against those who violate 
 them, 
 
 COMPENSATION 
 
 This essay appeared in tl»e First Series, 1841. As early as 
 1823 entries on this subject begin to appear in the Journal. 
 The greatest interest is shown from 1830 on. The essay was 
 probably not prepared as a lecture, though a little of it appeared 
 in the lecture Duty of the Boston course of 1838-39. Prudence 
 offers some points that bear on the subject. 
 
 69, 1. 1. Note the union of the practical and the ideal in the 
 first three paragraphs. What moral problem is to form the basis 
 of the essay? "^^ 
 
134 NOTES 
 
 61, 1. 20. Polarity. The word "pole," first used in a scientific 
 sense to signih- the extremities of the earth's axis, came during 
 the development of physics to have a much wider meaning, 
 being applied to one of contrasted or opposite parts of a body- 
 where a force appears to be concentrated, or to pass in or out of 
 the body. For instance we have the positive and negative poles 
 of a battery. From this meaning of the word was developed 
 the term "polarity," the condition of a body which exhibits 
 opposite powers in opposite directions. Emerson widely extends 
 the meaning to include opposition or contrast in general, some- 
 times very abstractly. In this and the next five paragraphs 
 Emerson draws in detail the parallel between this law of polarity 
 and the moral law which it symboHzes. 
 
 62, 1. 17. Periodic or compensating errors. The planets are 
 not free from the attractive influence of other planets. This 
 causes periodic deviations in their orbits which are periodically 
 corrected in the natural course of events by recurring changes in 
 the relative positions of the planets. 
 
 64, 1. 17. See Identity and Variety in the Introduction for 
 the underlying thought in this and the next paragraph. 
 
 65, 1. 30. Note the ideahstic view which makes the "reward 
 or retribution" in the soul that of the "thing or real nature;" 
 and the outer merely circumstantial or apparent. 
 
 65, 1. 14. It is in the world, etc. cf. John 1. 
 
 65, 1. 17. Ot kO^ol Albs del cimi-KTovai: — Sophocles, Fragments, 
 LXXXIV, 2. "The dice of God fall ever aright." 
 
 67, 1. 11. Drive out nature, etc. A Latin proverb quoted by 
 Horace, Epistles I. 10, 24. 
 
 67, I. 31. " How secret art thou;"— St. Augustine, Confes- 
 sions, Book I. 
 
 68, 1. 8. Prometheus, a hero of Greek mythology who brought 
 down the fire of heaven to men and paid the penalty of his bold- 
 ness by being chained to a rock and preyed upon forever by vul- 
 tures. He knew a secret fatal to the throne of Zeus, who would 
 free him from his torture if he would impart it. The power and 
 independence of Prometheus has made him a favorite subject 
 with writers of tragedy. Shelley's Prometheus Unbound is a 
 modern treatment of the subject. Emerson says of Prome- 
 theus: "His story seems to be the first chapter of the history 
 of the Caucasian race." 
 
 68, 1. 11. " Of all the gods," etc.— iEschylus, Prometheus. 
 
NOTES 135 
 
 68, 1. 19. Aurora, goddess of the dawn, in love with the Tro- 
 jan prince Tithonus, brother of Priam, begged for him the boon 
 of immortahty from Zeus. Forgetting to ask for immortal 
 youth as well, she was forced to see her lover waste away into 
 decrepit old age. Later legends say he was turned into a grass- 
 hopper, or rather a cicada. 
 
 68, 1. 20. Achilles and Thetis. This, of course, refers to the 
 well-known story of the infant Achilles dipped into the River 
 Styx. 
 
 68, 1. 23. Siegfried, hero of the Nibelungenlied, vanquished 
 the Nibelungs and brought off their treasure. He was killed 
 from the rear by Hagen. 
 
 68, 1. 34. Nemesis, Greek personification of the surety of 
 punishment that awaits a deviation from divine laws. 
 
 69, 1. 2. The Furies were Electo, Tisiphone, and Megaera, 
 who stung and scourged those condemned in the judgment hall 
 of the lower world. 
 
 69, 1. 6. Ajax and Hector exchanged arms after a single com- 
 bat in the Trojan plains. See the Ihad (Lang, Leaf and Myer's 
 translation). Book VII. 
 
