.f^j^gfffo/^ffff/ijiffKf^^ffiw^Mf^fjax^ 
 
 Emerson 
 
 Select Essays and Poems 
 
 E,M-TAP 
 
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 ,YN AND BACO 
 
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 2nd COPY, 
 1898w 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Chap. Copyright Ko... 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
2Ei)e ScatcmD Series of ISngltsI) Classics 
 
 ^^- >r EMERSON 
 
 Select Essays and Poems 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 EVA MARCH TAPPAN, Ph.D. 
 
 ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL, WORCESTER, MASS. 
 
 Boston 
 
 ALLYN AND BACON 
 
 L 
 
75 /fc*it 
 T3 
 
 2L391 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY 
 EVA MAKCH TAPPAN. 
 
 m 22 1SD8 
 
 J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
 Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Introduction v 
 
 ESSAYS : 
 
 cojipensation 1 
 
 Self-Reliance - 28 
 
 Manners ^^ 
 
 POEMS : 
 
 The Snow-Stgrm . 92 
 
 Hymn sung at the Completion of Concord Monument 93 
 The Humble-Bee ........ 94 
 
 Forbearance 
 
 The Rhodora 
 Each and All 
 Forerunners 
 woodnotes . 
 The World-Soul 
 
 NOTES 
 
 96 
 96 
 97 
 98 
 100 
 105 
 
 109 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 1803-1882. 
 
 Kalph Waldo Emerson's first appearance m literature 
 was made in a letter wherein his father notes, with a some- 
 what injured surprise, the fact that his three-year-old son 
 "does not read very well yet," and urges the mother not to 
 neglect the education of the little delinquent. Through 
 his boyhood we catch glimpses of him, now "speaking 
 pieces," mounted on a sugar-barrel in the village grocery; 
 now toiling with the pen and with many laborious contor- 
 tions of the tongue to acquire a fair and well-rounded 
 handwriting; now driving his mother's cow to pasture down 
 the slope of Beacon Hill; now working with his brothers 
 to aid in the care of the house, dignifying the operation of 
 scouring knives by composing mock-heroic rhymes, — 
 
 " Melodious knife, and thou, harmonious sand. 
 Touched by the poet scourer's rugged hand." 
 
 Those were the days of scanty means for the brave 
 little household, the widoAved mother and her five boys. 
 There is a story that the aspiring poet and one of his 
 brothers took turns in wearing the overcoat that was their 
 joint possession, and that they read Greek in so cold a room 
 that ever afterwards they associated Plato with the smell 
 of woolen wraps. 
 
 V 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 One of the strongest influences brought to bear upon the 
 lives of these growing boys was that of their father's sister, 
 "proud, pious, eccentric, exacting, inspiring Aunt Mary 
 Moody Emerson." Full of whims and oddities she cer- 
 tainly was. To test a young girl's moral courage, she once 
 invited her to carry a broomstick across Boston Common. 
 For many years she slept in a bed made like a cofhn. She 
 prepared herself a shroud, and as if in thrifty fear that 
 she would outlive its usefulness, she wore it as a dress. 
 She loved her nephews so intensely that she was almost 
 fierce with them in her anxiety lest they should develop 
 some trait that was inconsistent with perfection. She was 
 especially troubled at any manifestation of humor, — " folly," 
 she called it, — and I have fancied that sometimes in Emer- 
 son's writings his natural humor is kept under too rigid 
 control by an unconscious deference to the mentor of his 
 boyhood. She was a widely read woman, a keen reasoner, 
 a brilliant thinker, and a clear-sighted critic, — a stimulus 
 and inspiration to them all. "Be generous and great," — 
 "Always do what you are afraid to do," — these are some 
 of the mottoes that she impressed upon Emerson and his 
 brothers. It is her own " Lift your aims " that comes out 
 in his "Hitch your wagon to a star," and it is her "Scorn 
 trifles " that helped to give to his life its calm and tranquil 
 flow. 
 
 "They were born to be educated," said this austere and 
 loving aunt, and in all their privations it seems never to 
 have occurred to any member of the little family that the 
 boys should not go to college. So to college they went, 
 partly paying their way with prizes and scholarships and 
 any kind of work that came to hand. 
 
 After graduating, Emerson assisted his older brother in 
 teaching. No one seems to have remarked any incongruity 
 in these two young men of eighteen and twenty opening a 
 
INTRODUCTION. ^^ 
 
 " finishing school " for yonng ladies. Emerson came to his 
 youth slowly, and perhaps he was younger at fifty than he 
 was at eighteen. At any rate, if we may trust the memo- 
 ries of his pupils, both the young ladies and their parents 
 were satisfied with the success of the undertaking. After 
 the school-keeping, followed the study of theology, six 
 years of the ministry, and then came the time in which he 
 was both teacher and minister, but to a larger audience, the 
 listeners in his lecture-room and the readers of his pub- 
 lished writings. 
 
 A quiet, peaceful home he found in Concord, Massachu- 
 setts; and there he thought and wrote and welcomed his 
 friends. He claimed no exemption from the duties of the 
 villager. He went to town-meeting like any one of the 
 "plahi people." He served on the school committee with 
 a never failing enthusiasm for good reading and declama- 
 tion. After his conscientious visits, he would repeat to his 
 family, with the utmost simplicity, how much he had learned 
 from one school and another. In his description of the man 
 of "royal blood," he unconsciously pictures himself in his 
 unfailing kindness to every one that needed a friend. Rich 
 and poor, learned and unlearned, sorrowed alike at his 
 death — mansions and cottages were draped with black. 
 Never, save when a man is greatly beloved, do the houses 
 of the poor show signs of mourning. 
 
 Emerson's place in the development of the literature of 
 his country is not a question for these few pages. He was 
 a poet, even according to his own high definition of the poet 
 as the interpreter of the thought of God expressed in nature. 
 He never lost the simple love of the child for the rose grow- 
 ing under his window, but he felt also a reverence for its 
 sacredness as a message from God that man should live m 
 the present, neither grieving over the past, nor peering too 
 eagerly into the future. A few months before his death, 
 
viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 he looked for a moment in silence at a beautiful rose in his 
 garden, then lifted his hat gently, and said, " I take off my 
 hat to it." 
 
 Emerson felt that his thoughts came to him, and those 
 who heard him lecture say that he spoke as if he were 
 listening, and repeating what he had heard. To picture 
 beautiful scenes, to tell thrilling stories, to imitate human 
 action, to crystallize into verse his love for those that were 
 dear to him, — that was not his calling; but to keep his 
 soul open, his heart " at leisure from itself " to receive the 
 thoughts that should come to him from above, — that was 
 his high vocation. 
 
 So it was that he was never inclined to join societies 
 or parties, however much he might sympathize with their 
 aims. Their work was good, but it was not his work. " No 
 society can ever be so large as one man," he wrote (N. E. 
 Reformers). He would make it hard for men to do wrong 
 by making it easy for them to think right. Let those who 
 would struggle in darkness against darkness; his work was 
 to let in the light. Yet in his hands the trumpet gave 
 forth no uncertain sound. His friends in the audience 
 held their breath when he quietly and as a matter of course 
 made his bold speeches after the murder of Love joy and the 
 John Brown raid. 
 
 But he believed that God's word comes to men directly 
 as well as through the lessons of nature, that "There is 
 guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall 
 hear the right word" (Spiritual Laius). Man, as the re- 
 cipient of direct communication from God, rose to trans- 
 cendent dignity in Emerson's mind. One or another might 
 have listened to the word, and so it was that he gave his 
 kindly sympathy to all, ever a learner, ever ready to wel- 
 come any truth that might have been revealed to the simplest 
 spirit. 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 He was kept from the extremes of the " reformers " of his 
 day partly by " the innate sentiment of equilibrium " whioh, 
 according to "Jules Verne,'-' qualities one to walk in dan- 
 gerous places, and partly by his sense of humor. He did 
 not go so far as Longfellow and burlesque his own poetry, 
 but he certainly did enjoy keenly a wicked little parody 
 on his Brahma, and he even dared to jest at the earnest 
 Brook Farmers, declaring that when they danced in the 
 evening, the wooden clothes-pins rattled out of their pockets. 
 
 Emerson never shut himself into a world of his own. He 
 joyed and sorrowed intensely. His friends were to him as 
 a part of himself. His love for Thoreau stood the test of a 
 two years' residence in the same house. In his last days 
 of feebleness, when even his own home seemed unfamiliar, 
 he looked lovingly at the portrait of Carlyle and said, 
 "That is my man, my good man." 
 
 Emerson's custom was to make a note of all thoughts of 
 value that came to him. These notes he used afterwards 
 in his essays, so that two adjacent sentences may be many 
 years apart. It is perhaps this subtle distance that some- 
 times seems to permit us to think together with him, so 
 slowly does he feel his way along from phrase to phrase. 
 Sometimes his thoughts come to him in almost the very 
 words in which he presents them to us ; sometimes it is but 
 the soul of the thought that is given him, and his materiali- 
 zation of it is difficult and imperfect; sometimes he seems 
 trying to express a truth for which language has no adequate 
 expression. No one, however, can fail to understand his 
 message of good cheer : — Be yourself, rely upon God, and 
 you cannot fail to be of value. 
 
 Emerson is not one of those writers that can be labeled 
 and slipped comfortably into their proper literary pigeon- 
 holes. Call him a philosopher, and he flashes forth as a 
 poet. Say that with him the thought is all, the expression 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 naught ; and suddenly his diction becomes, as LoAvell phrases 
 it, " homespun cloth of gold." Say that his thoughts find 
 their best illustration in the simple village life of New 
 England, and lo! he has an inspiration that only the poetry 
 of the land of " roses, wine, and nightingales " will ena^ble 
 him to embody. Say that his words are old and familiar, 
 and presto ! he has slipped away into some fourth dimen- 
 sion of the land of thought; say that they are new, and 
 behold! he is but revealing to us the secrets of our own 
 innermost heart. Call him poet, philosoplier, puritan, 
 liberal, — what you will, — but if you have learned to 
 know him, you will own with joy that a message has been 
 sent to you, and that you have been at the House of the 
 Interpreter. 
 
 Eva March Tapfan. 
 
EMERSON. 
 
 The Master Yankee. — John Burroughs. 
 
 Every American has something of Emerson in him. — iJ. C. 
 Stedman. 
 
 The many cannot miss his meaning, and only the few can find 
 
 it. — Lowell. 
 
 The reading of him with understanding is a mental tonic. — 
 Brother Azarias. 
 
 Here comes our brave Emerson with news from the empyrean. 
 
 — Carlyle. 
 
 All was known and familiar, as if I had thought or dreamed it 
 a thousand times myself, and yet perfectly new, as if I were learn- 
 ing it for the first i\me. — Herman Grimm. 
 
 Emerson holds fast to happiness and ho]ye. — Mattheio Arnold. 
 
 It was good to meet him in the wood-paths. — Hawthorne. 
 
 Emerson was a first-rate neighbor, and one who always kept 
 his fences up. — One of Emerson's neighbors. 
 
COMPENSATION. 
 
 1. 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 drawn, 
 charmed my fancy by their endless variety, and lay 
 always before me, even in sleep ; for they are the tools in 
 our hands, the bread in our basket, the transactions of the 
 street, the farm, and the dwelling-house, the greetings, the 
 relations, the debts and credits, the influence of character, 
 the nature and endowment of all men. ^ It seemed to me 
 also that in it might be shown men a ray of divinity, the 
 present action of the soul of this world, clean from all 
 vestige of tradition; and so the heart of man might be 
 bathed by an inundation of eternal love, conversing with 
 that which he knows was always and always must be, 
 because it really is now. / It appeared, moreover, that if this 
 doctrine could be stated in terms with any resemblance to 
 those bright intuitions in which this truth is sometimes re- 
 vealed to us, it would be a star in many dark hours and 
 
 1. Define compensation. What is the difference between the- 
 ology and religion ? What are the ' ' documents from which the 
 doctrine is to be drawn"? In what "might be shown men a 
 ray of divinity" ? How could a belief in compensation help men 
 to see eternal love ? 
 
 V. 1 
 
2 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 crooked passages in our journey that would not suffer us to 
 lose our way. 
 
 2. I was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a 
 sermon at church. The preacher, a man esteemed for his 
 orthodoxy, unfolded in the ordinary manner the doctrine of 
 the Last Judgment. He assumed that judgment is not 
 executed in this world ; that the wicked are successful ; that 
 the good are miserable; and then urged from reason and 
 from Scripture a compensation to be made to both parties 
 in the next life. No offense appeared to be taken by the 
 congregation at this doctrine. As far as I could observe, 
 when the meeting broke up, they separated without remark 
 on the sermon. 
 
 3. Yet what was the import of this teaching ? What did 
 the preacher mean by saying that the good are miserable in 
 the present life ? Was it that houses and lands, offices, 
 wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had by unprincipled men, 
 whilst the saints are poor and despised ; and that a 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 the 
 compensation intended ; for what else ? Is it that they are 
 to have leave to pray and praise ? to love and serve men ? 
 Why, that they can do now. The legitimate inference the 
 disciple would draw, was, — " We are to have such a good 
 time as the sinners have now"; — or, to push it to its 
 extreme import, — " You sin now ; we shall sin by-and-by ; 
 we would sin now, if we could ; not being successful, we 
 expect our revenge to-morrow." 
 
 4. The fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad 
 are successful ; that justice is 'not done now. The blindness 
 
 2. What was the preacher's belief in regard to compensation ? 
 
 3. What is a fair inference from his reasoning ? 
 
 4. What was the fallacy in his argument ? 
 
COMPENSATION. 6 
 
 of the preacher consisted in deferring to the base estimate of 
 the market of what constitutes a manly success, instead of con- 
 fronting and convicting the workl from the truth ; announc- 
 ing the presence of tlie soul, the omnipotence of the will : and 
 so establishing the standard of good and ill, of success and 
 falsehood, and summoning the dead to its present tribunal. 
 
 5. I find a similar base tone in the popular religious 
 works of the day, and the same doctrines assumed by the 
 literary men when occasionally they treat the related topics. 
 I think that our popular theology has gained in decorum, 
 and not in principle, over the superstitions it has displaced. 
 But men are better than this theology. Their daily life 
 gives it the lie. Every ingenuous and aspiring soul leaves 
 the doctrine behind him in his own experience ; and all 
 ]nen feel sometimes the falsehood which they cannot demon- 
 strate. For men are wiser than they know. That which 
 they hear in schools and pulpits without afterthought, if said 
 in conversation, would probably be questioned in silence. 
 If a man dogmatize in a mixed company on Providence and 
 the divine laws, he is answered by a silence which conveys 
 well enough to an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer, 
 but his incapacity to make his own statement. 
 
 6. I shall attempt in this and the following chapter to 
 record some facts that indicate the path of the law of Coni^ 
 pensation ; happy beyond my expectation, if I shall truly 
 draw the sma,llest arc of this circle. 
 
 7. Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every 
 part of nature ; in darkness and light ; in heat and cold ; 
 in the ebb and flow of waters ; in male and female 5 in the 
 inspiration and expiration of plants and animals; in the 
 
 5. Where else does E, find the same false reasoning ? Why do 
 many accept it ? What contradicts it ? 
 
 7. Define and illustrate polarity. What has it to do with the 
 subject ? 
 
4 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 S3^stole and diastole of the heart; in the undulations of 
 fluids and of sound; in the centrifugal and centripetal 
 gravity ; in electricity, galvanism, and chemical affinity. 
 Superinduce magnetism at one end of a needle ; the opposite 
 magnetism takes place at the other end. If the south 
 attracts, the north repels. To empty here you must con- 
 dense there. An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that 
 each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it 
 whole ; as spirit, matter ; man, woman ; subjective, objec- 
 tive ; in, out ; upper, under ; motion, rest ; j^ea, nay. 
 
 8. Whilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its 
 parts. The entire system of things gets represented in 
 every particle. There is somewhat that resembles the ebb 
 and flow of the sea, day and night, man and woman, in a 
 single needle of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in each indi- 
 vidual of every animal tribe. The reaction, so grand in the 
 elements, is repeated within these small boundaries. For 
 example, in the animal kingdom, the physiologist has 
 observed that no creatures are favorites, but a certain com- 
 pensation balances every gift and every defect. A surplus- 
 age given to one part is paid out of a reduction from another 
 part of the same creature. If the head and neck are en- 
 larged, the trunk and extremities are cut short. 
 
 9. The theory of the mechanic forces is another example. 
 What we gain in power is lost in time ; and the converse. 
 The periodic, or compensating, errors of the planets, is 
 another instance. The influences of climate and soil in 
 political history are another. The cold climate invigorates. 
 The barren soil does not breed fevers, crocodiles, tigers, or 
 scorpions. 
 
 8. Illustrate compensation in the animal and in the vegetable 
 kingdom. 
 
 9. Illustrate it in the intellect ; in mechanic forces ; in climate. 
 Is it better for people to live on a barren or on a rich soil ? 
 
COMPENSATION. 5 
 
 10. The same dualism underlies the nature and condition 
 of man. Every excess causes a defect ; every defect an 
 excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good. 
 Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal 
 penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation 
 with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain of 
 folly. For everything you have missed, you have gained 
 something else; and for everything you gain, you lose 
 something. If riches increase, they are increased 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 excep- 
 tions. The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a 
 level from their loftiest tossing, than the varieties of condi- 
 tion tend to equalize themselves. There is always some 
 leveling circumstance that puts down the overbearing, the 
 strong, the rich, the fortunate, substantially on the same 
 ground with all others. Is a man too strong and fierce for 
 society, and by temper and position a bad citizen, — a 
 morose ruffian with a dash of the pirate in him? — nature 
 sends him a troop of pretty sons and daughters who are 
 getting along in the dame's classes at the village school, and 
 love and fear for them smooths his grim scowl to courtesy. 
 Thus she contrives to intenerate the granite and felspar, 
 takes the boar out and puts the lamb in, and keeps her 
 balance true. 
 
 11. The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. 
 But the President has paid dear for his White House. It 
 has commonly cost him all his peace and the best of his 
 
 10. Ilhistrate " Every excess causes a defect" ; what is the rem- 
 edy ? What does a boy lose by having much money to spend ? 
 How can he compensate himself for the loss ? What does he gain 
 by having Httle ? 
 
 11. Must a man pay for true greatness ? Must a boy pay for 
 
6 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspic- 
 uous an appearance before the workl, he is content to eat 
 dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the 
 throne. Or, do men desire the more substantial and perma- 
 nent grandeur of genius ? Neither has this an imnumity. 
 He who by force of will or of thought is great and over- 
 looks thousands, has the responsibility of overlooking. With 
 every influx of light, conies new danger. Has he light ? he 
 must bear witness to the light, and always outrun that sym- 
 pathy which gives him such keen satisfaction, by his fidelity 
 to new revelations of the incessant soul. He must hate 
 father and mother, wife and child. Has he all that the 
 world loves and admires and covets ? — he must cast behind 
 him their admiration, and afflict them by faithfulness to his 
 truth, and become a by-word and a hissing. 
 
 12. This law writes the laws of cities and nations. It 
 will not be balked of its end in the smallest iota. It is in 
 vain to build or plot or combine against it. Things refuse 
 to be mismanaged long. Res nolunt dm male administrari. 
 Though no checks to a new evil appear, the checks exist 
 and will appear. If the government is cruel, the governor's 
 life is not safe. If you tax too high, the revenue will yield 
 nothing. If you make the criminal code sanguinary, juries 
 will not convict. Nothing arbitrary, nothing artificial can 
 endure. The true life and satisfactions of man seem to 
 elude the utmost rigors or felicities of condition, and to 
 
 being first in athletics ? in studies ? for being a favorite ? for being 
 honorable and manly ? 
 
 12. What law is meant ? Explain : The best way to repeal a 
 bad law is to execute it strictly. How does E. illustrate this ? 
 
 How was the old law of hanging for theft "artificial " ? What con- 
 nection should there be between crime and penalty ? Is the object 
 of punishment prevention of crime or reform of the criminal ? Does 
 imprisonment accomplish the object ? does capital punishment ? 
 
COMPENSATION. 7 
 
 establish themselves with great indifferency under all varie- 
 ties of circumstances. Under all governments the influence 
 of character remains the same, — in Turkey and in New 
 England about alike. Under the primeval despots of Egypt, 
 history honestly confesses that man must have been as free 
 as culture could make him. 
 
 13. These appearances indicate the fact that the universe 
 is represented in every one of its particles. Everything in 
 nature contains all the powers of nature. Everything is 
 made of one hidden stuff; as the naturalist sees one type 
 under every metamorphosis, and regards a horse as a run- 
 ning man, a fish as a swimming man, a bird as a flying man, 
 a tree as a rooted man. Each new form repeats not only the 
 main character of the type, but part for part all the details, 
 all the aims, furtherances, hindrances, energies, and whole 
 system of every other. Every occupation, trade, art, trans- 
 action, is a compend of the world, and a correlative of every 
 other. Each one is an entire emblem of human life ; of its 
 good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its course and its end. 
 And each one must somehow accommodate the whole man, 
 and recite all his destiny. 
 