 69, 1. 11. Theagenes, an athlete of the isle of Thasos. 
 
 72, 1. 9. Polycrates. The story is from Herodotus III, 
 39-45 and 120-125. Amasis, king of Egypt, was a friend and 
 ally of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos. Alarmed by his friend's 
 unclouded fortune, he sent him word to shun the envy of the 
 gods and spare to them his chiefest treasure. The tyrant lis- 
 tened and threw into the sea a jewel of great price, his emerald 
 ring. In six days it was drawn from the water in a fish which 
 was served at the tyrant's own table. It was a fatal sign. 
 Amasis hastened to break his league of friendship and ere long 
 the tyranny \\ as broken and the tyrant crucified. See Herodotus, 
 4 volumes, translated by G. Rawlinson. 
 
 72, 1. 28. The highest price he can pay for a thing, etc., an 
 old proverb. In the translation from Ibn Jenim Emerson wrote: 
 
 "Two things thou shalt not long for, if thou love a mind serene; — 
 A woman to thy wife, though she were a crowned queen ; 
 And the second, borrowed money though the smiling lender say 
 That he will not demand the debt until the Judgment Day." 
 
 75, 1. 15. " Winds blow and waters roll " etc. : — Wordsworth, 
 Sonnet, September 1802. 
 
136 NOTES 
 
 79, 1. 12. Presence of the soul. Emerson holds that instinc- 
 tively we measure by the good or positive standard. This is a 
 subsidiary proof of his belief that the good really is, and that the 
 bad is nothing. 
 
 79, 1. 32. St. Bernard (1091-1153), the famous Abbot of Clair- 
 vaux and a religious writer of power in the Middle Ages. 
 
 NATURE 
 
 This essay belongs to the Second Series, 1844. It was pre- 
 pared from the Journal rather than from the Waterville lecture 
 of 1841 on the Method of Nature. Both were based on the same 
 material. A lost lecture of the Boston course of 1843, Relation 
 to Nature, was perhaps the real basis of this essay. The first 
 essay on Nature (1836) and the whole body of Emerson's nature 
 poetry are helpful supplementary reading here. Suggested 
 titles from the latter are, May Day, Nature, Woodnotes, Monad- 
 noc, My Garden, The Titmouse, The Sea Shore, Song of Nature, 
 The Two Rivers and Waldensamkeit. The first selection in 
 Mosses from an Old Manse describes in Hawthorne's words some 
 of the scenes about Concord. 
 
 The first essay on Nature gives the uses of nature to man as 
 follows: I. Commodity: for food, clothing, heat, transportation, 
 which binds society together, etc. II. Beauty: delight in 
 natural forms, delight in noble and graceful acts, delight in the 
 intellectual contemplation of the beautiful order of the universe. 
 III. Language: Nature as a teacher of words, as a teacher of 
 spiritual facts through natural facts by her symboHsm, and as a 
 teacher of the Divine Spirit through symbolism. IV. Disci- 
 pline: Nature as a discipliner of our understanding through the 
 necessity of subjugating her, or of adapting ourselves to her 
 inevitable course. 
 
 83, The rounded world etc. The key to an understanding 
 of this little poem by Emerson is his doctrine of Identity. 
 The last two lines are an expression of his belief in the upward 
 or perfecting tendency in nature. 
 
 86, 1. 9. Villeggiatura. Such a village festival was held in 
 Concord in 1840, on June 29. Of it Emerson writes: ''Today at 
 the cliff we held our Villeggiatura. I saw nothing better than the 
 passage of the river by that dark clump of trees that line that 
 bank in one spot. As the flowing silver reached that point, it 
 
NOTES 137 
 
 darkened, yet every wave celebrated its passage through the 
 shade by one sparkle. But ever the direction of the sparkles 
 was onward, onward." Journal V. 423. 
 
 87, 1. 6. Versailles, the beautiful French palace and park 
 near Paris. 
 
 87, 1. 5. Paphos, an ancient city on the southwest coast of 
 Cyprus, the center of the cult of Venus Aphrodite, who was 
 fabled to have risen there from the foam of the sea. The ruins 
 point to a city of Mycenean grandeur. 
 
 87, 1. 5. Ctesiphon, a large village on the left bank of the Tigris 
 that after 129 B. C. grew to grand proportions by reason of the 
 Parthians' making it their winter quarters. One gigantic build- 
 ing in ruins remains, ''the throne of Khosran." 
 
 87, 1. 18. Apollo and Diana, the twin god and goddess, off- 
 spring of Leto and Zeus. Among other powers they had as their 
 province the protection of hunting. 
 
 88, 1. 3. Tempe, the beautiful vale of Thessaly, famed in 
 poetry for its natural charm. 
 
 88, 1. 6. Como Lake, a lovely sheet of water in Lombardy, 
 Northern Italy. At the south a promontory cuts it into two 
 arms. 
 
 88, 1. 13. Campagna, the plain about Rome, once covered 
 with parks and country villas. 
 
 90, 1. 16. Proteus, keeper of Poseidon's sea flocks, the famous 
 old man of the sea who could change his form at will. See the 
 Odyssey, Book IV. 
 
 90, 1. 28. Mosaic and Ptolemaic schemes. The former is the 
 account of the creation in Genesis. The latter involves the 
 theory that the earth is the center of the universe and the 
 heaventy bodies revolve about it in circles. 
 
 90, 1. 34. Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers and spring- 
 time. 
 
 Fauna, companion goddess to Faunus, an early Italian god of 
 rural, especially farm, life. He was the god of productive- 
 ness. 
 
 Ceres, or Demeter with the Greeks, the goddess of grain and 
 later of fruits and vegetation in general. She was worshipped too 
 as Mother Earth. 
 
 Pomona, an ancient Italian goddess of fruits and gardens. 
 
 93, 1. 16. Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790), is referred to here, 
 of course, for his experiments in electrical science. John Dalton 
 
138 NOTES 
 
 (1766-1844) was a great English chemist. His most important 
 investigations were concerning the atomic theory. Sir Hum- 
 phrey Davy (1778-1829) made many important chemical dis- 
 coveries. He was the inventor of the Davy lamp for miners. 
 Joseph Black (1728-1799), a Scotch chemist, discovered that 
 gases, which he called "fixed air," were freed from certain sub- 
 stances by heating them. He thus demonstrated the existence 
 of a gas distinct from common air. 
 
 96, 1. 4. Jacob Behmen, or Boehme (1575-1624), was born 
 near Gorhtz, and was for thirteen years shoemaker in that city. 
 He was a mystic, not given to ecstasy, but to a confident asser- 
 tion that he ''beheld" mysteries though he could not tell them as 
 they really were. Inward illumination was the source of his 
 great religious power. His Aurora appeared in 1610, and later 
 other works of mysticism. 
 
 George Fox. See Note on page 39, line 7. 
 
 96, 1. 6. James Naylor (c. 1617-1660), a soldier and preacher 
 in the army of the Roundheads. George Fox converted him to 
 Quakerism. He let popularity turn his head, and accepted 
 the names of Christ from his followers. He was pilloried, 
 whipped, branded, and imprisoned. Later, repentant, he 
 was received back into Quakerism. His memoirs were reissued 
 in 1800. 
 
 97. 1. 28. What deductions can be made from the remainder 
 of this paragraph as to Emerson's views of society? Compare 
 with the Essays on Manners and Self-reliance. 
 
 100, 1. 8. (Edipus was the hero of the famous Theban legend. 
 He solved the riddle of the Sphinx and freed the Thebans from the 
 monster, receiving from Creon the boon that involved himself 
 and his family in a horrible destiny. The bitterness of his lot 
 made his story an attractive theme for Greek tragedy. There 
 are five extant tragedies on the subject. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP 
 
 This essay belongs to the First Series, 1841. It contains por- 
 tions of the following lectures — Society, from the Boston course 
 of 1836-37, The Heart from the Boston course of 1838-39, and 
 Private Life from the course of 1839-40. In connection with 
 this essay suggestive reading is found in Social Aims, Love, Dis- 
 cipline, Heroism. 
 
NOTES 139 
 
 103. A ruddy drop, etc. In this poem of Emerson is struck 
 a note of dependence on others which is often lacking in his 
 writings. Reconcile the views here expressed with the emphasis 
 he lays later in the essay on the aloofness of the individual. 
 