 14. The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The mi- 
 croscope cannot find the animalcule which is less perfect 
 for being little. Eyes, ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, 
 appetite, and organs of reproduction that take hold on eter- 
 nity, — all find room to consist in the small creature. So 
 do we put our life into every act. The true doctrine of 
 omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in 
 every moss and cobweb. The value of the universe con- 
 trives to throw itself into every point. If the good is there, 
 so is the evil ; if the afiinity, so the repulsion ; if the force, 
 so the limitation. 
 
 13. What is the main thought ? 
 
 14. What expression is best worth remembering ? 
 
8 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 15. Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. 
 That soul Avhich 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 space. 
 Justice is not postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its bal- 
 ance in all parts of life. Oi kv/3ol Atos del eviriTTTovai. The 
 dice of Grod are always loaded. The world looks like a 
 multiplication-table or a mathematical equation, which, turn 
 it how you will, balances itself. Take what figure you 
 will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still returns to you. 
 Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue 
 rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty. 
 What we call retribution, is the universal necessity by 
 which the whole appears wherever a part appears. If you 
 see smoke, there must be fire. If you see a hand or a limb, 
 you know that the trunk to which it belongs is there 
 behind. 
 
 16. Every act rewards itself, or, in other words, inte- 
 grates itself, in a twofold manner : first, in the thing, or in 
 real nature ; and secondly, in the circumstance, or in ap- 
 parent nature. Men call the circumstance the retribution. 
 The causal retribution is in the thing, and is seen by the 
 soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the 
 understanding; it is inseparable from the thing, but is 
 often spread over a long time, and so does not become dis- 
 tinct until after many years. The specific stripes may 
 
 15. In how many ways does E. express the doctrine of compensa- 
 tion? 
 
 16. Define and illustrate "causal retribution" and "retribution 
 in the circumstance." If there is a rule against whispering, does 
 the whisperer who is not found out pay any penalty ? Is such a 
 rule " arbitrary " and " artificial " ? 
 
COMPENSATION. 9 
 
 follow late after the offense, but they follow because they 
 accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out of one 
 stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within 
 the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and 
 effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; 
 for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end pre-exists 
 in the means, the fruit in the seed. 
 
 17. 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. 
 The ingenuity of man has been dedicated always 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 con- 
 trive to cut clean off this upper surface so thin as to leave 
 it bottomless ; to get a one end, without an other end. The 
 soul says, Eat ; the body would feast. The soul says. The 
 man and woman shall be one flesh and one soul ; the body 
 would join the flesh only. The soul says, Have dominion 
 over all things to the ends of virtue ; the body would have 
 the power over things to its own ends. 
 
 18. 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 5 to set up for himself; 
 to truck and higgle for a private good ; and, in particulars, 
 to ride, that he may ride ; to dress, that he may be dressed ; 
 to eat, that he may eat ; and to govern, that he may be seen. 
 Men seek to be great; they would have ofiices, wealth, 
 
 17. Explain : We seek to act partially. How may a difficult 
 thing be good for one's character ? Is pleasure good ? Ought 
 one to avoid it or to pursue it ? 
 
 18. How is the soul " the only fact " ? 
 
10 SELECTIONS FEOM EMERSON. 
 
 power, and fame. They tliiuk that to be great is to get only 
 one side of nature — the sweet, without the other side — 
 the bitter. 
 
 19. 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 
 hand. Pleasure is taken out of pleasant things, profit out 
 of profitable things, power out of strong things, the mo- 
 ment 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 outside, or a 
 light without a shadow. " Drive out nature with a fork, 
 she comes running back." 
 
 20. 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 ; — 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 had escaped them in form and in the ap- 
 pearance, it is that he has resisted his life, and fled from 
 himself, and the retribution is so much death. So signal is 
 the failure of all attempts to make this separation of the 
 good from the tax, that the experiment would not be tried 
 — since to try it is to be mad — but for the circumstance, 
 that when the disease began in the will, of rebellion and 
 separation, the intellect is at once infected, so that the man 
 ceases to see God whole in each object, but is able to see tlie 
 sensual allurement of an object, and not see the sensual 
 hurt ; he sees the mermaid's head, but not the' dragon's 
 
 19. What is the mam thought ? How does E. prevent the repe- 
 tition of this thought from being tiresome ? What is the difference 
 between sensual and sensuous ? 
 
 20. If one must pay tlie penalty for every wrong, why do people 
 ever do wrong ? 
 
COMPENSA TION. 1 1 
 
 tail ; and thinks he can cut off that which he Avouid have, 
 from that which he would not have. " How secret art thou 
 who dwellest in the highest heavens in silence, thou only 
 great God, sprinkling with an unwearied Providence certain 
 penal blindnesses upon such as have unbridled desires ! " 
 
 21. 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 traditionally 
 ascribed to him many base actions, they involuntarily 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 own thunders ; Minerva keeps 
 the key of them. 
 
 " Of all the gods I only know the keys 
 That ope the solid doors within whose vaults 
 His thunders sleep." 
 
 A plain confession of the in-working of the All, and of its 
 moral aim. The Indian mythology ends in the same ethics ; 
 and indeed it would seem impossible for any fable to be in- 
 vented 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 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. Sieg- 
 fried, 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 covered is mortal. And so it always 
 is. There is a crack in everything God has made. Always, 
 
 21. Why were the Greeks reasonable in representing Jupiter as 
 helpless? Why did they excuse him for wrong-doing? What 
 does the "in-working of the All" mean? Cf. 14. Explain E.'s 
 
12 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 it would seem, there is this vindictive circumstance stealing 
 in at unawares, even into the wild poesy in wliich the 
 human fancy attempted to make bold holiday, and to shake 
 itself free of the old laws, — this back-stroke, this kick of 
 the gun, certifying that the law is fatal ; that in Nature, 
 nothing can be given, all things are sold. 
 
 22. This is that ancient doctrine of Nemesis, who keeps 
 watch in the universe, and lets no offense 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 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 to Theogenes, a 
 victor in the games, one of his rivals went to it by night, 
 and endeavored to throw it down by repeated blows, until 
 at last he moved it from its pedestal and was crushed to 
 death beneath its fall. 
 
 23. This voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It 
 came from thought above the will of the writer. That is 
 the best part of each writer which has nothing private in it. 
 That is the best part of each which he does not know, that 
 which flowed out of his constitution, and not from his too 
 
 statement that a fable must be "moral." What is the moral in 
 any one of Shakespeare's plays that you have read ? Should you 
 wish the play to end differently ? Why ? Does " a crack in every- 
 thing ' ' mean imperfection or perfection ? 
 
 22. Express in one word the "ancient doctrine of Nemesis." 
 What has this story of the belt and the sword to do with the doctrine 
 of compensation ? 
 
 23. Why does E. think there is "somewhat divine" in fable? 
 What advantage is there in stating a law in the form of a fable ? 
 
COMPENSA TION. 1 3 
 
 active invention ; tliat which in the study of a single artist 
 yon 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 circumstances of Phidias, 
 however convenient for history, 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, if 
 you wdll, modified in doing, by the interfering volitions of 
 Phidias, of Dante, of Shakespeare, the organ whereby man 
 at the moment wrought. 
 
 24. Still more striking is the expression of this fact in 
 the proverbs of all nations, which are always the literature 
 of reason, or the statements of an absolute truth without 
 qualification. Proverbs, like the sacred books of each 
 nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which 
 the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow 
 the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say 
 in proverbs without contradiction. And this law of laws 
 which the pulpit, the senate, and the college deny, is hourly 
 preached in all markets and all languages by flights of 
 proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as 
 that of birds and flies. 
 
 25. 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 take it. — 
 Nothing venture, nothing have. — Thou shalt be paid exactly 
 for what thou hast done, no more, no less. — Who doth not 
 
 24. Which definition of proverbs do you prefer ? Ought proverbs 
 to be accepted without qualification ? Illustrate. 
 
 25. In how many ways has E. expressed the thought of this para- 
 graph in preceding paragraph ? Of what books has he shown 
 
14 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 work shall not eat. — Harm watch, harm catch. — Curses 
 always recoil on the head of him who imprecates them. — 
 If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end 
 fastens itself around your own. — Bad counsel confounds 
 the adviser. — The devil is an ass. 
 
 26. It is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our 
 action is overmastered and characterized above our will by 
 the law of nature. We aim at a petty end quite aside from 
 the public good, but our act arranges itself by irresistible 
 magnetism in a line with the poles of the world. 
 
 27. A man cannot speak but he judges himself. AVith 
 his will, or against his will, he draws his portrait to the eye 
 of his companions by every word. Every opinion reacts on 
 him who utters it. It is a thread-ball thrown at a mark, but 
 the other end remains in the throw^er's bag. Or, rather, it 
 is a harpoon thrown at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a 
 coil of cord in the boat, and if the harpoon is not good, or 
 not well thrown, it will go nigh to cut the steersman in 
 twain, or to sink the boat. 
 
 28. 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 does not see 
 that he excludes himself from enjoyment, in the attempt to 
 appropriate it. The exclusionist in religion does not see 
 that he shuts the door of heaven on himself, in striving to 
 
 knowledge ? Is this true : What will you have ? Pay for it and 
 take it. 
 
 Illustrate: "Give and it shall be given you." What are the 
 
 most valuable things a boy can give ? 
 
 27. Illustrate the main statement. Can an opinion "react" on 
 one if he does not utter it ? 
 
 28. What may a company of young people lose if they shut others 
 out of their circle ? Do they gain anything ? Is it better to be 
 kind from a selfish motive or not to be kind ? What would be the 
 effect in each case on us and on the other person ? 
 
COMPEN SA TION. 1 5 
 
 shut out others. Treat men as pawns and ninepins, and 
 you shall suffer as well as they. If you leave out their 
 heart, you shall lose your own. The senses would make 
 thnigs 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. 
 
 29. 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 a current of air meets another, with perfect 
 diffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as 
 there is any departure from simplicity, and attempt at half- 
 ness, or good for me that is not good for him, my neighbor 
 feels the wrong ; he shrinks from me as far as I have shrunk 
 from him ; his eyes no longer seek mine ; there is war between 
 us ; there is hate in him and fear in me. 
 
 30. 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. Fear 
 is an instructor of great sagacity, and the herald of all revo- 
 lutions. One thing he always teaches, that there is rotten- 
 ness where he appears. He is a carrion crow, and though 
 you see not well what he hovers for, there is death some- 
 where. Our property is timid, our laws are timid, our cul- 
 tivated classes are timid. Fear for ages has boded and 
 mowed and gibbered over government and property. That 
 obscene bird is not there for nothing. He indicates great 
 wrongs which must be revised. 
 
 29. How does a boy feel when he meets another whom he has 
 injured ? Which is the more uncomfortable ? If the injurer is 
 "punished by fear," does this mean that lie is afraid of the other 
 boy? 
 
 30. What is the main thought ? 
 
16 SELECTIONS FBOM EMERSON. 
 
 31. Of tlie 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, the 
 awe of prosperity, the instinct which leads every generous 
 soul to impose on itself tasks of a noble asceticism and vi- 
 carious virtue, are the tremblings of the balance of justice 
 through the heart and mind of man. 
 
 32. Experienced men of the world know very well that 
 it is always 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 anything 
 who has received a hundred favors and rendered none ? 
 Has he gained by borrowing, through indolence or cunning, 
 his neighbor's wares, or horses, or money ? There arises on 
 the deed the instant acknowledgment of benefit on the one 
 part, and of debt on the other ; that is, of superiority and 
 inferiority. The transaction remains in the memory of 
 himself and his neighbor; and every new transaction alters, 
 according to its nature, their relation to each other. He 
 may soon come to see that he had better have broken his 
 own bones than to have ridden in his neighbor's coach, and 
 that "the highest price he can pay for a thing is to ask 
 for it." 
 
 33. 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 events may 
 
 31. What is the main thought ? 
 
 32. Does the pupil who forgets his pencil lose anything in borrow- 
 ing one ? Does the lender gain or lose morally ? Is the last sen- 
 tence true ? Ought we never to ask a favor ? 
 
 33. Why cannot some one else pay your debt to others of time, or 
 talent, or kindness? What "tax is levied" on talent, education, 
 
COMPENSA TION. 1 7 
 
 stand for a time between you and justice, but it is only a 
 postponement. You must pay at last your own debt. If 
 you are wise, you will dread a prosperity which only loads 
 you with more. Benefit is the end of nature. But for 
 every benefit which you receive, a tax is levied. He is 
 great who confers the most benefits. He is base, — and 
 that is the one base thing in the universe, — to receive 
 favors and render none. In the order of nature we cannot 
 render benefits to those from whom we receive them, or only 
 seldom. But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, 
 line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody. Be- 
 ware of too much good staying in your hand. It will fast 
 corrupt and worm worms. Pay it away quickly in some 
 sort. 
 
 34. Labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws. 
 Cheapest, say the prudent, is the dearest labor. What we 
 buy in a broom, a mat, a wagon, a knife, is some application 
 of good sense to a common want. It is best to pay in your 
 land a skillful gardener, or to buy good sense -applied to gar- 
 dening; in your sailor, good sense apj^lied to navigation; in 
 the house, good sense applied to cooking, sewing, serving; 
 in your agent, good sense applied to accounts and affairs. 
 So do you multiply your presence, or spread yourself 
 throughout your estate. But because of the dual constitu- 
 tion of all things, in labor as in life there can be no cheat- 
 popularity ? What makes a man great ? What makes a boy 
 great ? If a person has shown us kindness, how do we repay it 
 in being kind to some one else '? Can we be blamed if we are 
 merely just to others ? 
 
 34. Why is cheap labor dear ? AVhy is cheap study ? Why do 
 we pay so much for a bit of steel in a watch-spring ? Why do we 
 pay the captain more than the sailor ? What does the thief steal 
 from himself ? If a boy gains nothing from his study but ability to 
 pass examinations, what does he lose ? If you pay a man for good 
 work and he gives you poor, is there any way by which you may gain 
 c 
 
18 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 ing. The thief steals from himself/ The swindler swindles 
 himself. For the real price of labor is knowledge and vir- 
 tue, whereof wealth and credit are signs. These signs, like 
 paper-money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which 
 they represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be 
 counterfeited or stolen. These ends of labor cannot be 
 answered but by real exertions of the mind, and in obedi- 
 ence to pure motives. The cheat, the defaulter, the gam- 
 bler cannot extort the benefit, cannot extort the knowledge 
 of material and moral nature which his honest care and 
 pains yield to the operative. The law of nature is. Do the 
 thing, and you shall have the power : but they who do not 
 the thing have not the power. 
 
 35. 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 uni- 
 verse. Everywhere and always this law is sublime. 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 impossi- 
 ble to get anything without its price, — this doctrine is not 
 less sublime in the columns of a ledger than in the budgets 
 of states, in the laws of light and darkness, in all the action 
 and reaction of nature. I cannot doubt that the high 
 laws which each man sees ever implicated in those processes 
 Avith which he is conversant, the stern ethics which sparkle 
 on his chisel edge, which are measured out by his plumb 
 and foot rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the 
 shop bill as in the history of a state, — do recommend to 
 
 from the loss ? If the good workman is poorly paid, can he gain 
 anything from the loss ? What is nature's law of labor ? Does 
 this apply to work done by machinery ? 
 
 35. How may a man's business appeal to his imagination ? Does 
 algebra, science, a foreign language ? 
 
COMPENSA TION. 1 9 
 
 him his trade, and though seldom named, exalt his business 
 to his imagination. 
 
 36. The league between virtue and nature engages all 
 things to assume a hostile front to vice. The beautiful laws 
 and substances of the world persecute and whip the traitor. 
 He finds that things are arranged for truth and benefit, but 
 there is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. There is 
 no such thing as concealment. Commit a crime, and the 
 earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if 
 a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the 
 woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel 
 and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word, you can- 
 not wipe out the foot-track, you cannot draw up the ladder, 
 so as to leave no inlet or clew. Always some damning cir- 
 cumstance transpires. The laws and substances of nature 
 — water, snow, wind, gravitation — become penalties to the 
 thief. 
 
 37. On the other hand, the law holds with equal sure- 
 ness for all right action. Love, and you shall be loved. 
 All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides 
 of an algebraic equation. The good man has absolute 
 good, which like fire turns everything to its own nature, 
 so that you cannot do him any harm', but as the royal 
 armies sent against Napoleon, when he approached, cast 
 down their colors and from enemies became friends, so 
 do disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offense, poverty, 
 prove benefactors. 
 
 " Winds blow and waters roll 
 Strength to the brave, and power and deity, 
 Yet in themselves are nothing." , 
 
 36. Tell what the main thought has to do with compensation. 
 
 37. What may a boy gain from losing a race ? Can he gain any- 
 thing if he has no chance to run another ? 
 
20 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 38. The good are befriended even by weakness and de- 
 fect. As no man had ever a point of pride that was not 
 injurious to him, so no man had ever a defect that was not 
 somewhere made useful to him. The stag in the fable ad- 
 mired 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 life- 
 time needs to thank his faults. -As no man thoroughly 
 understands a truth until first he has contended against it, 
 so no man has a thorough acquaintance with the hindrances 
 or talents of men, until he has suffered from the one, and 
 seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the 
 same. Has he a defect of temper that unfits him to live in 
 society ? Thereby he is driven to entertain himself alone, 
 and acquire habits of self-help ; and thus, like the wounded 
 oyster, he mends his shell with pearl. 
 
 39. Our strength grows out of our weakness. Not until 
 we are pricked and stung and sorely shot at, awakens the 
 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 some- 
 thing; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he 
 has gained facts ; learns his ignorance ; is cured of the in- 
 sanity of conceit ; has got moderation and real skill. The 
 wise man always throws himself on the side of his assail- 
 ants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his 
 weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him 
 like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo ! he has 
 passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise. I hate 
 to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said 
 
 38. How may a man's pride injure him and his defects help him ? 
 
 39. Explain : "The wise man always throws himself on the side of 
 his assailants." Can a great man be little ? ; 
 
COMPENSATION. 21 
 
 is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. 
 But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, 
 I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. In 
 general, every evil to which we do not succumb, is a bene- 
 factor. As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength 
 and valor of the enemy he kills, passes into himself, so we 
 gain the strength of the temptation we resist. 
 
 40. The same guards which protect us from disaster, de- 
 fect, and enmity, defend us, if we will, from selfishness and 
 fraud. Bolts and bars are not the best of our institutions, 
 nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of wisdom. Men suffer 
 all their life long under the foolish superstition that they 
 can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be 
 cheated by 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 things takes 
 on itself the guaranty of the fulfillment of every contract, 
 so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you serve an 
 ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your 
 debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the pay- 
 ment is withholden, the better for you ; for compound in- 
 terest on compoimd interest is the rate and usage of this 
 exchequer. 
 
 41. The history of persecution is a history of endeavors 
 to cheat nature, to make water runup hill, to twist a rope 
 of sand. It makes no difference whether the actors be many 
 or one, a tyrant or a mob. A mob is a society of bodies vol- 
 untarily bereaving themselves of reason and traversing its 
 
 40. How only may a man be cheated? What is the "third 
 silent party to all our bargains " ? How is a man paid for serving 
 well an ungrateful master ? How does the master lose by his in- 
 gratitude ? 
 
 41. How does persecution try to cheat nature ? Give E.'s idea 
 of a mob. Who are most injured by "mob law " ? 
 
22 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 work. The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nat- 
 ure of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its 
 actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes 
 a principle ; it would whip a right ; it would tar and feather 
 justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and 
 persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank 
 of boys who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy au- 
 rora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their 
 spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dis- 
 honored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame ; every 
 prison a more illustrious abode ; every burned book or house 
 enlightens the world ; every suppressed or expunged word 
 reverberates through the earth from side to side. The 
 minds of men are at last aroused ; reason looks out and 
 justifies her own, and malice finds all her work vain. It is 
 the whipper who is whipped, and the tyrant who is undone. 
 
 42. Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circum- 
 stances. The man is all. Everything has two sides, a 
 good and an evil. Every advantage has its tax. I learn to 
 be content. But the doctrine of compensation is not the 
 doctrine of indifferency. The thoughtless say, on hearing 
 these representations, — What boots it to do well ? there is 
 one event to good and evil ; if I gain any good, I must pay 
 for it ; if I lose any good, I gain some other ; all actions 
 are indifferent. 
 
 43. 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 circum- 
 stance, Avhose waters ebb and flow with perfect balance, lies 
 the aboriginal abyss of real Being. Existence, or God, is 
 
 42. Why is the thoughtless interpretation of compensation wrong ? 
 
 43. Explain : " The soul is," If falsehood can do no real harm, 
 is falsehood as good as truth ? Is it the same thing to avoid wrong 
 as to do right ? Illustrate. 
 
COMPENSATION. 23 
 
 not a relation or a part, but the whole. Being is the vast 
 affirmative, excluding negation, self-balanced, and swallow- 
 ing up all relations, parts, and times, within itself. Nature, 
 truth, virtue, are the influx from thence. Vice is the ab- 
 sence or departure of the same. Nothing, falsehood, may 
 indeed stand as the great night or shade, on which, as a 
 background, the living universe paints itself forth ; but no 
 fact is begotten by it ; it cannot work ; for it is not. It 
 cannot work any good; it cannot Avork any harm. It is 
 harm inasmuch as it is worse not to be than to be. 
 
 44. We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts, 
 because the criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy, 
 and does not come to a crisis or judgment anywhere in 
 visible nature. There is no stunning confutation of his 
 nonsense before men and angels. Has he therefore out- 
 witted the law ? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and 
 the lie with him, he so far deceases from nature. In some 
 manner there will be a demonstration of the wrong to the 
 understanding also ; but should we not see it, this deadly 
 deduction makes square the eternal account. 
 
 45. Neither can it be said, on the other hand, that the 
 gain of rectitude must be bought by any loss. There is no 
 penalty to virtue ; no penalty to Avisdom ; they are proper 
 additions of being. In a virtuous action, I properly am ; 
 in a virtuous act, I add to the world; I plant into deserts 
 conquered from chaos and nothing, and see the darkness 
 receding on the limits of the horizon. There can be no 
 excess to love ; none to knoAvledge ; none to beauty ; when 
 
 44. If a criminal is not caught, does he escape punishment ? Cf . 16. 
 Why do we feel defrauded if he is not caught ? Why does a crimi- 
 nal sometimes give himself up ? 
 
 45. If rectitude is not "bought by any loss," do we pay anything 
 for it? Explain: "In a virtuous action, I properly am." Cf. 43, 
 "The soul is." What does a good act add to the world ? 
 
24 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 these attributes are considered in the purest sense. The 
 soul refuses all limits. It affirms in man always an opti- 
 mism, never a pessimism. 
 
 46. His life is a progress, and not a station. His instinct 
 is trust. Our instinct uses " more " and " less " in applica- 
 tion 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 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 good of nature is the soul's, and may be had, if paid for 
 in nature's lawful coin, that is, by labor which the heart 
 and the head allow. I no longer wish to meet a good I do 
 not earn, for example, to find a pot of buried gold, knowing 
 that it brings with it new responsibility. I do not wish 
 more external goods, — neither possessions, nor honors, nor 
 powers, nor persons. The gain is apparent ; the tax is cer- 
 tain. But there is no tax on the knowledge that the com- 
 pensation exists, and that it is not desirable to dig up 
 treasure. Herein I rejoice with a serene eternal peace. I 
 contract the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn the 
 wisdom of St. Bernard, ^'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." 
 
 46. How is a brave man greater than a coward? Is it ever 
 brave to avoid danger ? How does E. express the thonght, " What 
 costs nothing is worth nothing" ? What just tax is there on the 
 man who has found a pot of gold ? on the man who has received 
 an education? on the man who can influence others? Define 
 responsibility. Was E.'s life consistent with his words, "I do not 
 wish more external goods," etc. ? Is it any loss to us to wish for 
 good things that we do not earn ? 
 
COMPENSATION. 25 
 
 47. In the nature of the soul is the compensation for the 
 inequalities of condition. The radical tragedy of nature 
 seems to be the distinction of More and Less. How can 
 Less not feel the pain ; how not feel indignation or malevo- 
 lence 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; almost he fears they will up- 
 braid God. What should they do? It seems a great injus- 
 tice. But face the facts, and see them nearly, and these 
 mountainous inequalities vanish. Love reduces them all, as 
 the sun melts the iceberg in the sea. The heart and soul of 
 all men being one, this bitterness of His and Mine ceases. 
 His is mine. I am my brother and my brother is me. If I 
 feel overshadowed and outdone by great neighbors, I can 
 yet love ; I can still receive ; and he that loveth, maketh 
 his own the grandeur he loves. Thereby I make the dis- 
 covery that my brother is my guardian, acting for me with 
 the friendliest designs, and the estate I so admired and 
 envied, is my own. It is the eternal nature of the soul to 
 appropriate and make all things its own. Jesus and Shake- 
 speare are fragments 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 not wit. 
 
 48. Such, also, is the natural history of calamity. The 
 changes which break up at short intervals the prosperity of 
 
 47. How can we avoid envy of those having more than we ? How 
 avoid a half scornful pity of those having less ? What can we do 
 for those that have more ? for those that have less ? Which is true, 
 "I am my brother's keeper" or "I am my brother"? What is 
 meant by the soul's appropriating all things ? Is it a loss to us not 
 to "appropriate" Shakespeare? Can we "appropriate" Shake- 
 speare without studying his words? How can we "appropriate" 
 Jesus ? 
 
 48. Why do not changes in the prosperity of men always help 
 
26 SELECTIONS FBOM EMERSON. 
 
 men, are advertisements of a nature whose law is growth. 
 Evermore it is the order of nature to grow, and every soul 
 is by this intrinsic necessity quitting its whole system of 
 things, its friends, and home, and laws, and faith, as the 
 shell-fish crawls out of its beautiful but stony case, because 
 it no longer admits of its growth, and slowly forms a new 
 house. In proportion to the vigor of the individual, these 
 revolutions are frequent, until in some happier mind they 
 are incessant, and all worldly relations hang very loosely 
 about him, becoming, as it were, a transparent fluid mem- 
 brane through which the form is always seen, and not as in 
 most men an indurated heterogeneous fabric of many dates, 
 and of no settled character, in which the man is imprisoned. 
 Then there can be enlargement, and the man of to-day 
 scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday. And such should 
 be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off 
 of dead circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment 
 day by day. But to us, in our lapsed estate, resting, not 
 advancing, resisting, not co-operating with the divine expan- 
 sion, this growth comes by shocks. 
 
 49. We cannot ])art with our friends. AVe cannot let our 
 angels go. We do not see that they only go out that arch- 
 angels 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 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, 
 
 them? Is it weh that "the man of to-day scarcely recognizes the 
 man of yesterday " ? Explain " putting off of dead circumstances." 
 49. Explain : "We are idolaters of the old." Why do we wish 
 for friends ? Why do we like to remember pleasant things that are 
 past ? Why do we grieve over what is past ? How do we hear 
 " the voice of the Almighty " in nature ? 
 
COMPENSATION. 27 
 
 cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so 
 dear, so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. 
 The voice of the Almighty saith, " Up and onward forever- 
 more I " We cannot stay amid the ruins. Neither will we 
 rely on the New ; and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, 
 like those monsters who look backwards. 
 
 50. And yet the cojnpensations of calamity are made 
 apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of 
 time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss 
 of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid 
 loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep 
 remedial force that underlies all facts. The death of a 
 dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but 
 jjrivation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or 
 genius ; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of 
 life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was 
 waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a 
 household, or style of living, and allows the formation of 
 new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It per- 
 mits or constrains 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, 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. 
 
 50. Why not remain the " sunny garden flower" ? What does 
 E. think is the greatest thing a man may possess ? the greatest thing 
 a man can do ? What new, practical thoughts have you found in 
 this essay ? 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 
 
 1. I READ the other day some verses written by an emi- 
 nent painter which Avere original and not conventional. 
 Always the soul hears an admonition in such lines, let the 
 subject be what it may. The sentiment they instill is of 
 more value than any thought they may contain. To believe 
 your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in 
 your private heart, is true for all men, — that is genius. 
 Speak your latent conviction and it shall be the universal 
 sense ; for always the inmost becomes the outmost, — and 
 our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of 
 the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is 
 to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, 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 and watch that gleam of light which 
 flashes across his mind 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 recognize our own rejected thoughts : 
 
 1. What makes a poem conventional ? Is Longfellow's Psalm 
 of Life conventional or original ? What is the difference between 
 sentiment and thought ? What is a "latent conviction " ? What 
 thought do you find in any play of Shakespeare's that seems stronger 
 and clearer than before you read the play ? Does E, mean that we 
 should always express our opinions ? 
 
 28 
 
8EL F-EELIA NCE. 29 
 
 tliey 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 im- 
 pression Avith good-humored inflexibility then most when 
 the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-mor- 
 row 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. 
 
 2. There is a time in every man's education when he ar- 
 rives at the conviction that envy is ignorance ; that imita- 
 tion 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 icorii can come to him but 
 through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is 
 given to him to till. The power whi^h 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 im- 
 pression on him, and another none. It is not without pre- 
 established 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 divine idea which each of us repre- 
 sents. 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 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. 
 
 2. "Envy is ignorance" of what? How does E. express the 
 idea of one's own ability ? Does a "commonplace person " possess 
 any power that is " new in nature " ? What comfort can you find 
 if you fail in a lesson that you have tried your best to learn ? 
 
30 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt 
 his genius deserts him ; no muse befriends ; no invention, 
 no hope. 
 
 3. 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 connection of events. 
 Great men have always done so and confided themselves 
 childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their percep- 
 tion 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 revolution, but redeemers and 
 benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay plastic under 
 the Almighty effort, let us advance and advance on Chaos 
 and the Dark. 
 
 4. What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text in 
 the face and behavior of children, babes, and even brutes. 
 That divided and rebel mind, that distrust of a sentiment 
 because 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. Infancy 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 not to be put by, if it will stand 
 
 3. Does one fail to accept his place if lie tries to improve it ? 
 Explain the second sentence. 
 
 4. Wliat does E. mean by a child's mind "being whole''? 
 Could a grown person's mind be "whole " ? May a mind that is 
 "whole" have more than one aim? 
 boy can have ? 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 31 
 
 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 ? Good Heaven ! it is he ! it 
 is that very lump of bashfulness and phlegm which for 
 weeks has done nothing but eat when you were by, that 
 now rolls out these words like bell-strokes. It seems he 
 knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold, 
 then, he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary. 
 5. The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and 
 would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to con- 
 ciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature. How 
 is a boy the master of society! — independent, irresponsible, 
 looking out from his corner on such people and facts as pass 
 by, he tries and sentences them on their merits, in the swift 
 summary way of boys, as good, bad, interesting, silly, elo- 
 quent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never about con- 
 sequences, about interests : he gives an independent, genuine 
 verdict. You must court him; he does not court you. But 
 the man is, as it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness. 
 As soon as he has once acted or spoken with eclat, he is a 
 committed person, watched by the sympathy or the hatred 
 of hundreds whose affections must now enter into his ac- 
 count. There is no Lethe for this. Ah, that he could pass 
 again into his neutral, godlike independence! Who can 
 thus lose all pledge, and having observed, observe again 
 from the same unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted 
 innocence, 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 on 
 
 5. What does E. mean by doing "aught to concihate"? Is 
 courtesy an attempt to "concihate" ? Should one never think of 
 consequences before acting ? Has one a right to do an act tliat 
 harms himself alone? How does E. express tlie thought, "Look 
 out on a subject, not down " ? What are " necessary " opinions ? 
 
32 SELECTIONS FB03I EMERSON. 
 
 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. 
 
 6. These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but 
 they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. 
 Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of 
 every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company 
 in which the members agree, for the better securing of his 
 bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and cult- 
 are of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. 
 Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and crea- 
 tors, but names and customs. 
 
 7. 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 goodness. 
 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 adviser who was wont 
 to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. 
 On my saying, " What have I to do with the sacredness of 
 traditions, if I live wholly from within ? " ray friend sug- 
 gested — "But these impulses may be from below, not from 
 above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; 
 but if I am the devil's child, I will live then from the devil." 
 No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good 
 and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or 
 this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the 
 
 6. Would one necessarily be made better by living alone ? What 
 kind of liberty does one give up in society ? What does one gain ? 
 Are conformity and politeness the same ? 
 
 7. Are there any customs in school-life to which the '-true'' pupi! 
 must refuse to conform ? What is meant by : " Absolve you to your- 
 self '' ? Ought we to care for the opinion of others ? Why is E. 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 33 
 
 only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself 
 in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titu- 
 lar and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how 
 easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies 
 and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken indi- 
 vidual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to 
 go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways. 
 If malice and vanity wear the coat of philanthropy, shall 
 that pass ? If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause 
 of abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Bar- 
 bados, 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 ambi- 
 tion with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand 
 miles off. Thy love afar is spite at home." Kough and 
 graceless would be such greeting, but truth is handsomer 
 than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some 
 edge to it, else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be 
 preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when 
 that pules and whines. I shun father and mother and wife 
 and brother, when my genius calls me. I would write on 
 the lintels of the door-post, Wliim. I hope it is somewhat 
 better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in 
 explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or 
 why I exclude company-. Then, again, do not tell me, as a 
 good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men 
 in good situations. Are they my poor ? I tell thee, thou 
 foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the 
 cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom 
 
 so severe on the "angry bigot" ? From what motives do people 
 give to beggars ? Would all beggars "belong" to E.-? Would 
 any? Is this paragraph inconsistent with Compensation, 47, "I 
 am my brother," etc.? What is the strongest claim for help that 
 any one can have on us ? 
 
 T) 
 
34 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 I do not belong. There is a class of j^ersons to whom by all 
 spiritual affinity I am bonght and sold; for them I will go 
 to prison, if need be ; but your miscellaneous popular chari- 
 ties ; the education at college of fools ; the building of meet- 
 ing-houses to the vain end to which many now stand ; alms 
 to sots; and the thousandfold relief societies; — though I 
 confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dol- 
 lar, it is a wicked dollar, which by-and-by I shall have the 
 manhood to withhold. 
 
 8. 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 expiation of daily 
 non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an 
 apology or extenuation of their living in the world, — as in- 
 valids 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 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 an alms, a battle, a conquest, a medicine. 1 ask primary 
 evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from 
 the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no 
 difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are 
 reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege 
 where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts 
 may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance 
 or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony. 
 
 8. From what motives might a boy be liberal without being at heart 
 generous ? Is such liberality of value to him '? Does E. mean 
 that it makes no difference whether our actions are excellent or 
 not? 
 
SELF-EELIANCE. 35 
 
 9. What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the 
 people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in 
 intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between 
 greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will 
 always find those who think they know what is your duty 
 better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live 
 after the world's opinion ; it is easy in solitude to live after 
 our own; bat the great man is he who in the midst of the 
 crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of 
 solitude. 
 
 10. The objection to conforming to usages that have be- 
 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 government 
 or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers, — 
 under all these screens, I have difficulty to detect the pre- 
 cise man you are. And, of course, so much force is with- 
 drawn from your proper life. But do your thing, and I 
 shall know you. Do your work, and you shall re-enforce 
 yourself. A man must consider what a blind-man's-buff is 
 this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I anticipate 
 your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text 
 and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his 
 church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can 
 he say a new and spontaneous word ? Do I not know that, 
 with all this ostentation of exauiining the grounds of the 
 institution, he will do no such thing ? Do I not know that 
 
 9. Learn the last sentence. Why is such a man great ? 
 
 10. Did it scatter Washington's force to own slaves ? How 
 would it have affected Lincoln's iniiuence ? Is it impossible for 
 a man to "say a new and spontaneous word" on doctrines that he 
 is bound to uphold? Can one be "bound" to uphold anything? 
 What shall we do if a conversation does not interest us ? 
 
36 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side, the per- 
 mitted 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 them- 
 selves to some one of these communities of opinion. This 
 conformity makes them not false in a fcAv particulars, authors 
 of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth 
 is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four 
 not the real four ; so that every word they say chagrins us, 
 and we know not where to begin to set them right. Mean- 
 time 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 asi- 
 nine expression. There is a mortifying experience in partic- 
 ular which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general 
 history; I mean, "the foolish face of praise," the forced 
 smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at 
 ease in answer to conversation which does not interest us. 
 The muscles, not spontaneously moved, but moved by a low 
 usurping willfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face 
 and make the most disagreeable sensation, a sensation of 
 rebuke and warning which no brave young man will suffer 
 twice. 
 
 11. For nonconformity the Avorld whips you with its dis- 
 pleasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate 
 a sour face. The bystanders look askance on him in the pub- 
 lic street or in the friend's parlor. If this aversation had 
 its origin in contempt and resistance like his own, he might 
 well go home with a sad countenance ; but the sour faces of 
 the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, 
 
 11. Why may a man be comforted when he meets much criticism ? 
 How can one establish a "habit of magnanimity''? Cf. Compensa- 
 tion^ 40, "The longer the payment is withholden," etc. 
 
SELF-BELIANCE. B7 
 
 disguise no god, but are put on and off as the wind blows, 
 and a newspaper directs. Yet is the discontent of the mul- 
 titude more formidable than that of the senate and the col- 
 lege. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the 
 world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their 
 rage is decorous and prudent, for they are timid as being 
 very vulnerable themselves. But when to their feminine 
 rage the indignation of the people is added, when the igno- 
 rant and 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. 
 
 12. 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. 
 
 13. But why should you 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 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 bring the past for judgment into the 
 thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day. Trust 
 your emotion. In your metaphysics you have denied per- 
 sonality to the Deity : yet when the devout motions of the 
 soul come, yield to them heart and life, though they should 
 clothe God with shape and color. Leave your theory, as 
 Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee. 
 
 12. Why are people afraid of seeming inconsistent ? 
 
 13. How does E. picture the man who fears to he inconsistent? 
 If we injured some one yesterday, shall we forget it to-day ? Why 
 should we forget it if some one has injured us ? 
 
38 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 14. 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 
 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 everything you said to-day. 
 "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 ISTewton, and 
 every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be 
 great is to be misunderstood. 
 
 15. 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 insignificant 
 in the curve of the sphere. Nor does it matter how you 
 gauge and try him. A character is like an acrostic or 
 Alexandrian stanza ; — read it forward, backward, or across, 
 it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing, contrite 
 wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day 
 my honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I 
 cannot doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I mean 
 it not, and see it not. My book should smell of pines and 
 
 14. Does it ever harm any one to be misunderstood ? When 
 people claim that no one understands them, do they mean that others 
 think too highly of them ? 
 
 15. Is it inconsistent if one is truthful one day and untruthful the 
 next ? Define prospect and retrospect as used here. What do 
 the allusions to nature illustrate? Explain: "Character teaches 
 above our wills." Can one be permanently misunderstood ? Cf. 14. 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 39 
 
 resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my 
 window should interweave that thread or straw he carries 
 in his bill into ray 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. 
 
 16. Fear never but you shall be consistent in whatever 
 variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in 
 their hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, 
 however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of 
 when seen at a little distance, at a little height of thought. 
 One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship 
 is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. This is only micro- 
 scopic criticism. See the line from a sufficient distance, and 
 it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine 
 action will explain itself and will explain your other genu- 
 ine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, 
 and what you have already 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 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 fore- 
 gone days of virtue work their health into this. What 
 makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field 
 which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a 
 train of great days and victories behind. 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 mean's 
 eye. That is it which throws thunder into Chatham's 
 
 16. What is meant by a "genuine" action? What kinds of 
 greatness appeal to the present ? What is the strongest sentence 
 in this paragraph ? If one is in the habit of being truthful, why is 
 it liard for him to be untruthful ? Explain: "Act singly." 
 
40 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON 
 
 voicej 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. We worship it 
 to-day, because it is not of to-day. We love it and pay it 
 homage, because it is not a trap for our love and homage, 
 but is self-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an old 
 immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person. 
 
 17. I hope in these days we have heard the last of con- 
 formity and consistency. Let the words be gazetted and 
 ridiculous 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 eat 
 at my house. I do not wish to please him ; I wish that he 
 should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity, 
 and though I would make it kind, I would make it true. 
 Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and 
 squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of 
 custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the upshot 
 of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and 
 Actor moving wherever moves a man ; that a true man be- 
 longs to no other time or place, but is the center of things. 
 Where he is, there is nature. He measures you, and all 
 men, and all events. You are constrained to accept his 
 standard. Ordinarily everybody in society reminds us of 
 somewhat else or of some other person. Character, reality, 
 reminds you of nothing else. It takes place of the whole 
 creation. The man must be so much that he must make 
 all circumstances indifferent, put all means into the shade. 
 This all great men are and do. Every true man is a cause, 
 
 17. What qualities in tlie Spartans would E. like ? What does 
 E. mean by sayhig that he does not wish to please his guest ? How 
 is an institution "the lengthened shadow of one man"? Name 
 some of those "stout and earnest persons" whose biographies are 
 United States history. 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 41 
 
 a country, and an age ; requires infinite spaces and numbers 
 and time fully to accomplish his thought ; — and posterity 
 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 shadow of one 
 man ; as, the Reformation, of Luther ; Quakerism, of Fox ; 
 Methodism, of AVesley; Abolition, of Clarkson. Scipio, 
 Milton called " the height of Rome " ; and all history re- 
 solves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout 
 and earnest persons. 
 
 18. 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 Avorld which exists for him. But the man in 
 the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds 
 to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble 
 god, feels poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, 
 a statue, 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 notice, 
 petitioners to his faculties that they will come out and 
 take possession. The picture waits for my verdict; it is 
 not to command me, but I am to settle its claims to praise. 
 That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead drunk 
 in the street, carried to the duke's house, washed and dressed 
 and laid in the duke's bed, and, on his waking, treated with 
 all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he 
 had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact, that it 
 
 18. Is it conceited for a boy to tliink himself a good scholar ? 
 How will stopping to think about it affect him ? If we are made 
 shy and silent by magnificence, where is the fault ? Should you 
 prefer to ask a favor of a really great man or a small one ? 
 