 105, 1. 2. Emerson's high ideal of the individual brought him 
 often disappointment in his relations with men. ''I never get 
 used to men : they always awaken expectations in me which they 
 always disappoint." — Journal III, 100. ''Bacon, Shakespeare, 
 Caesar — none of them will bear examination or furnish the type 
 of a man." — Journal II. 505. The idea recurs often. See 
 English Traits and Representative Men. 
 
 106, 1. 21. "crush the sweet poison of misused wine" ; — Milton, 
 Comus. 
 
 107, 1. 16. Elysian temple would be a temple of the blest in 
 the Elysian fields, the abode of deathless heroes. 
 
 107, 1. 24. Egyptian skull. From Plutarch comes the story 
 that the Egyptians enlivened their feasts by passing a mummy 
 at the close to remind the guests that all must die. 
 
 108, 1. 1. a poor Greek, that is a man of taste and sensibility, 
 tolDe measured by his soul, rather than his outer trappings. 
 
 108, 1. 3. that vast shadow of the Phenomenal. A friend, 
 incomparably beyond all else in the world, is yet mysteriously 
 felt a something outside one's being, a symbol only of what the 
 soul itself is. The elusiveness of friendship in this profound 
 sense has been variously treated by poets. See Browning, Love 
 in a Life. 
 
 109, 1. 33. "The valiant warrior" etc.:— Shakespeare, 
 Sonnet XXV. 
 
 Ill, 1. 4. an Olympian refers to one trained by the rigorous 
 course that the rules prescribed and presenting himself as a 
 competitor in the famous Olympian games in Elis, Greece. 
 
 Ill, 1. 30. I know a man etc. Edward Emerson is an author- 
 ity for the statement that this is a reference to Jones Very. 
 Emerson offers most interesting and sympathetic comments on 
 this curious Transcendental poet. The Centenary Edition 
 quotes two passages, and in the Journal appear several others. 
 One of the most interesting of the latter reads in part as follows : — 
 "Entertain every thought, every character that goes by with the 
 hospitahty of your soul. . . . Especially if one of these mono- 
 tones, whereof, as my friends think, I have a savage society, 
 like a menagerie of monsters, come to you, receive him. For 
 
140 NOTES 
 
 the partial action of his mind in one direction is a telescope for 
 the objects on which it is pointed." — Journal V. 98. 
 
 113,1.3. "I" offer myself" etc.:— Montaigne I. XXXIX. 
 (See his Essay on Friendship in comparison with Emerson's.) 
 
 116, 1. 27. pottage. See Genesis XXV. 
 
 119, 1. 24. Janus-faced. Janus, the old Latin god, had two 
 faces. 
 
Longmans' English Classics 
 
 Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems. 
 
 Edited by Ashley H. Thorndike, Professor of English in 
 Columbia University. $0.25. [For Reading] 
 Browning's Select Poems. 
 
 Edited by Percival Chubb, formerly Director of English, 
 Ethical Culture School, New York. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 Edited by Charles Sears Baldwin, Professor of Rhetoric in 
 Columbia University. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America. 
 
 Edited by Albert S. Cook, Professor of English Language 
 and Literature, Yale Univ. $0.25. [For Study.] 
 Byron's Childe Harold, Canto IV, and Prisoner of Chillon. 
 Edited by H. E. Coblentz, Principal of The South Division 
 High School, Milwaukee, Wis. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Carlyle's Essay on Burns, with Selections from Burns's 
 Poems. 
 
 Edited by Wilson Farrand, Head Master of the Newark 
 Academy, Newark, N. J. $0.25. [For Study.] 
 Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, Christabel and Kubla Khan. 
 Edited by Herbert Bates, Brooklyn Manual Training High 
 School, New York. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. 
 
 Edited by Charles F. Richardson, Professor of English in 
 Dartmouth College. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
 Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. 
 
 Edited by Frederick William Roe, Assistant Professor of Eng- 
 lish, Univ. of Wisconsin. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
 Eliot's Silas Marner. 
 
 Edited by Robert Herrick, Professor of Rhetoric, University 
 of Chicago. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Emerson's Essays on Manners, Self=reliance, etc. 
 