42 SELECTIONS FROM EMEESON. 
 
 symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a 
 sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason, 
 and finds himself a true prince. 
 
 19. Our reading is mendicant and sycophantic. In his- 
 tory, our imagination makes fools of us, plays us false. 
 Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier vo- 
 cabulary than private John and Edward in a small house 
 and common day's work; but the things of life are the 
 same to both ; the sum total of both is the same. Why all 
 this deference to Alfred, and Scanderbeg, and G-ustavus ? 
 Suppose they -were virtuous: did they Avear out virtue? 
 As great a stake depends on your private act to-day, as fol- 
 lowed their public and renowned steps. When private men 
 shall act with vast views, the lustre will be transferred 
 from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen. 
 
 20. 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 is 
 due from man to man. The joyful loyalty with which men 
 have everywhere suffered the king, the noble, or the great 
 proprietor to walk among them by a law of his own, make 
 his own scale of men and things, and reverse theirs, pay 
 for benefits not with money but with honor, and represent 
 the law in his person, was the hieroglyphic by which they 
 obscurely signified their consciousness of their own right 
 and comeliness, the right of every man. 
 
 21. The magnetism which all original action exerts is 
 explained when we inquire the reason of self-trust. Who 
 is the Trustee? What is the aboriginal Self on which a 
 
 19. What is the most striking sentence in this paragraph ? Is 
 a small act important except to the actor and those who know it ? 
 
 20. Of what is a king a symbol ? What does a king owe to the 
 nation, and what similar duty does each man owe to every other man ? 
 
 21. State all the thoughts that you find in this paragraph. 
 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 43 
 
 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 
 independence appear ? The inquiry leads us to that source, 
 at once the essence of genius, the essence of virtue, and the 
 essence of life, which we call spontaneity or instinct. We 
 denote this primary wisdom as intuition, whilst all later 
 teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, the last fact 
 behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their com- 
 mon 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 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. 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 
 justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, 
 but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this 
 comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all meta- 
 physics, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its ab- 
 sence is all we can affirm. Every man discerns between 
 the voluntary acts of his mind, and his involuntary percep- 
 tions ; and to his involuntary perceptions, he knows a per- 
 fect 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 willful actions and acquisitions 
 are but roving; the most trivial reverie, the faintest na- 
 
44 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 tive 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 between perception and notion. They fancy 
 that I choose to see this or that thing. But perception is 
 not whimsical, but fatal. If I see a trait, my children will 
 see it after me, and in course of time, all mankind, although 
 it may chance that no one has seen it before me. For my 
 perception of it is as much a fact as the sun. 
 
 22. The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so 
 pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. It must 
 be that when God speaketh, he should communicate not one 
 thing, but all things ; should fill the world with his voice ; 
 should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, from the cen- 
 ter of the present thought ; and new date and new create 
 the whole. Whenever a mind is simple, 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 made sacred by rela- 
 tion to it, one thing as much as another. All things are 
 dissolved to their center 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 moldered nation in another country, in another 
 world, believe him not. Is the acorn better than the oak 
 which is its fullness and completion ? Is the parent better 
 than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? 
 Whence then this worship of the past ? The centuries are 
 conspirators against the sanity and majesty of the soul. 
 Time and space are but physiological colors which the eye 
 
 22. Define simple^ profane^ sanity, impertinence, as used here. 
 Why do men often speak of God in biblical phrases, while they speak 
 of their business in the language of everyday ? 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 45 
 
 maketh, but the soul is light; where it is, is day ; where it 
 was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury, 
 if it be anything more than a cheerful apologue or parable 
 of my being and becoming. 
 
 23. 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 l^lade of grass or the 
 blowing rose. These roses under my window make no ref- 
 erence to former roses or to better ones ; they are for what 
 they are ; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to 
 them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every 
 moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its 
 whole life acts ; in the full-blown flower, there is no more ; 
 in the leafless root, there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, 
 and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. There is no 
 time to it. But man postpones or remembers ; he does not 
 live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, 
 or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tip- 
 toe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong 
 until he too lives with nature in the present, above time. 
 
 24. This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong 
 intellects dare not yet hear God himself, unless he speak 
 the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or 
 Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few 
 texts, on a few lives. 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 character they chance 
 to see, painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; 
 
 23. In what is " the blade of grass or the blowing rose " superior 
 to the person? Cf. "These roses under my window," etc., with 
 Compensation., 49, the last sentence. How can one live "above 
 time"? 
 
 24. In what ways does God speak ? Can one live truly without 
 seeing truly ? 
 
46 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 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 us, so will it be, if we proceed. If we live truly, we 
 shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be 
 strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. When we have 
 new perception, we shall gladly disburthen the memory of 
 its hoarded treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives 
 with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the 
 brook and the rustle of the corn. 
 
 25. And now at last the highest truth on this subject 
 remains unsaid ; probably, cannot be said ; for all that we 
 say is the far-off remembering of the intuition. That 
 thought, by what I can now nearest approach to say it, is 
 this. When good is near you, when you have life in your- 
 self, it is not by any known or appointed way ; you shall 
 not discern the footprints of any other ; you shall not see 
 the face of man ; you shall not hear any name ; the way, 
 the thought, the good shall be wholly strange and new. It 
 shall exclude all other being. You take the way from man, 
 not to man. All persons that ever 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 noth- 
 ing that can be called gratitude nor properly joy. The soul 
 is raised over passion. It seeth identity and eternal causa- 
 tion. It is a perceiving that Truth and Right 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 account. This which I think and feel, underlay that 
 former state of life and circumstances, as it does underlie 
 25. State all the thoughts that you find in this paragraph. 
 
 I 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 47 
 
 my present, and will always all circumstance, and what is 
 called life, and what is called death. 
 
 26 Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases 
 in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transi- 
 tion from a past to a new state ; in the shooting of the gulf ; 
 in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates 
 that the soul becomes ; for that forever degrades the past, 
 turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame con- 
 founds 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 which rehes be- 
 cause it works and is. Who has more soul than I masters 
 me, though he shorUd not raise his finger. Bound him 1 
 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 yet see that virtue is Height, 
 and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable 
 to principles, by the law of nature must overpower and rule 
 all cities, nations, kings, rich men, poets, who are not. 
 
 27 This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach 
 on this as on every topic, the resolution of all into the ever- 
 blessed One. Virtue is the governor, the creator, the reality. 
 All things real are so by so much of virtue as they contain. 
 
 26 Does E. mean that when a man dies, his having lived truly is 
 worthless ? Is it worth anything to you to-day that you die riglrt 
 yesterday f Explain : " Power not confident but agent." What is 
 meant by one person having more soul than another? How does 
 one boy gain more influence in school than another boy ? What 
 is meant by being "permeable to principles"? , « „, 
 
 27. Define ^^esolution as used here. What is "the One ' 
 What makes a thing real? Do yon really possess a talent that 
 you do not use ? e.g., for music ? lor making people happy ? Ct. 
 
48 SELECTIONS FBOM EMEU SON. 
 
 Hardsliip, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war, eloquence, per- 
 sonal weight, are somewhat, and engage ray respect as ex- 
 amples of the soul's presence and impure action. I see the 
 same law working in nature for conservation and growth. 
 The poise of a planet, the bended tree recovering itself from 
 the strong wind, the vital resources of every vegetable and 
 animal, are also demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and 
 therefore self-relying soul. All history from its highest to 
 its trivial passages is the various record of this power. 
 
 28. Thus all concentrates : let us not rove ; let us sit at 
 home with the cause. Let us stun and astonish the intrud- 
 ing 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 sim- 
 plicity judge them, and our docility to our own law demon- 
 strate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our native 
 riches. 
 
 29. 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 goes 
 abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of men. We must 
 go alone. Isolation must precede true society. I like the 
 silent church before the service begins, better than any 
 preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons 
 look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary. So let 
 us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of our 
 friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around 
 our hearth, or are said to have the same blood ? All men 
 have my blood, and I have all men's. Not for that will I 
 
 Matthew xxv. 29. How is history the "record of this power" ? 
 Cf. 17, last sentence. 
 
 28. What is meant by " the divine fact" ? 
 
 29. Does "awe" as used here mean /ear or respect? Judging 
 from this paragrapli, should you think E. unsympathetic ? 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 49 
 
 adopt their petulance or folly, even to the extent of being 
 ashamed of it. But your isolation must not be mechanical, 
 but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At times the whole 
 world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with em- 
 phatic trifles. Friend, 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 moment into their facts, into their hubbub of con- 
 flicting appearances, but let in the light of thy law on their 
 confusion. 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." 
 
 30. If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedi- 
 ence and faith, let us at least resist our temptations, let us 
 enter into the state of war, and wake Thor and Woden, 
 courage and constancy, in our Saxon breasts. This is to be 
 done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. Check 
 this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer 
 to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people 
 with whom we converse. Say to them, father, mother, 
 O wife, brother, friend, I have lived with you after 
 appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth's. Be 
 it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less 
 than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but prox- 
 imities. I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support 
 my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife ; but these 
 relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I 
 
 30. Which shows the stronger will, obedience or disobedience ? 
 Can an inferior person give the highest obedience ? Is this para- 
 graph inconsistent with the fact that E. was affectionate to his family 
 and hospitable to guests ? In what one word does E, express the 
 old English motto, " Do the next thing" ? 
 
50 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 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 the happier. If you cannot, 
 I will still seek to deserve that you should. I must be my- 
 self. I Avill not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so 
 trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly be- 
 fore the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the 
 heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you ; if you 
 are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical 
 attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with 
 me, cleave to your companions ; I will seek my own. I do 
 this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your 
 interest and mine and all men's, however long we have 
 dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to- 
 day ? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature 
 as well as mine, and if we follow the truth, it will bring us 
 out safe at last. But so you may give these friends pain. 
 Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power to save 
 their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments 
 of reason when they look out into the region of absolute 
 truth ; then will they justify me and do the same thing. 
 
 31. The populace think that your rejection of popular 
 standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere anti- 
 nomianism ; and the bold sensualist Avill use the name of 
 philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness 
 abides. There are two confessionals, in one or the other of 
 which we must be shriven. You may fulfill your round of 
 duties by clearing yourself in the direct, or in the reflex 
 way. Consider whether you have satisfied your relations 
 
 31. If one boy knows that no one in his class can complain of him, 
 and another knows that he has done all that he could for each mem- 
 ber, which clears himself in the "reflex way" ? Which demands 
 more care, kindness, and courtesy, the "reflex" or the "direct" 
 standard ? 
 
SELF-BELIANCE. 51 
 
 to father, mother, cousin, neighbor, town, cat, and dog; 
 whether any of these can uiDbraid yoii. But I may also 
 neglect this reflex standard, and absolve me to myself. I 
 have my own stern claims and perfect circle. It denies 
 the name of duty to many offices that are called duties. 
 But if I can discharge its debts, it enables me to dispense 
 with the popular code. If any one imagines that this law 
 is lax, let him keep its commandment one day. 
 
 32. 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 good 
 earnest be doctrine, society, law to himself, that a simple 
 purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to 
 others. 
 
 33. If any man consider the present aspects of what is 
 called by distinction society, he will see the need of these 
 ethics. The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, 
 and we are become timorous, desponding whimperers. We 
 are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and 
 afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect 
 persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life 
 and our social state, but we see that most natures are insol- 
 vent ; 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 mendi- 
 cant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion, 
 
 32. What are some of the " common motives " that E. would cast 
 off ? Can a boy be honest because he has decided that honesty 
 is the best policy ? 
 
 3:3. What characters in literature seem to you especially worthy of 
 imitation ? Why ? What person of the present century ? Is it 
 better to try to imitate perfection or what is only a little better than 
 ourselves ? 
 
52 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 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. 
 
 34. If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, 
 they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say 
 he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our 
 colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year 
 afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, 
 it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in 
 being disheartened and in complaining the rest of his life. 
 A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in 
 turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, 
 keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to congress, 
 buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and 
 always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of 
 these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels 
 no shame in not " studying a profession," for he does not 
 postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, 
 but a hundred chances. Let a stoic arise who shall reveal 
 the resources of man, and tell men they are not leaning 
 v/illows, 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 moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the 
 books, idolatries, and customs out of the window, we pity 
 him no more but thank and revere him ; and that teacher 
 shall restore the life of man to splendor, and make his name 
 dear to all history. 
 
 35. It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance, a new 
 
 34. What qualities has the "sturdy lad" developed? Does the 
 city boy have a fair chance to succeed ? In what has he the ad- 
 vantage over the country boy ? In what has the country boy 
 the advantage ? 
 
SELF-IiELIANCE. 53 
 
 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 speculative 
 views. 
 
 36. (a) 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 
 addition to come through some foreign virtue, and loses 
 itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural, and 
 mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves a particu- 
 lar commodity, anything less than all good, is vicious. 
 Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the 
 highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding 
 and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his 
 works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private 
 end, is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism and not 
 unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is 
 at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer 
 in all action. The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his 
 field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the 
 stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature, 
 though for cheap ends. Caratach, 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." 
 
 35, Just what do you mean by self-reliance ? Is the boy who is 
 self-reliant in the best sense in danger of self-conceit ? 
 
 36. What kind of prayers are brave and manly ? Is prayer for 
 the good of all necessarily unselfish ? What belief prevents prayer 
 for a private end from being selfish ? "To labor is to pray," says 
 the proverb. When is labor prayer and when is it not ? 
 
54 SELECTIONS FROM EMEU SON. 
 
 37. Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Dis- 
 content is tlie 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 to 
 them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for com- 
 pany, instead o'f imparting to them truth and health in 
 rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communi- 
 cation with the soul. The secret of fortune is joy in our 
 hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self- 
 helping man. For him all doors are flung wide. Him all 
 tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. 
 Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did 
 not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and 
 celebrate him, because he held, on his way and scorned our 
 disapprobation. The gods love him because men hated him. 
 " To the persevering mortal," said Zoroaster, " the blessed 
 Immortals are swift." 
 
 38. As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are 
 their creeds a disease of the intellect. They say wdth 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, 
 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, 
 
 37. Why do people sometimes cry over sufferings in books and not 
 over those of real people ? How is discontent ' ' infirmity of will ' ' ? 
 Is there any difference between real sympathy and "crying for com- 
 pany " ? Do we sympathize with happiness or unhappiness more 
 readily ? Does a happy person or an unhappy one have more influ- 
 ence ? Why ? When ought one to " scorn disapprobation " ? 
 
 38. How are some prayers a "disease of the will"? Cf. 37. 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 55 
 
 a Hiitton, a Bentham, a Spurzheim, it imposes its classifica- 
 tion on other men, and lo ! a new system. In proportion 
 always to tlie depth of the thought, and so to the number 
 of the objects it touches and brings within reach of the 
 pupil, is his complacency. But chiefly is this apparent in 
 creeds and churches, which are also classifications of some 
 powerful mind acting on the great elemental thought of 
 duty, and man's relation to the Highest. Such is Calvinism, 
 Quakerism, Swedenborgianism. The pupil takes the same 
 delight in subordinating everything to the new terminology 
 that a girl does who has just learned botany in seeing a new 
 earth and new seasons thereby. It Avill 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 writ- 
 ings. This will continue until he has exhausted his mas- 
 ter's mind. But in all unbalanced minds, the classification 
 is idolized, passes for the end, and not for a speedily ex- 
 haustible means, so that the walls of the system blend to 
 their eye in the remote horizon with the walls of the uni- 
 verse ; the luminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the 
 arch their master built. They cannot imagine how you 
 aliens have any right to see, how you can see ; " It must be 
 somehow that you stole the light from us." They do not 
 yet perceive, that, light, unsystematic, indomitable, will 
 break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp 
 awhile and call it their own. If they are honest and do 
 well, presently their neat new pinfold will be too straight 
 and low, will crack, will lean, will rot, and vanish, and the 
 immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, million- 
 colored, will beam over the universe as on the first morning. 
 
 Is there any advantage in forming a definite creed ? Is there any- 
 thing like a creed in mathematics ? in science ? in language ? in 
 nature ? Why does one see more in nature after studying botany 
 or geology ? Does truth grow, or the ability to see truth ? 
 
56 SELECTIONS FROM E3IERS0N, 
 
 39. (b) It is for want of self-culture that the idol of 
 traveling, the idol of Italy, of England, of Egypt, remains 
 for 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 the 
 merrymen of circumstance should follow as they may. 
 The soul is no traveler ; the wise man stays at home with 
 the soul, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occa- 
 sion call him from his house or into foreign lands, he is at 
 home still, and is not gadding abroad from himself; and 
 shall make men sensible by the expression of his counte- 
 nance that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, 
 and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an 
 interloper or a valet. 
 
 40. I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation 
 of the globe for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, 
 so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad 
 with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. 
 He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he 
 does not carry, travels away from 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. 
 
 89. Of what kind of traveling does E. disapprove ? Does he 
 mean that he would travel for business only ? Can a man " stay at 
 home with the soul " if he is traveling? Was E.'s visit to Europe 
 inconsistent with this paragraph ? How could one visit an art gal- 
 lery or a libraiy "like a sovereign and not like an interloper"? 
 Cf. 18. 
 
 40. What does E. mean by being "domesticated" before one 
 travels ? How does seeking amusement as a main object make one 
 grow old ? What kind of ruins does the man described carry with 
 him? 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 57 
 
 41. Traveling is a fool's paradise. We owe to our first 
 journeys the discovery that place is nothing. At home I 
 dream that at Naples, at Eome, 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 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. 
 
 42. (c) But the rage of traveling is itself only a symptom of 
 a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. 
 The intellect is vagabond, and the universal system of edu- 
 cation fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our 
 bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate ; and what 
 is imitation but the traveling of the mind? Our houses 
 are built with foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with 
 foreign ornaments; our opinions, our tastes, our 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. It was an application of 
 his own thought to the thing to be done and the conditions 
 to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric or the 
 Grothic model ? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought, 
 and quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if the 
 American artist will study with hope and love the precise 
 thing to be done by him, considering the climate, the soil, 
 the length of the day, the wants of the people, the habit and 
 form of the government, he will create a house in which all 
 these will find themselves fitted, and taste and sentiment 
 will be satisfied also. 
 
 41. Explain the last sentence. 
 
 42. Can we avoid imitation? What makes a work original? 
 In architecture what must be considered ? 
 
58 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 43. Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift 
 you can present every moment with the cumulative force of 
 a w^hole 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 per- 
 son has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have 
 taught Shakespeare ? Where is the master who could have 
 instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton ? 
 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 imitates in the original crisis 
 when he performs a great act, I will tell him who else than 
 himself can teach him. Shakespeare will never be made by 
 the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned thee, 
 and thou canst not hope too much or dare too much. There is 
 at this 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 itself; but if 
 I can hear what these patriarchs say, surely I can reply to 
 them in the same loitch 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. 
 
 44. (fl) As our religion, our education, our art look abroad, 
 
 43. Would E, object to a child's imitating the writing in a copy- 
 book ? Could the child show any originality in doing this ? How 
 best may one prepare to " present " his own gift ? How did Frank- 
 lin and Washington prepare? What do we "reproduce of the 
 Foreworld," if we cannot make statues like those of Phidias or 
 write poems like those of Dante ? 
 
 44. What can one pupil do to improve his class in scholarship, 
 manners, etc. ? 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. ^^ 
 
 so does our spirit of society. All men plume themselves 
 on the improvement of society, and no man improves. 
 
 45 Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one 
 side as it gains on the other. Its progress is only apparent 
 like the workers of a treadmill. It nndergoes contmual 
 chan-es- it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is Christianized, it 
 is ricdi, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. 
 For everything that is given, something is taken. Society 
 acquires new arts and loses old instincts. What a contrast 
 between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, 
 with a watch, a pencil, and a bill of exchange in his pocket, 
 and the naked New Zealander, whose property is a club, a 
 spear, a mat, and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep 
 under But compare the health of the two men, and you 
 shall see that his aboriginal strength the white man has 
 lost If the traveler tell us truly, strike the savage with a 
 broad axe, and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and heal 
 as if you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow 
 shall send the white to his grave. 
 
 46 The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the 
 use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but loses so 
 much support of muscle. He has got a fine Geneva watch 
 but he has lost the 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 ob- 
 serve ; the equinox he knows as little ; and the whole bright 
 
 45 46 What else has the civilized man lost besides endurance ? 
 Whai has he gained ? Which is better, on the whole, to have a 
 watch, or merely to know how to tell time by the sun ? Can the 
 civilized man regain any of the advantages of the uncivilized, and yet 
 keep his own^ How does the insurance office increase accidents, 
 libraries overload wit, etc. ? What made a man a stoic? Do 
 you think every stoic was equally stoical ? 
 
60 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 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 number of accidents ; 
 and it may be a question whether machinery does not en- 
 cumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some 
 energy, by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and 
 forms some vigor of wild virtue. For every stoic was a 
 stoic ; but in Christendom where is the Christian ? 
 
 47. 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 ob- 
 served between the great men of the first and of the last 
 ages ; nor can all the science, art, religion, and philosophy 
 of the nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than 
 Plutarch's 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 
 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 compensate its good. Hud- 
 son and Behring accomplished so much in their fishing-boats 
 as to astonish Parry and Franklin, whose equipment ex- 
 hausted the resources of science and art. Galileo, with an 
 opera-glass, discovered a more splendid series of facts than 
 any one since. Columbus found the New World in an un- 
 decked boat. It is curious to see the periodical disuse and 
 
 47. Who are the greatest men of this century, and why are they 
 great ? Are men of to-day any greater because of our many inven- 
 tions ? Have these inventions benefited men or harmed them ? 
 Could Napoleon conquer a country by the bivouac to-day ? • What 
 reason had Napoleon for the thought expressed in the last sent once ? 
 Of. Compensation, 10, "For everything you gain," etc. 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 61 
 
 perishing of means and machinery which were introdnced 
 with loud laudation, a few years or centuries before. The 
 great genius returns to essential man. We reckoned the 
 improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of sci- 
 ence, and yet Napoleon conquered Europe by the bivouac, 
 which consisted of falling back on naked valor, and disen- 
 cumbering it of all aids. The Emperor held it impossible 
 to make a perfect army, says Las Casas, " without abolish- 
 ing our arms, magazines, commissaries, and carriages, until 
 in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should re- 
 ceive his supply of corn, grind it in his handmill, and bake 
 his bread himself." 
 
 48. Society is a wave. The Avave moves onward, but the 
 water of which it is composed does not. The same particle 
 does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only 
 phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation to-day, next 
 year die, and their experience with them. 
 
 49. And so the reliance on property, including the reli- 
 ance 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 deprecate 
 assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on 
 property. They measure their esteem of each other by 
 what each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated 
 man becomes ashamed of his property, ashamed of what he 
 
 48. Do you think the illustration of the wave a fair one ? Is 
 it of no permanent benefit to make a society or a class better ? 
 Are we gaining anything from the early experience of our nation ? 
 For a man to be called good, must he be better or worse than would 
 have been the case one century ago ? 
 
 49. Do we punish more severely crimes against the property or 
 against the person ? How was it in earlier times ? Does a man 
 
Q2 SELECTIONS FROM EMEBSON. 
 
 has, out of new respect for his being. Especially he hates 
 what he has, if he sees that it is accidental, came to him 
 by inheritance, or gift, or crime ; then he feels that it is not 
 having; it does not belong to him, has no root in him, and 
 merely lies there, because no revolution or no robber takes 
 it away. But that which a man is, does always by neces- 
 sity 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 life," said the Caliph Ali, "is seeking after 
 thee ; therefore be at rest from seeking after it." Our de- 
 pendence on Ihese foreign goods leads us to our slavish re- 
 spect for numbers. The political parties meet in numerous 
 conventions ; the greater the concourse, and with each new 
 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 manner the re- 
 formers summon conventions, and vote and resolve in mul- 
 titude. But not so, O friends ! will the God deign to enter 
 and inhabit you, but by a method precisely the reverse. It is 
 only as a man puts off from himself all externar 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 end- 
 less mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear 
 
 gain anything in acquiring property ? in inheriting it ? If we make 
 a government, is it want of self-reliance to depend upon it ? Is 
 what a man has in any way a measure of what he is, or of what he 
 has had an opportunity to become ? Why are we surprised to find 
 a man who owns a fine library ignorant of books ? Why do con- 
 ventions arouse enthusiasm ? Is a man stronger in any way because 
 he stands alone ? 
 
SELF-RELIANCE. 63 
 
 the upholder of 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 per- 
 ceivino- throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, in- 
 stantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands 
 his limbs, works miracles ; just as a man who stands on his 
 feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head. 
 
 50 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 with 
 Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the \\ill 
 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 external 
 event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are pre- 
 paring 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 principles. 
 
 50 Is it unwise to let any "external event" make us happy? 
 Is it wise or unwise to allow very small things to make us happy? 
 Has one a right to be unhappy ? Give a summary of this essay in 
 one sentence. 
 
MANNERS. 
 
 1. Half the world, it is said, knows not liow 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 husbandry of the 
 modern inhabitants of Gournou (west of old Thebes) is 
 philosophical to a fault. To set up their housekeeping, 
 nothing is requisite but two or three earthen pots, a stone 
 to grind meal, and a mat which is the bed. The house, 
 namely, a tomb, is ready without rent or taxes. No rain 
 can pass through the roof, and there is no door, for there 
 is no want of one, as there is nothing to lose. If the 
 house do not please them, they walk out and enter another, 
 as there are several hundreds at their command. "It is 
 somewhat singular," adds Belzoni, to whom we owe this 
 account, "to talk of happiness among people who live in 
 sepulchers, among the corpses and rags of an ancient nation 
 which they know nothing of." In the deserts of Borgoo, 
 the rock-Tibboos still dwell in caves, like cliff-swallows, 
 and the language of these negroes is compared by their 
 neigbbors to the shrieking of bats and to the whistling of 
 birds. Again, the Bornoos have no proper names; indi- 
 viduals are called after their height, thickness, or other 
 accidental quality, and have nicknames merely. But the 
 
 1. What is the main statement? How does E. illustrate it? 
 
 Are these savages connected with us by our necessities or our 
 luxuries ? 
 
 64 
 
MANNERS. 
 
 Q5 
 
 salt, the dates, the ivory, and the gold, for which these 
 horrible regions are visited, find their way into countries 
 where the purchaser and consumer can hardly be ranked in 
 one race with these cannibals and man-stealers ; countries 
 where man serves himself with metals, wood, stone, glass, 
 gum, cotton, silk, and wool; honors himself with architec- 
 ture ; writes laws, and contrives to execute his will through 
 the hands of many nations; and especially, establishes a 
 select society, running through all the countries of intelli- 
 gent men, a self-constituted aristocracy, or fraternity of 
 the best, which, without Avritten law or exact usage of any 
 kind, perpetuates itself, colonizes every new-planted island, 
 and adopts and makes its own Avhatever personal beauty or 
 extraordinary native endowment anywhere appears. 
 
 2. What fact more conspicuous in modern history than 
 the creation of the gentleman? Chivalry is that, and loy- 
 alty is that, and in English literature, half the drama and 
 all 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 attached to 
 it, is a homage to personal and incommunicable properties. 
 Frivolous and fantastic additions have got associated with 
 the name, but the steady interest of mankind in it must be 
 attributed to the valuable properties which it designates. 
 An element which unites all the most forcible persons of 
 every country, makes them intelligible and agreeable to each 
 other, and is somewhat so precise, that it is at once felt if 
 an individual lack the masonic sign, — cannot be any casual 
 product, but must be an average result of the character and 
 
 2. What is meant by "incommunicable properties'' ? What 
 
 qualities unite in E.'s ideal gentleman? What is the "element 
 
 which unites," etc . ? AVhy does the ideal gentleman of to-day differ 
 from the gentleman of earlier ages ? 
 
6Q SELECTIONS FROM EMEESON. 
 
 faculties universally found in men. It seems a certain 
 permanent average ; as the atmosphere is a permanent com- 
 position, whilst so many gases are combined only to be 
 decompounded. Comme ilfant, is the Frenchman's descrip- 
 tion of good society : as ive must be. It is a spontaneous 
 fruit of talents and feelings of precisely that class who 
 have most vigor, who take the lead in the world of this 
 hour,' and, though far from pure, far from constituting the 
 gladdest and highest tone of human feeling, is as good as the 
 whole society permits it to be. It is made of the spirit 
 more than of the talent of men, and is a compound result, 
 into which every great force enters as an ingredient, namely, 
 virtue, wit, beauty, wealth, and power. 
 
 3. There is something equivocal in all the words in use 
 to express the excellence of manners and social cultivation, 
 because the quantities are iiuxional, and the last effect is 
 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, and the heroic 
 character which the gentleman imports. The usual words, 
 however, must be respected: they will be found to contain 
 the root of the matter. The point of distinction in all this 
 class of names, as courtesy, chivalry, fashion, and the like, 
 is that the flower and fruit, not the grain of the tree, are 
 contemplated. It is beauty which is the aim this time, 
 
 3. Why is it difficult to put our idea of the gentleman into words ? 
 What additional qualities does this paragraph state that the gentleman 
 must possess ? Which quality seems to you the most important ? 
 Why do we commonly think of the gentleman as possessing some 
 fortune ? Is fortune essential ? What kind of persons were emi- 
 nent in feudal days ? What was " personal force " then, and how 
 does it show itself now ? Why has the field of competition changed ? 
 
MANNEBS. 67 
 
 and not worth. The result is now m question, although 
 our words intimate well enough the popular feeling, that 
 the appearance supposes a substance. The gentleman is a 
 man of truth, lord of his own actions, and expressing that 
 lordship in his behavior, not in any manner dependent 
 and servile either on persons, or oj^inions, or possessions. 
 Beyond this fact of truth and real force, the word denotes 
 good-nature or benevolence; manhood hrst, and then gen- 
 tleness. The popular notion certainly adds a condition of 
 ease and fortune ; but that is a natural result of personal 
 force and love, that they should possess and dispense the 
 goods of the world. In times of violence, every eminent 
 person must fall in with many opportunities to approve his 
 stoutness and worth; therefore every man's name that 
 emerged at all from the mass in the feudal ages, rattles in 
 our ear like a flourish of trumpets. But personal force 
 never goes out of fashion. That is still paramount to-day, 
 and in the moving crowd of good society, the men of valor 
 and reality are known, and rise to their natural place. The 
 competition is transferred from war to politics and trade, 
 but the personal force appears readily enough in these new 
 arenas. 
 
 4. Power first, or no leading class. In politics and in 
 trade, bruisers and pirates are of better promise than talkers 
 and clerks. God knows that all sorts of gentlemen knock 
 at the door; but whenever used in strictness and with any 
 emphasis, the name will be found to point at original 
 energy. It describes a man standing in his own right, and 
 
 4. What kind of "power" is needed to-day? How does E. 
 
 describe a man of power ? How can a man attain to ' ' untaught 
 methods " ? Can he become original by aiming at originality ? 
 
 In difficult positions which is of more value, memory or thought ? 
 e.g. Hobson before Santiago? Why is Lord Falkland's maxim 
 
 called " timid " ? How does E. illustrate the power of a gentleman ? 
 
68 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 working after untaught methods. In a good lord there 
 must first be a good animal, at least to the extent of yield- 
 ing the incomparable advantage of animal spirits. The 
 ruling class must have more, but they must have 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 their friendly and festive meet- 
 ings, is full of courage, and of attempts which intimidate 
 the pale scholar. The courage Avhich girls exhibit is like 
 a battle of Lundy's Lane or a sea light. The intellect 
 relies on memory to make some supplies to face these 
 extemporaneous squadrons. But memory is a base mendi- 
 cant with basket and badge, in the presence of these sud- 
 den 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 believing the timid maxim of Lord Falkland 
 ("that for ceremony there must go two to it; since a bold 
 fellow will go through the cunningest forms,") and am of 
 opinion that the gentleman is the bold fellow whose forms 
 are not to be broken through ; and only that plenteous nature 
 is rightful master which is the complement of whatever 
 person it converses with.. My gentleman gives the law 
 where he is; he will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral 
 veterans in the field,- and outshine all courtesy in the hall. 
 He is good company for pirates and good with academi- 
 cians, so that it is useless to fortify yourself against him; 
 he has the private entrance to all minds, and I could as 
 easily exclude myself as him. The famous gentlemen of 
 Asia and Europe have been of this strong type ; Saladin, 
 Sapor, the Cid, Julius Ci3esar, Scipio, Alexander, Pericles, 
 and the lordliest personages. They sat very carelessly in 
 their chairs, and were too excellent themselves to value any 
 condition at a higrh rate. 
 
MAN NEBS. 69 
 
 5. A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the popu- 
 lar judgment, to the completion of this man of the world; 
 and it is a material deputy which walks through the dance 
 which the first has led. Money is not essential, but this 
 wide affinity is, which transcends the habits of clique and 
 caste, and makes itself felt by men of all classes. If the 
 aristocrat is only valid in fashionable circles and not with 
 truckmen, he will never be a leader in fashion; and if the 
 man of the people cannot speak on equal terms with the 
 gentleman, so that the gentleman shall perceive that he is 
 already really of his own order, he is not to be feared. 
 Diogenes, Socrates, and Epaminondas, 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 supply to every generation one of these 
 well-appointed knights, but every collection of men fur- 
 nishes some example of the class; and the politics of this 
 country, and the trade of every town, are controlled by 
 these hardy and irresponsible doers, who have invention 
 to take the lead, and a broad sympathy which puts them in 
 fellowship with crowds, and makes their action popular. 
 
 6. The manners of this class are observed and caught 
 with devotion by men of taste. The association of these 
 
 5. What does E. mean by the phrase, "man of the world"? 
 What is more essential to the gentleman than money, and how does it 
 manifest itself in the aristocrat and in the man of the people ? What 
 qualities make a boy a leader among boys ? Is a leader always a 
 popular boy ? Cf. the last sentence with the fourth sentence of 
 paragraph 4. Can one cultivate " a broad sympathy " ? 
 
 6. Is it easy to be rude to a courteous person ? How, then, are 
 fine manners "formidable" ? Why is it better policy to meet a 
 rude person courteously ? How do good manners facilitate school- 
 life ? What hindrances do they remove ? What common school- 
 rules would be unnecessary if the manners of all were perfect ? Why 
 
V 
 
 70 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 masters with eacli other, and with men intelligent of their 
 merits, is mutually agreeable and stimulating. The good 
 forms, the happiest expressions of each, are repeated and 
 adopted. By swift consent everything superfluous is 
 dropped, everything graceful is renewed. Fine manners 
 show themselves formidable to the uncultivated man. They 
 are a subtler science of defense 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 atmos- 
 phere, wherein life is a less troublesome game, and not a 
 misunderstanding rises between the players. Manners aim 
 to facilitate life, to get rid of impediments, and bring the 
 man pure to energize. They aid our dealing and conver- 
 sation, as a railway aids traveling, by getting rid of all 
 avoidable obstructions of the road, and leaving nothing to 
 be conquered but pure space. These forms very soon be- 
 come 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 sem- 
 blance, the most puissant, the most fantastic and frivolous, 
 the most feared and followed, and which morals and vio- 
 lence assault in vain. 
 
 7. There exists a strict relation between the class of 
 power and the exclusive and polished circles. The last 
 
 would the rule of turning to the right still be necessary ? What connec- 
 tion has fashion with good manners ? Cf . the last sentence of this para- 
 graph. Are fashionable manners and good manners always the same ? 
 7. Why should the " exclusive circles " be interested in the " class 
 of power"? How does E. illustrate this? Is one circle any 
 more "exclusive" than another? What are the greatest men of 
 to-day doing ? Illustrate. Why does fashion often care less for 
 the great than for their children? How would a descendant of 
 
 Shakespeare be treated ? Why need the city be recruited from the 
 country ? Cf. Self-Reliance, 34, "A sturdy lad," etc. 
 
MANNERS. 71 
 
 are always filled or filling from the first. The strong men 
 usually give some allowance even to the petulances of 
 fashion, for that affinity they find in it. Napoleon, child 
 of the revolution, destroyer of the old noblesse, never 
 ceased to court the Faubourg St. Germain; 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 posthu- 
 mous honor. It does not often caress the great, but the 
 children of the great; it is a hall of the past. It usually 
 sets its face against the great of this hour. Great men are 
 not commonly in its halls, they are absent in the field ; they 
 are working, not triumphing. Fashion is made up of their 
 children; of those, who, through the value and virtue of 
 somebody, have acquired lustre to their name, marks of 
 distinction, means of cultivation and generosity, and, in 
 their physical organization, a certain health and excellence, 
 which secures to them, if not the highest power to work, 
 yet high power to enjoy. The class of power, the working 
 heroes, the Cortez, 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 beaten out thin ; that the brilliant names of fash- 
 ion 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 thei?' sons, in the ordinary course of things, 
 must yield the possession of the harvest to new competi- 
 tors 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 coun- 
 try which came to town day before yesterday, that is city 
 and court to-day. 
 
72 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 8. 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 
 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 boAvl of 
 milk: and if the people should destroy class after class, 
 until two men only were left, one of these would be the 
 leader, and would be involuntarily served and copied by the 
 other. You may keep this minority out of sight and out of 
 mind, but it is tenacious of life and is one of the estates 
 of the realm. I am the more struck with this tenacity 
 when I see its Avork. It respects the administration of such 
 unimportant matters that we should not look for any dura- 
 bility in its rule. We sometimes meet men under some 
 strong moral influence, as a patriotic, a literary, a religious 
 movement, and feel that the moral sentiment rules man 
 and nature. We think all other distinctions and ties will 
 be slight and fugitive, this of caste or fashion, for example; 
 yet come from year to year, and see how permanent that 
 is, in this Boston or New York life of man, where, too, it 
 has not the least countenance from the law of the land. 
 Not in Egypt or in India a firmer or more impassable line. 
 Here are associations whose ties go over, and under, and 
 through it, a meeting of merchants, a military corps, a 
 
 8. What is the derivation of the word aristocracy? Of what 
 quahties in men are aristocracy and fashion results ? Illustrate the 
 third sentence by the life of Cromwell. Is it a boy's occupation or 
 his interests that have to do with his being a gentleman ? Why 
 cannot an agreeable society be formed of all the boys living on the 
 same street ? What is meant by a man's " intrinsic rank " ? Is 
 there any connection between the intrinsic value of a book and its 
 price ? In what kind of society will a boy find a place ? What 
 is the best way for him to enter good society ? 
 
MANNERS. '^^ 
 
 college-class, afire-club, a professional association, a pot 
 cal a religious convention ;- the persons seem to draw 
 inseparably near; yet, that assembly once dispersed, its 
 m:Xi. will uo^ in the year meet again. Each returns 
 to his degree in the scale of good society, porcelain remains 
 porcelain, and earthen earthen. The objects of fashion may 
 befnvolous, or fashion maybe objectless, but the nature 
 o tliis union and selection can be neither frivolous nor 
 accidental. Each man's rank m that perfect graduation 
 depends on some symmetry in his structure, or -me agre - 
 ment in his structure to the symmetry of society. Its doois 
 unbar instantaneously to a natural claim of t^^^"' °-;^ ^^"^^ 
 A natm-al gentleman finds his way m and will keep he 
 oldest patrician out who has lost his intrinsic lank 
 •pashion understands itself; good-breeding and personal 
 Superiority of whatever country readily fraternize wit^i 
 those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have dis- 
 tinguished themselves in London and Pans by the purity 
 of their tournure. 
 / 9 To say what good of fashion we can, - it rests on 
 ^ reality, and hates nothing so much as pretenders; to 
 exeUe and mystify pretenders, and send them into ever- 
 lasting "Coventry," is its delight. We contemn, in turn, 
 every other gift of men of the world; but the habit, even m 
 little and the least matters, of not appealing to any but our 
 
 9 Why does the habit of appealing to his own sense of propriety 
 make a boy more gentlemanly ? Would it be better to have a defl- 
 "rcode li mann:rs for all occasions ? What has a st^ng -U to 
 do with good manners? Define self-reliance. Does the self 
 relirn tmfn ever care for the advice of others ? What qualities are 
 aCs in fashion? What kind of " self-content " is P ea-g, and 
 what kind is displeasing ? What kind of deference is no g cable 
 What is meant by a man's carrying "his «1>°'« ^^''^f ,,;"f 'l^™ , 
 Ou<.ht a boy's " whole sphere " to be the same at home and m school . 
 
74 SELECTIONS FROM EMEBSON. 
 
 own sense of propriety, constitutes the foundation of all 
 chivalry. There is almost no kind of self-reliance, so it be 
 sane and proportioned, which fashion does not occasionally 
 adopt and give it the freedom of its saloons. A sainted 
 soul is always elegant, and, if it will, passes unchallenged 
 into the most guarded ring. But so will Jock the teamster 
 pass, in some crisis that brings him thither, and find favor, 
 as long as his head is not giddy with the new circumstance, 
 and the iron shoes do not wish to dance in waltzes and 
 cotillons. For there is nothing settled in manners, but the 
 laws of behavior yield to the energy of the individual. The 
 maiden at her first ball, the countryman at a city dinner, 
 believes that there is a ritual according to which every act 
 and compliment must be performed, or the failing party 
 must be cast out of this presence. Later they learn that 
 good sense and character make their own forms every 
 moment, and speak or abstain, take wine or refuse it, stay 
 or go, sit in a chair or sprawl with children on the floor, or 
 stand on their head, or what else soever, in a new and 
 aboriginal way; and that strong will is always in fashion, 
 let who will be unfashionable. All that fashion demands 
 is composure and self-content. A circle of men perfectly 
 well-bred would be a company of sensible persons in which 
 every man's native manners and character appeared. If 
 the fashionist have not this quality, he is nothing. We are 
 such lovers of self-reliance that Ave excuse in a man many 
 sins, if he will show us a complete satisfaction in his posi- 
 tion, which asks no leave to be, of mine or any man's good 
 opinion. But any deference to some eminent man or 
 woman of the world, forfeits all privilege of nobility. He 
 is an underling; I have nothing to do with him; I will 
 speak with his master. A man should not go where he 
 cannot carry his whole sphere or society with him, — not 
 bodily, the whole circle of his friends, but atmospherically. 
 