 Edited by Eunice J. Cleveland. $0.25. [For Study.] 
 Franklin's Autobiography 
 
 Edited by W. B. Cairns, Ass't Professor of American Literature, 
 Univ. of Wisconsin. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Qaskell's Cranford. 
 
 Edited by Franklin T. Baker, Professor of the English Lan- 
 guage and Literature in Teachers College, Columbia University. 
 $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Goldsmith's The Traveller and The Deserted Village. 
 
 Edited by J. F. Hosic, Head of the Department of English, 
 Chicago Normal School. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. 
 
 Edited by Mary A. Jordan, Professor of EngHsh Language 
 and Literature, Smith College. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Huxley's Autobiography and Selections from Lay Sermons. 
 Edited by E. H. Kemper McComb, Manual Training High 
 School, Indianapolis, Ind. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 
Longmans^ English Classics 
 
 Irving's Life of Goldsmith. 
 
 Edited by L, B. Semple, Instructor in English, Bushwick 
 High School, Brooklyn, N. Y. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
 Irving's Sketch Book. 
 
 With an Introduction by Brander Matthews, Professor of 
 Dramatic Literature, Columbia University, and with notes 
 by Armour Caldwell. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
 Lincoln, Selections from. 
 
 Edited by Daniel K. Dodge, Professor of English in the Uni- 
 versity of Illinois. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal, and Other Poems. 
 
 Edited by Allan Abbott, Department of English, Horace Mann 
 High School, New York City. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Macaulay's Essay on Addison. 
 
 Edited by James Greenleaf Croswell, Head Master of the 
 Brearley School, New York. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Macaulay's Essay on Lord Clive. 
 
 Edited by P. C. Farrar, Instructor of English in Erasmus 
 Hall High School, Brooklyn, N. Y. $0.25, [For Reading.] 
 Macaulay's Essay on Milton. 
 
 Edited by James Greenleaf Croswell, Head Master of the 
 Brearley School, New York. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, and Other Poems. 
 
 Edited by Nott Flint, late Instructor in English in the Uni- 
 versity of Chicago. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson. 
 
 Edited by Huber Gray Buehler, Head Master, Hotchkiss 
 School, Lakeville, Conn. $0.25. [For Study.] 
 Macaulay's Johnson and Addison. 
 
 1. Life of Samuel Johnson, edited by Huber Gray Buehler, 
 Hotchkiss School. [For Study.] 
 
 2. Addison, edited by James Greenleaf Croswell, Brear- 
 ley School. $0.40. [For Reading.] 
 
 Macaulay's Speech on Copyright and Lincoln's Speech at 
 Cooper Union. 
 
 Edited by Dudley H. Miles, Head, Department of English, 
 Evander Childs High School, New York City. $0.25. [For Study.) 
 Macaulay's Warren Hastings. 
 
 Edited by Samuel M. Tucker, Professor of English, Brook- 
 lyn Polytechnic Institute. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Milton's L' Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus and Lycidas. 
 
 Edited by William P. Trent, Professor of English Litera- 
 ture in Columbia University. $0.25. [For Study, either "Lyci- 
 das" or "Comus" to be omitted.] 
 Palgrave's The Golden Treasury. 
 
 Edited by Herbert Bates, Manual Training High School, 
 f^- Brooklyn,' N. Y. $0.30. [For Study and Reading.] 
 Parkman's The Oregon Trail. 
 
 Edited by O. B. Sperlin, Tacoma High School, Washing- 
 ton. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
 
Longmans^ English Classics 
 
 Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies. 
 
 Edited by Gertrude Buck, Professor of English in Vassar 
 College. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Scott's Ivanhoe. 
 
 Edited by Bliss Perry, Professor of English Literature in 
 Harvard University. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
 Scott's Lady of the Lake. 
 
 Edited by G. R. Carpenter. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Scott's Marmion. 
 
 Edited by Robert Morss Lovett, Professor of English in the 
 University of Chicago. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
 Scott's Quentin Durward. 
 
 Edited by Mary E. Adams, Head of the Department of Eng- 
 lish in the Central High School, Cleveland, O. $0.30. [For 
 Reading.] 
 Scott's Woodstock. 
 