MANNERS. 75 
 
 He should preserve in a new company the same attitude of 
 mind and reality of relation which his daily associates draw 
 him to, else he is shorn of his best beams, and will be an 
 orphan in the merriest club. "If you could see Vich Ian 
 Vohr with his tail on ! — " But Vich Ian Yohr must 
 always carry his belongings in some fashion, if not added 
 as honor, then severed as disgrace. 
 
 10. There will always be in society certain persons who 
 are mercuries of its approbation, and whose glance will at 
 any time determine for the curious their standing in the 
 world. These are the chamberlains of the lesser gods. 
 Accept their coldness as an omen of grace with the loftier 
 deities, and allow them all their privilege. They are clear 
 in their ofhce, nor could they be thus formidable without 
 their own merits. But do not measure the importance of 
 this class by their pretension, or imagine that a fop can be 
 the dispenser of honor and shame. They pass also at their 
 just rate; for how can they otherwise, in circles which 
 exist as a sort of herald's office for the sifting of character? 
 
 11. As the first thing man requires of man is reality, so 
 that appears in all the forms of society. We pointedly, 
 and by name, introduce the parties to each other. Know 
 you before all heaven and earth, that this is Andrew, and 
 this is Gregory; — they look each other in the eye; they 
 grasp each other's hand, to identify and signalize each other. 
 
 10. "Why cannot a fop be the "dispenser of honor" ? Why is 
 honor shown you by one person of more value than that shown by 
 another ? 
 
 11. Wliy is "reality" the first essential ? AVliy is it that a gen- 
 tleman "never dodges"? What is the best reason for making 
 visits ? Why do we learn more of a person on a country walk than 
 in a parlor ? Why should Napoleon care more for etiquette than 
 Lincoln ? Can an untruthful person show the highest courtesy ? 
 Why? 
 
76 SELECTIONS FROM EMEBSON. 
 
 It is a great satisfaction. A gentleman never dodges j his 
 eyes look straight forward, and he assures the other party, 
 first of all, that lie has been met. For what is it that we 
 seek in so many visits and hospitalities? Is it jowi dra- 
 peries, pictures, and decorations? Or do we not insatiably 
 ask. Was a man in the house? I may easily go into a 
 great household Avhere there is much substance, excellent 
 provision for comfort, luxury, and taste, and yet not 
 encounter there any Amphitryon, Avho shall subordinate 
 these appendages. I may go into a cottage, and find a 
 farmer who feels that he is the man I have come to see, 
 and fronts me accordingly. It was therefore a very natural 
 point of old feudal etiquette that a gentleman who received 
 a visit, though it were of his sovereign, should not leave his 
 roof, but should wait his arrival at the door of his house. 
 No house, though it were the Tuileries or the Escurial, is 
 good for anything without a master. And yet we are not 
 often gratified by this hospitality. Everybody we know sur- 
 rounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, 
 gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as 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 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 retire- 
 ment. Or if, perchance, a searching realist comes to our 
 gate, before whose eye we have no care to stand, then again 
 Ave 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 specta- 
 
BANNERS. 77 
 
 cles. Napoleon remarked them, and speedily managed to 
 .rally them off: and yet Napoleon, in his turn, was not 
 great enough, with eight hundred thousand troops at his 
 back, to face a pair of free-born eyes, but fenced himself 
 with etiquette, and within triple barriers of reserve : and, 
 as all the world knows from Madame de Stael, was wont, 
 when he found himself observed,' to discharge his face of 
 all expression. But emperors and rich men are by no 
 means the most skillful masters of good manners. No 
 rent-roll nor army-list can dignify skulking and dissimula- 
 tion; and the first point of courtesy must always be truth, 
 as really all the forms of good-breeding point that way. 
 
 12. I have just been reading, in Mr. Hazlitt's transla- 
 tion, Montaigne's account of his journey into Italy, and 
 am struck with nothing more agreeably than the self- 
 respecting fashions of the time. His arrival in each place, 
 the arrival of a gentleman of France, is an event of some 
 consequence. Wherever he goes, he pays a visit to what- 
 ever prince or gentleman of note resides upon his road, as a 
 duty to himself and to civilization. When he leaves any 
 house in which he has lodged for a few weeks, he causes 
 his arms to be painted and hung up as a perpetual sign to 
 the house, as was the custom of gentlemen. 
 
 13. The complement of this graceful self-respect, and 
 that of all the points of good breeding I most require and 
 insist upon, is deference. I like that every chair should 
 
 12. Did Montaigne "put on airs " ? 
 
 13. Is it honest to show deference to one whom you do not think 
 your superior ? Can every one show himself a king ? What 
 qualities in a gentleman would prevent "noise" ? What qualities 
 in a lady would make her "serene" ? Ought we to be interested 
 in all the petty details about our friends ? What is the difference 
 between hurry and haste ? May a man be courteous without 
 intellectual cultivation ? 
 
78 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 be a throne, and hold a king. I prefer a tendency to stateli- 
 ness to an excess of fellowship. Let the incommunicable 
 objects of nature and the metaphysical isolation of man 
 teach us independence. Let us not be too much acquainted. 
 I would have a man enter his house through a hall filled 
 with heroic and sacred sculptures, that he might not want 
 the hint of tranquillity arid self -poise. We should meet each 
 morning as from foreign countries, and, spending the day 
 together, should depart at night as into foreign countries. 
 In all things I would have the island of a man inviolate. 
 Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all 
 around Olympus. No degree of affection need invade this 
 religion. This is myrrh and rosemary to keep the other 
 sweet. Lovers should guard their strangeness. If they 
 forgive too much, all slides into confusion and meanness. 
 It is easy to x^ush this deference to a Chinese etiquette, but 
 coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate fine quali- 
 ties. A gentleman makes no noise; a lady is serene. 
 Proportionate is our disgust at those invaders who fill a 
 studious house with blast and running, to secure some pal- 
 try convenience. Not less I dislike. a low sympathy of 
 each with his neighbor's needs. Must we have a good 
 understanding with one another's palates? as foolish people 
 Avho have lived long together know when each wants salt 
 or sugar. I pray my companion, if he wishes for bread, to 
 ask me for bread, and if he wishes for sassafras or arsenic, 
 to ask me for them, and not to hold out his plate, as if I 
 knew already. Every natural function can be dignified by 
 deliberation and privacy. Let us leave hurry to slaves. 
 The compliments and ceremonies of our breeding should 
 signify, however remotely, the recollection of the grandeur 
 of our destiny. 
 
 14. The flower of courtesy does not very well bide hand- 
 ling, but if we dare to open another leaf and explore what 
 
MANNERS. 79 
 
 parts go to its conformation, we shall find also an intel- 
 lectual quality. To the leaders of men, the brain as well 
 as the flesh and the heart must furnish a proportion. 
 Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. 
 Men are too coarsely made for the delicacy of beautiful 
 carriage and customs. It is not quite sufficient to good 
 breeding, a union of kindness and independence. We im- 
 peratively require a perception of, and a homage to beauty 
 in our companions. Other virtues are in request 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 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 under certain limita- 
 tions and to certain ends. It entertains every natural gift. 
 Social in its nature, it respects everything which tends to 
 unite men. It delights in measure. The love of beauty is 
 mainly the love of measure or proportion. The person who 
 screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with 
 heat, puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to 
 be loved, love measure. You must have genius or a pro- 
 digious usefulness, if you will hide the want of measure. 
 This perception comes in to polish and perfect the parts of 
 the social instrument. Society will pardon much to genius 
 
 14. What three qualities does E. think a leader must possess ? 
 Cf. 5, last sentence. Can " fine perceptions " be cultivated ? To 
 what kinds of beauty should homage be paid ? What has good 
 
 sense to do with moderation ? Why do we avoid "the person who 
 screams," etc. ? Can you judge a person by noticing what he laughs 
 at ? Is society necessarily conventional ? What is the derivation 
 of conventional? What is E.'s idea of "good fellowship" ? 
 
80 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 and special gifts, but, being in its nature a convention, it 
 loves what is conventional, or what belongs to coming 
 together. That makes the good and bad of manners, 
 namely, what helps or hinders fellowship. For fashion is 
 not good sense absolute, but relative; not good sense pri- 
 vate, but good sense entertaining company. It hates corners 
 and sharp points of character, hates quarrelsome, egotisti- 
 cal, solitary, and gloomy people ; hates whatever can inter- 
 fere with total blending of parties; whilst it values all 
 peculiarities as in the highest degree refreshing, which can 
 consist with good fellowship. And besides the general 
 infusion of wit to heighten civility, the direct splendor of 
 intellectual power is ever welcome in fine society as the 
 costliest addition to its rule and its credit. 
 
 15. The dry light must shine in to adorn our festival, 
 but it must be tempered and shaded, or that will also 
 offend. Accuracy is essential to beauty, and quick percep- 
 tions 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 
 sleepy, languishing manners, so that they cover sense, 
 grace, and good-will; the air of drowsy strength which 
 disarms criticism, perha]3S because such a person seems to 
 reserve himself for the best of the game, and not spend 
 himself on surfaces; an ignoring eye, which does not see 
 the annoyances, shifts, and inconveniences that cloud the 
 brow and smother the voice of the sensitive. 
 
 16. Therefore, besides personal force and so much per- 
 
 15. How may accuracy become an annoyance ? In what respects 
 would E. wisli people to have an " ignoring eye," and in what to have 
 an observing eye ? Cf. 16, first sentence. 
 
 16. Define good-nature. What is the difference between insight 
 and intelligence ? How may one be a success in society ? What 
 
MANNERS. 81 
 
 ception as constitutes unerring taste, society demands in its 
 patrician class another element already intimated, which it 
 significantly terms good-nature, expressing all degrees of 
 generosity, from the lowest willingness and faculty to 
 oblige, up to the heights of magnanimity and love. Insight 
 we must have, or we shall run against one another and miss 
 the way to our food; but intellect is selfish and barren. 
 The secret of success in society, is a certain heartiness and 
 sympathy. A man who is not happy in the company cannot 
 find any word in his memory that will fit the occasion. All 
 his information is a little impertinent. A man who is 
 happy there, finds in every turn of the conversation equally 
 lucky occasions for the introduction of that which he has to 
 say. The favorites of society and what it calls ivJiole souls, 
 are able men and of more spirit than wit, who have no 
 uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and 
 the company; contented and contenting, at a marriage or a 
 funeral, a ball or a jury, a water-party or a shooting-match. 
 England, which is rich in gentlemen, furnished, in the be- 
 ginning of the present century, a good model of that genius 
 which the world loves, in Mr. Fox, who added to his great 
 abilities the most social disposition and real love of men. 
 Parliamentary history has few better passages than the 
 debate in Avhich Burke and Fox separated in the House of 
 Commons ; when Fox urged on his old friend the claims of 
 old friendship with such tenderness that the house was 
 moved to tears. Another anecdote is so close to my matter 
 that I must hazard the story. A tradesman who had long 
 dunned him for a note of three hundred guineas, found him 
 one day counting gold, and demanded payment: — "No," 
 said Fox, " I owe this money to Sheridan ; it is a debt of 
 
 is E.'s idea of a social favorite ? Wliat thoughts of E. does the 
 
 second story of Fox iUustrate ? 
 
/ 
 
 82 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 honor; if an accident should happen to me, he has nothing 
 to show." "Then," said the creditor, "I change my debt 
 into a debt of honor," and tore the note in pieces. Fox 
 thanked the man for his confidence and paid him, saying, 
 "his debt was of older standing, and Sheridan must wait." 
 Lover of liberty, friend of the Hindoo, friend of the African 
 slavC;, he possessed a great personal popularity; and Napo- 
 leon said of him on the occasion of his visit to Paris, in 
 1805, "Mr. Fox Avill always hold the first place in an 
 assembly at the Tuileries." 
 
 17. We may easily seem ridiculous in our eulogy of 
 courtesy whenever we insist on benevolence as its founda- 
 tion. The painted phantasm Fashion rises to cast a species 
 of derision on what we say. But I will neither be driven 
 from some allowance to Fashion as a symbolic institution, 
 nor from the belief that love is the basis of courtesy. We 
 must obtain that, if we can; but by all means we must affirm 
 this. Life owes much of its spirit to these sharp contrasts. 
 Fashion, which affects to be honor, is often, in all men's 
 experience, only a ballroom code. Yet, so long as it is the 
 highest circle, in the imagination of the best heads on the 
 planet, there is something necessary and excellent in it; 
 for it is not to be supposed that men have agreed to be the 
 dupes of anything preposterous; and the respect which 
 these mysteries inspire in the most rude and sylvan charac- 
 ters, and the curiosity with which details of high life are 
 read, betray the universality of the love of cultivated man- 
 ners. I know that a comic disparity would be felt, if we 
 should enter the acknowledged "first circles" and apply 
 these terrific standards of justice, beauty, and benefit, to 
 
 17. Why is love, or benevolence, the basis of courtesy ? Is the 
 "love of cultivated manners"' universal ? Why does E. find some- 
 thing good in fashion ? What second-rate claims will fashion 
 admit ? Of such claims which is the strongest ? 
 
3IANNERS. 83 
 
 the individuals actually found there. Monarchs and heroes, 
 sages and lovers, these gallants are not. Fashion has many 
 classes and many rules of probation and admission, and not 
 the best alone. There is not only the right of conquest 
 which genius pretends, — the individual demonstrating his 
 natural aristocracy best of the best ; — but less claims will 
 pass for the time ; for Fashion loves lions, and points, like 
 Circe, to her horned company. This gentleman is this 
 afternoon arrived from Denmark; and this is my LordEide, 
 who came yesterday from Bagdad; here is Captain Friese, 
 from Cape Turnagain; and Captain Symmes, from the in- 
 terior of the earth ; and Monsieur 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 ex- 
 tinguished Vesuvius by pouring into it the Bay of Naples; 
 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 waited for. The artist, the scholar, and, in gen- 
 eral, the clerisy, wins its way up into these places, and 
 gets represented here, somewhat on this footing of conquest. 
 Another mode is to pass through all the degrees, spending 
 a year and a day in St. Michael's Square, being steeped in 
 Cologne water, and perfumed, and dined, and introduced, 
 and properly grounded in all the biography and politics and 
 anecdotes of the boudoirs. 
 
 18. Yet these fineries may have grace and wit. Let 
 there be grotesque sculpture about the gates and offices of 
 temples. Let the creed and commandments even have the 
 
 18. To what does E. compare the "grotesque sculptures," and to 
 what the temples? How is parody "homage," e.g. a parody of a 
 poem ? What qualities must service possess to be noble ? If 
 
84 SELECTIONS FBOM EMERSON. 
 
 saucy homage of parody. The forms of politeness univer- 
 sally express benevolence in superlative degrees. What if 
 they are in the mouths of selfish men, and used as means of 
 selfishness? What if the false gentleman almost bows the 
 true out of the world? AVhat if the false gentleman con- 
 trives so to address his companion, as civilly to exclude all 
 others from his discourse, and also to make them feel ex- 
 cluded? Keal service will not lose its nobleness. All 
 generosity is not merely French and sentimental; nor is it 
 to be concealed, that living blood and a passion of kindness 
 does at last distinguish God's gentleman from Fashion's. 
 The epitaph of Sir Jenkin Grout is not wholly unintelli- 
 gible to the present age. "Here lies Sir Jenkin Grout, 
 who loved his friend and persuaded his enemy : what his 
 mouth ate, his hand paid for : what his servants robbed, he 
 restored : if a woman gave him pleasure, he supported her 
 in pain : he never forgot his children : and whoso touched 
 his finger, drew after it his whole body." Even the line 
 of heroes is not utterly extinct. There is still ever some 
 admirable person in plain clothes standing on the wharf, 
 Avho 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 Philhellene ; 
 some fanatic who plants shade-trees for the second and 
 third generation, and orchards when he is grown old ; some 
 well-concealed piety ; some just man happy in an ill-fame ; 
 some youth ashamed of the favors of fortune, and impa- 
 tiently casting them on other shoulders. And these are the 
 centers of society, on which it returns for fresh impulses. 
 These are the creators of Fashion, which is an attempt to 
 
 fashion sometimes admits both the real and the false gentleman, how 
 is the real one finally distinguished ? Cf. 17, sentence 3. What 
 was Washington's jn-eparation for being commander-in-chief ? What 
 kinds of men does E. regard as heroes ? 
 
MANNERS. 
 
 85 
 
 organize beauty of behavior. The beautiful and the gener- 
 ou° are, in the theory, the doctors and apostles of this 
 church; Scipio, and the Cid, and Sir Philip Sidney, and 
 Washington, and every pure and valiant heart who wor- 
 shiped beauty by word and by deed. The persons who con- 
 stitute the natural aristocracy are not found in the actual 
 aristocracy, or only on its edge; as the chemical energy of • 
 the spectrum is found to be greatest just outside of the 
 spectrum. Yet that is the infirmity of the seneschals, who 
 do not know their sovereign when he appears. The theory 
 of society supposes the existence and sovereignty of these. 
 It divines afar off their coming. It says with the elder 
 gods, — 
 
 " As Heaven and Earth are fairer far 
 Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs ; 
 And as we sliow beyond that Heaven and Earth, 
 In form and shape compact and beautiful ; 
 So, on our heels a fresh perfection treads ; 
 A power, more strong in beauty, born of us, 
 And fated to excel us, as we pass 
 In glory that old Darkness : 
 
 for, 'tis the eternal law, 
 
 That first in beauty shall be first in might." 
 
 y 19. Therefore, within the ethnical circle of good society, 
 there is a narrower and higher circle, concentration of its 
 light, and flower of courtesy, to which there is always a 
 
 19. Who compose the "purest circle of aristocracy in Europe" ? 
 Is aristocracy used here in its original sense '? Illustrate the com- 
 parison between Scott and Shakespeare. In the sentence, "Once 
 or twice," etc., what does E. show to be his idea of the cause of fine 
 manners? Can one consciously acquire a beautiful character? 
 Can one consciously be a hero ? Why does a picture of natural 
 scenery generally require human beings or suggestions of them to be 
 satisfactory ? 
 
86 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 tacit appeal of pride and reference, as to its inner and 
 imperial court, the parliament of love and cliivahy. And 
 this is constituted of those persons in whom heroic disposi- 
 tions are native, with the love of beauty, the delight in 
 society, and the power to embellish the passing day. If 
 the individuals who compose the purest circles of aristoc- 
 racy in Europe, the guarded blood of centuries, should X3ass 
 in review, in such manner as that we could at leisure and 
 critically inspect their behavior, we might find no gentle- 
 man and no lady; for, although excellent specimens of 
 courtesy and high-breeding would gratify us in the assem- 
 blage, in the particulars we should detect offense. Because 
 elegance comes of no breeding, but of birth. There must 
 be romance of character, or the most fastidious exclusion 
 of impertinencies will not avail. It must be genius which 
 takes that direction ; it must be not courteous, but courtesy. 
 High behavior is as rare in fiction as it is in fact. Scott is 
 praised for the fidelity with which he painted the demeanor 
 and conversation of the superior classes. Certainly, kings 
 and queens, nobles and great ladies, had some right to com- 
 plain of the absurdity that had been put in their mouths 
 before the days of Waverley: but neither does Scott's dia- 
 logue bear criticism. His lords brave each other in smart 
 epigrammatic sx^eeches, but the dialogue is in costume, and 
 does not please on the second reading; it is not warm with 
 life. In Shakespeare alone, the speakers do not strut and 
 bridle, the dialogue is easily great, and he adds to so many 
 titles that of being the best-bred man in England, and in 
 Christendom. Once or twice in a lifetime we are permitted 
 to enjoy the charm of noble manners, in the presence of a 
 man or woman who have no bar in their nature, but whose 
 character emanates freely in their word and gesture. A 
 beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; a beautiful 
 behavior is better than a beautiful form : it gives a higher 
 
 n 
 
MANNERS. 87 
 
 pleasure than statues or pictures ; it is the finest of the fine 
 arts. A man is but a little thing in the midst of the objects 
 of nature, yet, by the moral quality radiating from his 
 countenance, he may abolish all considerations of magni- 
 tude, and in his manners equal the majesty of the world. 
 I have seen an individual, whose manners, though wholly 
 within the conventions of elegant society, were never 
 learned there, but were original and commanding, and held 
 out protection and prosperity ; one who did not need the 
 aid of a court-suit, but carried the holiday in his eye ; who 
 exhilarated the fancy by flinging wide the doors of new 
 modes of existence; who shook off the captivity of eti- 
 quette, with happy, spirited bearing, good-natured and free 
 as Eobin Hood; yet with the port of an emperor, if need 
 be, — calm, serious, and fit to stand the gaze of millions. 
 20. The open air and the fields, the street and public 
 chambers, are the places where Man executes his will; let 
 him yield or divide the scepter at the door of the house. 
 Woman, with her instinct of behavior, instantly detects in 
 man a love of trifles, any coldness or imbecility, or, in 
 short, any want of that large, flowing, and magnanimous 
 deportment which is indispensable as an exterior in the hall. 
 Our American institutions have been friendly to her, and 
 at this moment I esteem it a chief felicity of this country, 
 that it excels in women. A certain awkward consciousness 
 of inferiority in the men, may give rise to the new chivalry 
 
 20. What can raise a woman into ' ' heroical and godlike regions ' ' ? 
 What qualities in the ideal woman do Minerva, Juno, and Polymnia 
 typify? Can a schoolgirl show how she expects to be treated? 
 What qualities make a woman able to meet all kinds of people accep- 
 tably ? How did the Persian Lilla make people noble ? Who 
 is liked better, the girl who tries to shine, or the one who tries to show 
 the best points in other girls ? Why do not all imitate the favorite ? 
 How can a girl be a benefactor to other girls ? 
 
«8 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 in behalf of Women's Rights. Certainly, let her be as 
 much better placed in the laws and in social forms as the 
 most zealous reformer can ask, but I confide so entirely in 
 her inspiring and musical nature, that I believe only her- 
 self 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 firmness with which she 
 treads her upward path, she convinces the coarsest calcu- 
 lators that another road exists than that which their feet 
 know. But besides those avIio 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 over and fills the house with perfume; 
 who inspire us with courtesy; who unloose our tongues, 
 and we speak; who anoint our eyes, and we see? We say 
 things we never thought to have said; for once, our walls 
 of habitual reserve vanished and left us at large; we were 
 children playing with children in a wide field of flowers. 
 Steep us, we cried, in these influences, for days, for weeks, 
 and we shall be sunny poets, and will write out in many- 
 colored words the romance that you are. Was it Hafiz or 
 Firdousi that said of his Persian Lilla, " She was an ele- 
 mental 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 power- 
 ful to reconcile all heterogeneous persons into one society ; 
 like air or water, an element of such a great range of affini- 
 ties 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 th?tt whatsoever she 
 did became her. She had too much sympathy and desire 
 to please than that you could say her manners were marked 
 with dignity, yet no princess' could surpass her clear and 
 
BANNERS. 89 
 
 erect demeanor on each occasion. She did not study the 
 Persian grammar nor the books of the seven poets, but all 
 the poems of the seven seemed to be written upon her. For 
 though the bias of her nature was not to thought, but to 
 sympathy, yet was she so perfect in her own nature as to 
 meet intellectual persons by the fullness of her heart, 
 warming them by her sentiments; believing, as she did, 
 that by dealing nobly with all, all would show themselves 
 noble." 
 
 21. I know that this Byzantine pile of chivalry or Fash- 
 ion, which seems so fair and picturesque to those who look 
 at the contemporary facts for science or for entertainment, 
 is not equally pleasant to all spectators. The constitution 
 of our society makes it a giant's castle to the ambitious 
 youth who have not found their names enrolled in its 
 Golden Book, and whom it has excluded from its coveted 
 honors and privileges. They have yet to learn that its 
 seeming grandeur is shadowy and relative ; it is great by 
 their allowance; its proudest gates will fly open at the 
 approach of their courage and virtue. For the present dis- 
 tress, however, of those who are predisposed to suffer from 
 the tyrannies of this caprice, there are easy remedies. To 
 remove your residence a couple of miles, or at most four, 
 will commonly relieve the most extreme susceptibility. 
 For the advantages which fashion values are plants which 
 thrive in very confined localities, in a few streets, namely. 
 Out of this precinct they go for nothing; are of no use in 
 the farm, in the forest, in the market, in war, in the nup- 
 tial society, in the literary or scientific circle, at sea, in 
 friendship, in the heaven of thought or virtue. 
 
 21. Do you see any sarcasm in this paragraph ? Does E. use 
 the wovd fashion in its higher or its lower sense in this paragraph ? 
 
90 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. ^ 
 
 22. But we have lingered long enougli in these painted 
 courts. The worth of the thing signified must vindicate 
 our taste for the emblem. Everything that is called fash- 
 ion and courtesy humbles itself before the cause and foun- 
 tain of honor, creator of titles and dignities, namely, the 
 heart of love. This is the royal blood, this the fire which, 
 in ail countries and contingencies, will work after its kind, 
 and conquer and expand all that approaches it. This gives 
 new meanings to every fact. This impoverishes the rich, 
 suffering no grandeur but its own. What is rich? Are you 
 rich enough to help anybody? to succor the unfashionable 
 and the eccentric? rich enough to make the Canadian in 
 his wagon, the itinerant with his consul's paper which 
 commends him "To the charitable," the swarthy Italian 
 with his few broken words of English, the lame pauper 
 hunted by overseers from town to town, even the poor insane 
 or besotted wreck of man or woman, feel the noble excep- 
 tion of your presence and your house from the general 
 bleakness and stoniness ; to make such feel that they were 
 greeted with a voice which made them both remember and 
 hope? What is vulgar, but to refuse the claim on acute 
 and conclusive reasons? What is gentle, but to allow 
 it, and give their heart and yours one holiday 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 Koran as to disgust 
 all the dervishes, yet was there never a poor outcast, eccen- 
 
 22. What does E. think is the foundation of all greatness ? What 
 is E.'s idea of wealth ? vulgarity ? true gentility ? What could 
 Osman give that the king could not ? Is it wise to sympathize with 
 foolish people ? Is it easier to sympathize with joy or sorrow ? 
 
 Why ? What does wealth " without the rich heart " beg ? 
 
MANNERS. 91 
 
 trie, or insane man, some fool who had cut off his beard, or 
 who had been mutilated under a vow, or had a pet madness 
 in his brain, but fled at once to him ; that great heart lay 
 there so sunny and hospitable in the center of the country, 
 that it seemed as if the instinct of all sufferers drew them 
 to his side. And the madness which he harbored he did 
 not share. Is not this to be rich? this only to be rightly 
 rich? 
 
 23. But I shall hear without pain that I play the courtier 
 very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand. 
 It is easy to see that what is called by distinction society 
 and fashion has good laws as well as bad, has much that is 
 necessary and much that is absurd. Too good for banning, 
 and too bad for blessing, it reminds us of a tradition of the 
 pagan mythology, in any attempt to settle its character. 
 "I overheard Jove, one day," said Silenus, "talking of de- 
 stroying the earth; he said it had failed; they were all 
 rogues and vixens, who went from bad to worse, as fast as 
 the days succeeded each other. Minerva said she hoped 
 not; they were only ridiculous little creatures with this odd 
 circumstance, that they had a blurr, or indeterminate aspect, 
 seen far or seen near; if you called them bad, they would 
 appear so; if you called them good, they would appear so; 
 and there was no one person or action among them which 
 would not puzzle her owl, much more all Olympus to know 
 whether it was fundamentally bad or good." 
 
 23. Is it true that caUing a person good or bad helps him to become 
 *so ? Define fashion in the lower and in the higher sense. Give 
 E.'s idea of the cause of fine manners; how they are shown; how 
 they may be cultivated ; how the true gentleman is distinguished from 
 the false. In what respects should one's manner be the same to all ? 
 What are the most practical thoughts that you have found in this 
 essay ? 
 
POEMS. 
 
 THE SNOW-STORM. 
 
 Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
 Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, 
 Seems nowhere to alight : the whited air 
 Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, 
 And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end. 5 
 
 The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet 
 Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
 Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
 In a tumultuous privacy of storm. 
 
 Come see the north wind's masonry. 10 
 
 Out of an unseen quarry evermore 
 Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer 
 Curves his white bastions with projected roof 
 Eound every windward stake, or tree, or door. 
 Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work 15 
 
 So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he 
 For number or proportion. Mockingly, 
 On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths ; 
 A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn ; 
 Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, 20 
 
 Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate 
 A tapering turret overtops the work. 
 92 
 
POEMS. 93 
 
 And Avhen his hours are numbered, and the world 
 
 Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, 
 
 Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art 25 
 
 To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone. 
 
 Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, 
 
 The frolic architecture of the snow. 
 
 HYMN: 
 
 SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE CONCORD MONUMENT, 
 APRIL 19, 1836. 
 
 By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
 Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 
 
 Here once the embattled farmers stood. 
 And fired the shot heard round the world. 
 
 The foe long since in silence slept; 5 
 
 Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; 
 And Time the ruined bridge has swept 
 
 Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 
 
 On this green bank, by this soft stream, 
 We set to-day a votive stone ; lO 
 
 That memory may their deed redeem. 
 When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 
 
 Spirit, that made those heroes dare 
 To die, and leave their children free, 
 
 Bid Time and Nature gently spare 15 
 
 The shaft we raise to them and thee. 
 
94 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 THE HUMBLE-BEE. 
 
 Burly, dozing humble-bee, 
 
 Where thou art is clime for me. 
 
 Let them sail for Porto E,ique, 
 
 Far-off heats through seas to seek; 
 
 I will follow thee alone, 5 
 
 Thou animated torrid-zone ! 
 
 Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer. 
 
 Let me chase thy waving lines; 
 
 Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, 
 
 Singing over shrubs and vines. 10 
 
 Insect lover of the sun, 
 
 Joy of thy dominion ! 
 
 Sailor of the atmosphere; 
 
 Swimmer through the waves of air; 
 
 Voyager of light and noon; 15 
 
 Epicurean of June ; 
 
 Wait, I prithee, till I come 
 
 Within earshot of thy hum, — 
 
 All without is martyrdom. 
 
 When the south wind, in May days, 20 
 
 With a net of shining haze 
 
 Silvers the horizon wall. 
 
 And with softness touching all, 
 
 Tints the human countenance 
 
 With a color of romance, 25 
 
 And infusing subtle heats, 
 
 Turns the sod to violets, 
 
 Thou, in sunny solitudes, 
 
 Eover of the underwoods. 
 
 The green silence dost displace 30 
 
 With thy mellow, breezy bass. 
 
POEMS. 95 
 
 Hot midsummer's petted crone, 
 
 Sweet to me thy drowsy tone 
 
 Tells of countless sunny hours, 
 
 Long days, and solid banks of flowers*, 35 
 
 Of gulfs of sweetness without bound 
 
 In Indian wildernesses found ; 
 
 Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure, 
 
 Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure 
 
 Aught unsavory or unclean 40 
 
 Hath my insect never seen ; 
 
 But violets and bilberry bells. 
 
 Maple-sap and daffodels, 
 
 Grass with green flag half-mast high, 
 
 Succory to match the sky, 45 
 
 Columbine with horn of honey, 
 
 Scented fern and agrimony, 
 
 Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue 
 
 And brier-roses, dwelt among ; 
 
 All beside was unknown waste, 50 
 
 All was picture as he passed. 
 
 Wiser far than human seer. 
 
 Yellow-breeched philosopher ! 
 
 Seeing only what is fair. 
 
 Sipping only what is sweet, 55 
 
 Thou dost mock at fate and care, 
 
 Leave the chaff, and take the wheat. 
 
 When the fierce northwestern blast 
 
 Cools sea and land so far and fast. 
 
 Thou already slumberest deep; 60 
 
 Woe and want thou canst outsleep; 
 
 Want and woe, which torture us, 
 
 Thy sleep makes ridiculous. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 FOEBEARANCE. 
 
 Hast tliou named all the birds without a gun? 
 
 Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk? 
 
 At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse? 
 
 Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust? 
 
 And loved so well a high behavior, 
 
 In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained, 
 
 Nobility more nobly to repay? 
 
 0, be my friend, and teach me to be thine ! 
 
 THE EHODORA: 
 
 ON BEING ASKED " WHENCE IS THE FLOWER ? " 
 
 In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, 
 
 I found the fresh rhodora in the woods. 
 
 Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook. 
 
 To please the desert and the sluggish brook. 
 
 The purple petals, fallen in the pool, 5 
 
 Made the black water with their beauty gay ; 
 
 Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, 
 
 And court the flower that cheapens his array. 
 
 Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee Avhy 
 
 This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 10 
 
 Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing. 
 
 Then Beauty is its own excuse for being: 
 
 Why thou wert there, rival of the rose ! 
 
 I never thought to ask, I never knew : 
 
 But, in my simple ignorance, suppose 15 
 
 The self -same Power that brought me there brought you. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 EACH AND ALL. 
 
 97 
 
 10 
 
 Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown 
 
 Of thee from the hill-top looking down; 
 
 The heifer that lows in the upland farm, 
 
 Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm ; 
 
 The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, 5 
 
 Dreams not that great Napoleon 
 
 Stops his horse, and lists with delight, 
 
 Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; 
 
 Nor knowest thou what argument 
 
 Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. 
 
 All are needed by each one ; 
 
 Nothing is fair or good alone. 
 
 I thought the sparrow's note from heaven. 
 Singing at dawn on the alder bough; 
 I brought him home in his nest at even ; 
 He sings the song, but it pleases not now, 
 For I did not bring home the river and sky ; — 
 He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye. 
 Tlie delicate shells lay on the shore ; 
 The bubbles of the latest wave 
 Fresh pearl to their enamel gave. 
 And the bellowing of the savage sea 
 
 Greeted their safe escape to me. 
 
 I wiped away the weeds and foam, 
 
 I fetched my sea-born treasures home; 
 
 But the poor, unsightly, noisome things 
 
 Had left their beauty on the shore 
 
 With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. 
 
 The lover watched his graceful maid, 
 
 As 'mid the virgin train she strayed, 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
98 SELECTIONS FROM EMEIISON. 
 
 Nov knew her beauty's best attire 
 
 Was woven still by the snow-white choir. 
 
 At last she came to his hermitage 
 
 Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage ; — 
 
 The gay enchantment was undone, 35 
 
 A gentle wife, but fairy none. 
 
 Then I said, " I covet truth ; 
 
 Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; 
 
 I leave it behind with the games of youth :" — 
 
 As I spoke, beneath my feet 40 
 
 The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, 
 
 Kunning over the club-moss burs ; 
 
 I inhaled the violet's breath; 
 
 Around me stood the oaks and firs ; 
 
 Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground ; 45 
 
 Over me soared the eternal sky. 
 
 Full of light and of deity ; 
 
 Again I saw, again I heard. 
 
 The rolling river, the morning bird; — ■ 
 
 Beauty through my senses stole; 50 
 
 I yielded myself to the perfect whole. 
 
 FOEEBUNNERS. 
 
 LoxG I followed happy guides, 
 I could never reach their sides ; 
 Their step is forth, and, ere the day. 
 Breaks up their leaguer, and away. 
 Keen my sense, my heart was young. 
 Bight good-will my sinews strung. 
 But no speed of mine avails 
 To hunt upon their shining trails. 
 
POEMS, 99 
 
 On and away, their hasting feet 
 
 Make the morning proud and sweet; 10 
 
 Flowers they strew, — I catch the scent ; 
 
 Or toiie of silver instrument 
 
 Leaves on the wind melodious trace; 
 
 Yet I could never see their face. 
 
 On eastern hills I see their smokes, 15 
 
 Mixed with mist by distant lochs. 
 
 I met many travelers 
 
 Who the road had surely kept; 
 
 They saw not my fine revelers, — 
 
 These had crossed them while they slept. 20 
 
 Some had heard their fair report, 
 
 In the country or the court. 
 
 Fleetest couriers alive 
 
 Never yet could once arrive. 
 
 As they went or they returned, 25 
 
 At the house where these sojourned. 
 
 Sometimes their strong speed they slacken, 
 
 Though they are not overtaken ; 
 
 In sleep their jubilant troop is near, — 
 
 I tuneful voices overhear; 30 
 
 It may be in wood or waste, — 
 
 At unawares 'tis come and past. 
 
 Their near camp my spirit knows 
 
 By signs gracious as rainbows. 
 
 I thenceforward and long after, 35 
 
 Listen for their harp-like laughter, 
 
 And carry in my heart for days 
 
 Peace that hallows rudest ways. 
 
100 SELECTIONS FJIOM EMERSON. 
 
 WOODNOTES. 
 
 1. 
 
 "For this present, hard 
 Is the fortune of the bard, 
 
 Born out of time ; 
 All his accomplishment, 
 From Nature's utmost treasure spent, 5 
 
 Booteth not him. 
 When the pine tosses its cones 
 To the song of its waterfall tones, 
 He speeds to the woodland walks. 
 To birds and trees he talks. 10 
 
 Caesar of his leafy Kome, 
 There the poet is at home. 
 He goes to the river-side, — 
 Not hook nor line hath he ; — 
 He stands in the meadows wide, — 15 
 
 Nor gun nor scythe to see. 
 With none has he to do. 
 And none seek him. 
 Nor men below. 
 
 Nor spirits dim. 20 
 
 Sure some god his eye enchants. 
 What he knows nobody wants. 
 In the wood he travels glad, 
 Without better fortune had. 
 
 Melancholy without bad. 25 
 
 Planter of celestial plants. 
 What he knows nobody wants; 
 What he knows he hides, not vaunts. 
 Knowledge this man prizes best 
 Seems fantastic to the rest: 30 
 
POEMS. 
 
 101 
 
 Pondering shadows, colors, clouds, 
 
 Grass-buds and caterpillar-shrouds, 
 
 Boughs on which the wild bees settle. 
 
 Tints that spot the violet's petal, 
 
 Why Nature loves the number five, 35 
 
 And why the star-form she repeats : 
 
 Lover of all things alive, 
 
 Wonderer at all he meets, 
 
 Wonderer chiefly at himself,— 
 
 Who can tell him what he is? ^o 
 
 Or how meet in human elf 
 
 Coming and past eternities? 
 
 2. 
 And such I knew, a forest seer, 
 A minstrel of the natural year. 
 Foreteller of the vernal ides, ^5 
 
 Wise harbinger of spheres and tides, 
 A lover true, who knew by heart 
 Each joy the mountain dales impart; 
 It seemed that Nature could not raise 
 A plant in any secret place, . ^o 
 
 In quaking bog, on snowy hill. 
 Beneath the grass that shades the rill, 
 Under the snow, between the rocks, 
 In damp fields known to bird and fox, 
 But he would come in the very hour 55 
 
 It opened in its virgin bower. 
 As if a sunbeam showed the place, 
 And tell its long-descended race. 
 It seemed as if the breezes brought him ; 
 It seemed as if the sparrows taught him; 60 
 
 As if by -secret sight he knew 
 Where, in far fields, the orchis grew. 
 
102 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 Many haps fall in the field 
 
 Seldom seen by wishful eyes ; 
 
 But all her shows did Nature yield, 65 
 
 To please and win this pilgrim wise. 
 
 He saw the partridge drum in the woods ; 
 
 He heard the woodcock's evening hymn; 
 
 He found the tawny thrush's broods; 
 
 And the shy hawk did Avait for him; 70 
 
 What others did at distance hear, 
 
 And guessed within the thicket's gloom, 
 
 Was showed to this philosopher. 
 
 And at his bidding seemed to come. 
 
 3. 
 
 In unploughed Maine he sought the lumberers' gang 75 
 
 Where from a hundred lakes young rivers sprang; 
 
 He trode the unplanted forest floor, whereon 
 
 The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone; 
 
 Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear, 
 
 And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker. 80 
 
 He saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds, 
 
 The slight Linnsea hang its twin-born heads. 
 
 And blessed the monument of the man of flowers. 
 
 Which breathes his sweet fame through the northern 
 
 bowers. 
 He heard, when in the grove, at intervals, 85 
 
 With sudden roar the aged pine tree falls, — 
 One crash, the death-hymn of the perfect tree, 
 Declares the close of its green century. 
 Low lies the plant to whose creation went 
 Sweet influence from every element; 90 
 
 Whose living towers the years conspired to build, 
 Whose giddy top the morning loved to gild. 
 
POEMS. 103 
 
 Through these green tents, by eldest Nature dressed, 
 
 He roamed, content alike with man and beast. 
 
 Where darkness found him he lay glad at night; 95 
 
 There the red morning touched him with its light. 
 
 Three moons his great heart him a hermit made. 
 
 So long he roved at will the boundless shade. 
 
 The timid it concerns to ask their way, 
 
 And fear what foe in caves and swamps can stray, lOO 
 
 To make no step until the event is known, 
 
 And ills to come as evils past bemoan. 
 
 Not so the wise; no coward watch he keeps 
 
 To spy what danger on his pathway creeps; 
 
 Go where he will, the wise man is at home, 105 
 
 His hearth the earth, — his hall the azure dome; 
 
 Where his clear spirit leads him, there's his road, 
 
 By God's own light illumined and foreshowed. 
 
 4. 
 
 'Twas one of the charmed days 
 
 When the genius of God doth flow, no 
 
 The wind may alter twenty ways, 
 
 A tempest cannot blow; 
 
 It may blow north, it still is Avarm; 
 
 Or south, it still is clear; 
 
 Or east, it smells like a clover-farm ; 115 
 
 Or west, no thunder fear. 
 
 The musing peasant lowly great 
 
 Beside the forest water sate; 
 
 The rope-like pine roots crosswise grown 
 
 Composed the network of his throne ; 120 
 
 The wide lake, edged with sand and grass, 
 
 Was burnished to a floor of glass. 
 
 Painted with shadows green and proud 
 
 Of the tree and of the cloud. 
 
104 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 He was the heart of all the scene ; 125 
 
 On him the sun looked more serene; 
 
 To hill and cloud his face was known, — 
 
 It seemed the likeness of their own; 
 
 They knew by secret sympathy 
 
 The public child of earth and sky. 130 
 
 "You ask," he said, "what guide 
 
 Me through trackless thickets led, 
 
 Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide. 
 