 Edited by Bliss Perry, Professor of English Literature in 
 Harvard University. $0.40. [For Reading.] 
 Shakspere's A Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 
 Edited by George Pierce Baker, Professor of English in Har- 
 vard University. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Shakspere's As You Like It. 
 
 With an Introduction by Barrett Wendell, Professor of Eng- 
 lish in Harvard University; and Notes by William Lyon Phelps, 
 Lampson Professor of English Literature in Yale University. 
 $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Shakspere's Hamlet. 
 
 Edited by David T. Pottinger, Teacher of English, Thayer 
 Academy, South Braintree, Mass. $0.25. [For Study or 
 Reading.] 
 Shakspere's Julius Caesar. 
 
 Edited by George C. D. Odell, Professor of English in Co- 
 lumbia University. $0.25. [For Study or Reading.] 
 Shakspere's King Henry V. 
 
 Edited by George C. D. Odell, Professor of English in Co- 
 lumbia University. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Shakspere's Macbeth. 
 
 Edited by John Matthews Manly, Professor and Head of 
 the Department of English in the University of Chicago. $0.25. 
 [For Study or Reading.] 
 Shakspere's The Merchant of Venice. 
 
 Edited by Francis B. Gummere, Professor of English Literature 
 in Haverford College. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Shakspere's Twelfth Night. 
 
 Edited by J. B. Henneman, late Professor of English, Uni- 
 versity of the South. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Southey's Life of Nelson. 
 
 Edited by E. L. Miller, Head, English Department, Central 
 High School, Detroit, Mich. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
 
Longmans^ English Classics 
 
 Stevenson's Treasure Island. 
 
 Edited by Clayton Hamilton, Extension Lecturer in Eng- 
 lish, Columbia University. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Tennyson's Qareth and Lynette, Launcelot and Elaine, Tha 
 Passing of Arthur. 
 Edited by Sophie C. Hart, Professor of Rhetoric in Wellesley 
 College. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Tennyson's The Coming of Arthur, The Holy Qrail and The 
 Passing of Arthur. 
 
 Edited by Sophie C. Hart. $0.25. [For Study.] 
 
 Tennyson's The Princess. 
 
 Edited by G. E. Woodberry, formerly Prof, of Comparative 
 Literature, Columbia Univ. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. 
 
 Edited by D. O. S. Lowell, Head Master of the Roxbury Latin 
 School, Boston, Mass. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
 Thoreau's Walden. 
 
 Edited by Raymond M. Alden, Professor of English, Uni- 
 versity of Illinois. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
 Washington's Farewell Address and Webster's First Bunker 
 Hill Oration. 
 
 Edited by Fred Newton Scott, Professor of Rhetoric in the 
 University of Michigan. $0.25. [For Study.] 
 
 Carlyle's Heroes, Hero=Worship, and the Heroic in History. 
 
 Edited by Henry David Gray, Assistant Professor of English, 
 Leland Stanford Jr. University. $0.30. 
 De Quincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe. 
 
 Edited by Charles Sears Baldwin, Professor of Rhetoric in 
 Columbia University. $0.40. 
 De Quincey's Joan of Arc and The English Mail Coach. 
 
 Edited by Charles Sears Baldwin. $0.25. 
 Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. 
 
 Edited by William Tenney Brewster, Professor of English in 
 Columbia University. $0.40. 
 Irving's Tales of a Traveller. 
 
 With an Introduction by Brander Matthews and Explanatory 
 Notes by George R. Carpenter. $0.40. 
 Milton's Paradise Lost. Books I. and M. 
 
 Edited by Edward Everett Hale, Jr., Professor of the English 
 Language and Literature in Union College. $0,40. 
 Pope's Homer's Iliad. Books I., VI., XXII. and XXIV. 
 Edited by William H. Maxwell, Superintendent of New York 
 City Schools, and Percival Chubb, formerly Director of English, 
 Ethical Culture School, New York. $0.40. 
 Spenser's The Faerie Queene. (Selections.) 
 
 Edited by John Erskine, Professor of English in Columbia 
 University. $0.25. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 lllilliiililliliilillllllllillliillL 
 
 015 785 814 2 # 
 
 «Vv