 I found the water's bed. 
 
 The watercourses were my guide; 135 
 
 I traveled grateful by their side, 
 
 Or through their channel dry ; 
 
 They led me through the thicket damp, 
 
 Through brake and fern, the beavers' camp, 
 
 Through beds of granite cut my road, 140 
 
 And their resistless friendship showed : 
 
 The falling waters led me. 
 
 The foodful waters fed me, 
 
 And brought me to the lowest land, 
 
 Unerring to the ocean sand. 145 
 
 The moss upon the forest bark 
 
 Was pole-star when the night was dark; 
 
 The purple berries in the wood 
 
 Supplied me necessary food; 
 
 For Nature ever faithful is 150 
 
 To such as trust her faithfulness. 
 
 When the forest shall mislead me. 
 
 When the night and morning lie. 
 
 When sea and land refuse to feed me, 
 
 'Twill be time enough to die; 155 
 
 Then will yet my mother yield 
 
 A pillow in her greenest field. 
 
 Nor the June flowers scorn to cover 
 
 The clay of their departed lover." 
 
POEMS. 105 
 
 THE WORLD-SOUL. 
 
 Thanks to the morning light, 
 
 Thanks to the foaming sea, 
 To the uplands of New Hampshire, 
 
 To the green-haired forest free ; 
 Thanks to each man of courage, 5 
 
 To the maids of holy mind. 
 To the boy with his games undaunted 
 
 Who never looks behind. 
 
 Cities of proud hotels, 
 
 Houses of rich and great, 10 
 
 Vice nestles in your chambers, 
 
 Beneath your roofs of slate. 
 It cannot conquer folly, — 
 
 Time-and-space-conquering steam, — 
 And the light-outspeeding telegraph 15 
 
 Bears nothing on its beam. 
 
 The politics are base; 
 
 The letters do not cheer : 
 And 'tis far in the deeps of history. 
 
 The voice that speaketh clear. 20 
 
 Trade and the street ensnare us, 
 
 Our bodies are weak and worn ; 
 We plot- and corrupt each other. 
 
 And we despoil the unborn. 
 
 Yet there in the parlor sits 25 
 
 Some figure of noble guise, — 
 Our angel, in a stranger's form. 
 
 Or woman's pleading eyes; 
 
106 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 Or only a flashing sunbeam 
 
 In at the window-pane ; 30 
 
 Or Music pours on mortals 
 
 Its beautiful disdain. 
 
 The inevitable morning 
 
 Finds them who in cellars be; 
 And be sure the all-loving Nature 35 
 
 Will smile in a factory. 
 Yon ridge of purple landscape, 
 
 Yon sky between the walls, 
 Hold all the hidden wonders 
 
 In scanty intervals. 40 
 
 Alas ! the Sprite that haunts us 
 
 Deceives our rash desire; 
 It whispers of the glorious gods, 
 
 And leaves us in the mire. 
 We cannot learn the cipher 45 
 
 That's writ upon our cell; 
 Stars help us by a mystery 
 
 Which we could never spell. 
 
 If but one hero knew it, 
 
 The world would blush in flame ; 50 
 
 The sage, till he hit the secret, 
 
 Would hang his head for shame. 
 But our brothers have not read it, 
 
 Not one has found the key ; 
 And henceforth we are comforted, — 55 
 
 We are but such as they. 
 
 Still, still the secret presses ; 
 The nearing clouds draw down; 
 
POEMS. 107 
 
 The crimson morning flames into 
 
 The fopperies of the town. 60 
 
 Within, without the idle earth, 
 
 Stars weave eternal rings; 
 The sun himself shines heartily. 
 
 And shares the joy he brings. ^ 
 
 And what if Trade sow cities 65 
 
 Like shells along the shore, 
 And thatch with towns the prairie broad 
 
 With railways ironed o'er? — 
 They are but sailing foam-bells 
 
 Along Thought's causing stream, 70 
 
 And take their shape and sun-color 
 
 From him that sends the dream. 
 
 For Destiny does not like 
 
 To yield to men the helm ; 
 And shoots his thought by hidden nerves 75 
 
 Throughout the solid realm. 
 The patient Daemon sits, 
 
 With roses and a shroud; 
 He has his way, and deals his gifts, — 
 
 But ours is not allowed. 80 
 
 He is no churl nor trifler. 
 
 And his viceroy is none, — 
 Love-without-weakness, — 
 
 Of Genius sire and son. 
 And his will is not thwarted ; 85 
 
 The seeds of land and sea 
 Are the atoms of his body bright, 
 
 And his behest obey. 
 
108 SELECTIONS FROM EMERSON. 
 
 He serveth the servant, 
 
 The brave he loves amain; 90 
 
 He kills the cripple and the sick, 
 
 And straight begins again ; 
 For gods delight in gods, 
 
 And thrust the weak aside; 
 To him who scorns their charities 95 
 
 Their arms fly open wide. 
 
 When the old world is sterile 
 
 And the ages are effete, 
 He will from wrecks and sediment 
 
 The fairer world complete. lOO 
 
 He forbids to despair; 
 
 His cheeks mantle with mirth; 
 And the unimagined good of men 
 
 Is yeaning at the birth. 
 
 Spring still makes spring in the mind 105 
 
 When sixty years are told; 
 Love wakes anew this throbbing heart. 
 
 And we are never old. 
 Over the winter glaciers 
 
 I see the summer glow, 110 
 
 And through the wild-piled snowdrift. 
 
 The warm rosebuds below. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 The one thing attempted in the -'^^^^''^.rf'''^''^^]^ 
 i, to make these parts of service to the pupils who will read it. It has 
 ttiXfs ened hotter to suggestasearcb.perhapseven too close £0 
 
 he poet' literal meaning, rather than to risk leaving an impress on o 
 the poet m ^„t° „„ne For facts concerning Emerson's life 
 
 Z Concord, J. E. Cahot's Memoir of Emerson, and O. W. Holmes s 
 Balph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 COMPENSATION. 
 11 A by-word and a hissing : Emerson was once hi^^^ed/^t ^ 
 no it'icatmeetin. in Camhridgeport. A friend who was present said 
 ^ne "Iddti^^k of nothing hut dogs haying at the moon. He was 
 „nlight i^eU^;^^ ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ 
 
 « i^iPcnnts of Egypt : the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. The 
 
 for;: Srt' W (OenesiJ^ii. 10) is assigned to theea^J, 
 part of their reign, and that of Joseph (Genesis xxxvii. 28) to the 
 
 ^'rxrutttwo'rXetc.., cf. John i. 10. Ot . . , .WC™ : 
 
 — ;t i::::r ot'^Cl ■ ef. the address to the ^^hack- 
 
 — -:a^:nn-=^s^^^^:^^^ 
 
 can illustration of the thought is the story of Mrs. Partington s trym. 
 
 to sweep back the Atlantic with her broom Auaustine 
 
 20. How secret art thou, etc. : Confessions of St. Augustine 
 
 (fourth century), Book I. 18. 
 
 ^ 109 
 
110 NOTES. 
 
 21. Prometheus : the secret was how to avert the predicted fall of 
 Jupiter. It was because of Prometheus's persistent refusal to reveal it 
 that he suffered the torture of the rock and the vulture. Of all 
 the gods, etc. : from the Eumenides of ^schylus. 
 
 22. The belt -which Ajax gave, etc. : an almost literal translation 
 of lines in the Ajax of Sophocles. 
 
 23. Interfering volitions : originality. 
 
 28. You cannot do wrong w^ithout suffering -wrong : Emerson 
 wrote in his journal : "I have confidence in the laws of morals as of 
 botany. I have planted maize in my field every June for seventeen 
 years, and I never knew it come up strychnine." 
 
 30. Obscene : ill-omened. 
 
 33. Worm worms : Exodus xvi. 16-21. 
 
 34. It is best to pay in your land a skillful gardener : this 
 statement is hardly consistent with Emerson's practice. He called 
 raising pears his " expensive vice," and always sent specimens of his 
 fruit to the September exhibition. At last the long-suffering com- 
 mittee called to see what kind of soil it was that produced "such poor 
 specimens of such fine varieties." 
 
 36. No den ... to hide a rogue : cf. Webster's famous portrayal 
 of the impossibility of concealing a crime, — Speech on the 3Iurder of 
 Captain Joseph White, paragraph 6. * 
 
 37. Royal armies sent against Napoleon : on his escape from 
 Elba. Winds blow and waters roll : from Wordsworth's son- 
 net, " Inland, within a hollow vale I stood." 
 
 41. Mob : for a description of a mob of Emerson's day, see Life of 
 Arthur Tappan, by Lewis Tappan, pages 168-175. 
 
 46. Apparent : in appearance only. 
 
 48. As the shell-fish, etc. : cf. Holmes's Chambered Nautilus. 
 A putting off of dead circumstances : Emerson wrote to his young 
 daughter, who was away at school, bidding her finish every day and 
 be done with it, forget its blunders and absurdities as soon as pos- 
 sible, and begin each new day well and serenely, with a spirit too 
 high to be cumbered with old nonsense. 
 
 SELF-KELIANCE. 
 
 1. Speak your latent conviction : Emerson wrote in his journal, 
 in 1834 : " Henceforth I design not to utter any speech, poem, or book 
 that is not entirely and peculiarly my own work." 
 
NOTES. 11^ 
 
 Abolition : in 1837, lour years before this essay was printed, at 
 
 a in "r" r iu ;;;r o7;,a;;-ry .as per,„itte. in but one ci.u.i, 
 fuBTsto Emerson clelivered an anti-slavery address u. Concord. Its 
 Ihrpo nt was a demand for the right of free thought and free speech, 
 rbaaos: the inhabitants were chiefly negroes, ^'^ --;--- 
 nated by England in 1831. My poor : Emerson's pool , 1 ke those 
 of Chals Lamb, were generally the ones for whom no one else would 
 
 ''^vl Alexandrian stanza: Emerson means the palindrome^ One 
 of ihe most "wous is Adam's supposed speech to Eve. - " Madan^ 
 I'n Adam " Contrite wood-life : humble life with nature. My 
 Look should smell of pines : Emerson's thinking was done m the 
 woods —r and winter. His "study" at home was merely to 
 r,d his r ks and afford him a convenient place to vvrite. He says 
 h° his" ournal tl>at he has scarce a day-dream on which the breath of 
 the pines has not blown and their shadows waved. 
 
 10 Chatham: William Pitt, born 1708. Adams. Sanue 
 
 Adams "Father of the Revolution." EpUemans: a thmg of but 
 transient value. Some of the later editions -j^f "f .^'Z "rHome ■ 
 17. Scipio: Scipio Africanus Major. The height of Home. 
 
 Paradise Lost, Book IX. 510. rhi-istonher 
 
 IS Pable of the sot : one version IS the story of tluistopnei 
 
 Sly" in the induction of the Taming of the «"--• -°*^' '^ ^^^ 
 rf " Abou Hassan, or the Sleeper Awakened," .n ^^^^framnmoMs. 
 
 19 Gnstavus : Gustavus Adolphus, or Gustavus II. of Sweden. 
 
 2l'. That inspiration which giveth man wisdom: m an ad- 
 dress delivered in 1854 he makes his thought even more clear: Sel - 
 reliance, the height and perfection of man, .s reliance on God. 
 
 Fatal: inevitable (fated). , i.T!,.iQlrwiplder 
 
 34. A sturdy lad, etc.: cf. Whittier's ^KOtt'Coam!, "Buskwielder 
 
 of the birch and rule." 
 31!. Fletcher : John Fletcher, the dramatist. . ^,„ 
 
 38 Let not God speak to us, lest we die: Genesis xx. 19. 
 LoL U.ok the position that all our knowledge comes from sensa ion 
 ami reflection, that we have no innate ideas. Lavoisier mvented a 
 "pie chemical terminology to take the place of the absurf on^ o e 
 alchemists. Button's theory was that the present — » ^ ^^^ 
 earth's crust is due in greater degree to the action of fiie than of 
 water Bentham "found jurisprudence a gibberish and left it a 
 Xce." (Maeaulay.) Spurzheim is said to have discovered 
 
112 NOTES. 
 
 the fibrous structure of the brain. Light, unsystematic, indomi- 
 table, etc.: expressed less poetically in his poem, The World-Soul, 
 lines 33-36. 
 
 39. It is for want of self-culture : cf. Curtis's Prue and I: "I 
 beghi to suspect a man must have Italy and Greece in his heart and 
 mind, if he would ever see them with his eyes." Merrymen: fol- 
 lowers. 
 
 43. Thousand-cloven tongue : Acts ii. 1-4. 
 
 47. Las Casas : Las Cases, who wrote Memorial de Sainte- 
 Helene. 
 
 48. Phenomenal : in appearance. 
 
 49. Caliph Ali : a cousin and devoted follower of Mohammed, a' 
 learned man and a poet. 
 
 MANNERS. 
 
 1. Feejee (Fiji) : this essay was published in 1844. In 1898 the 
 Fiji Islands contributed several thousand dollars to aid the starving 
 people of India. Tibboos, Bornoos : African tribes. Emerson 
 had been reading Heeren's Historical Researches. 
 
 4. Sense of power which makes things easy : "I like people 
 who can do things," Emerson wrote in his journal. He was singu- 
 larly helpless in some practical matters, especially in the use of tools. 
 When he was working in the garden, his little son called to him, 
 "Take care, papa, you will dig your leg." He said himself that he 
 could split a shingle four ways with one nail. The right Caesarian 
 pattern : the man of many interests, with a specialty. 
 
 6. Fine manners: Emerson's journal says, '-I think there is as 
 much merit in beautiful manners as in hard work." 
 
 7. Faubourg St. Germain : the knights of St. Germain included 
 tliose lords created by James II. after the Revolution of 1688, and 
 by his son and grandson. Notes and Queries, 2d series. III. 112. 
 Emerson uses the expression as a synonym for the abode of people of 
 fashion. Hall of the past : Walhalla, or Valhalla. Westminster 
 Abbey is called "the Valhalla of England." 
 
 8. Toumure : cast of mind as evinced by their behavior. 
 
 9. Send into everlasting Coventry : the citizens of Coventry are 
 said to have had at one time so great a dislike to soldiers, that to send 
 a soldier to Coventry was equivalent to excluding him from all social 
 intercourse. Vich Ian Vohr : a chief in Waverley, Chapter XVI. 
 
NOTES. 113 
 
 "If you Saxon duinh^-wassel [English gentlemen] saw but the Chief 
 with his tail on!" "With his tail on?" echoed Edward in some 
 surprise. " Yes — that is, with all his usual followers, when he visits 
 those of the same rank." 
 
 10. Herald's office : Heralds' College, or College of Arms. 
 
 17. Captain Symmes : a real person, who serves the author's 
 purpose as well as the imaginary heroes in whose company he finds 
 himself. St. Michael's Square: the order of St. Michael was 
 founded by Louis XI. in 14G9, and was at first limited to thirty-six 
 members. Queen Elizabeth was greatly pleased at being made a 
 member, but her wrath was aroused by the discovery that the original 
 limitations had been lost sight of, and that it was no longer the ex- 
 clusive company of the previous century. Holmes speaks of the St. 
 Michael's pear as being among "the most aristocratic pears," and 
 familiar to Emerson's boyhood. 
 
 18. As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer far : Keats's Hyperion. 
 
 19. No bar in their nature : no mark of inferiority. 
 
 20. Hafiz : the allegorical, mystical character of Persian poetry 
 appealed strongly to Emerson. See his essay, Persian Poetry. 
 
 21. Byzantine : an ornate style of architecture, marked especially 
 by the free use of gold and of color in decorations. 
 
 22. Osman: Emerson uses this name in his journals and elsewhere 
 to represent his ideal man. 
 
 THE SNOW-STOKM. 
 
 Notice that it is the personification of the north wind that gives life 
 and the charm of action to the poem. Without this, it would be 
 simply a beautiful picture. 
 
 Is the scene laid in a village or in the country? In lines 1-9, 
 which is the most sonorous line ? Which words show the severity of 
 the storm ? Which words are used in an unusual sense ? Is there 
 any special order in hills, woods, river, heaven, farmhouse? Could 
 hides and veils be transposed ? Is there any special order in traveler, 
 courier, friends, housemates f Why is tumultuous privacy a good 
 expression ? Why is there a break between lines 9 and 10 ? What 
 is the main subject of lines 1-9 ? What of lines 10-28 ? How do 
 lines 1-2 introduce the second part ? 
 
 Trace the personification in the poem. AVhat adjectives or epithets 
 are applied to the wind ? What to its work ? How does the poem 
 
114 NOTES. 
 
 show study of nature ? How does it show imagination ? What ex- 
 pressions show that Emerson knew country life. Does he show knowl- 
 edge of architecture ? What contrast does he suggest at the end of 
 the poem ? 
 
 Comparing Longfellow's Bain in Summer with the Snow-Storm, 
 which shows closer observation of details? Comparing Whittier's 
 Snowhound with the Snow-Storm^ which has more of the human ele- 
 ment ? Which shows the more sympathetic thought of the animals ? 
 In these last two poems, which description of the coming of the storm 
 do you prefer ? Why ? Which description of the scene in the morn- 
 ing is the more simple and natural ? Why ? Which description of 
 the fireside do you prefer ? Why ? Is Emerson's poem simply a 
 picture of a snow-storm, or has it a moral ? 
 
 HYMN: 
 
 SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE CONCORD MONUMENT. 
 
 Emerson's grandfather, Rev. William Emerson, watched the Concord 
 fight from his own doorstep, and would have taken part in it, if his 
 parishioners had not prevented. His account of it may be found in 
 Emerson's works (Vol. XI., Riverside edition). 
 
 William Emerson's sermon of March 13, 1775, on 2 Chronicles 
 xiii. 12, did much to arouse and encourage the brave men of Concord. 
 A few days before the fight he preached even more boldly on '' Resist- 
 ance to tyrants is obedience to God." 
 
 That the monument should have been placed where the British stood 
 was a great grievance to one of the Concord farmers, and he left money 
 to mark the position occupied by the colonists, and to build a foot- 
 bridge where the old bridge had stood at the time of the battle. April 
 19, 1875, the well-known statue of the Minute-man was unveiled. 
 On this occasion Emerson delivered a short address, which is given 
 in full in G. W. Cooke's Balph Waldo Emerson, page 182. 
 
 8. "The Concord River is a languid, shallow stream that loiters 
 through broad meadows, which fringe it with rushes and long grasses." 
 {_G. W. Curtis.) 
 
 Describe the Concord light. What was its value to the colonists ? 
 What is the highest motive with which a Concord farmer might have 
 fought ? a British soldier ? What does embattled mean as used here ? 
 Explain line 11 ? What Spirit is meant in line 13? What lines are 
 
NOTES. 115 
 
 figurative ? What is the best line in the poem ? Why ? Is it literal 
 or figurative ? 
 
 THE HUMBLE-BEE. 
 
 16. Emerson's son calls attention to the fact that his father's early 
 verses scan and rhyme perfectly, but lack the originality of his later 
 work. Emerson himself writes (The Poet) that what makes a poem 
 -is not metres, but " a thought so passionate and alive that ... it has 
 an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing." 
 
 57. Cf. Emerson's lines To J. W.: — 
 
 ' ' Life is too short to waste 
 In critic peep or cynic bark." 
 
 Why would Emerson be more inclined to write on a bee than on a 
 nightingale or a skylark ? How is imagination shown in line 2 ? 
 Why does Emerson connect the bee with the torrid zone ? In stanza 
 3, which is the most poetical line ? How is gr^een applicable to 
 silence ? Why had the bee seen no evil ? Would lines 54-55 be a 
 good motto ? Which adjectives or epithets applied to the bee show 
 observation, and which show imagination ? What words show that 
 Emerson noticed color, light, sound, motion, fragrance ? Judging 
 from this poem, which of these seemed to give him most pleasure ? 
 Where is the most beautiful description ? Which lines would make 
 the best pictures ? Why does Emerson call the bee wise ? What 
 lines of the poem are apart from his personal experience ? Explain 
 the last two lines. Why would the metre of the Snow-Storm have 
 been inappropriate to this subject ? 
 
 FORBEARANCE. 
 
 Emerson had little sympathy with a purely scientific knowledge of 
 nature. He says, in Blight : — 
 
 "But these young scholars who invade our hills, 
 Bold as the engineer who fells the wood, 
 And traveling often in the cut he makes, 
 Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, 
 And all their botany is Latin names." 
 
 3. Daniel i. 8-14. 
 
 Is a man likely to be a better naturalist because he is a good sports- 
 man ? What pleasures has the one addressed in the poem given up ? 
 
116 NOTES. 
 
 Does he receive any compensation? What is '^high behavior"? 
 What kind of ideals lead to it ? What kind of speech is meant in line 
 6 ? Does Emerson mean that he would not express his appreciation ? 
 What qualities does he desire in a friend ? 
 
 THE RHODORA. 
 
 Describe the home of the rhodora. Why does Emerson describe 
 the place before the flov^er ? Which seems to have been first in his 
 mind, the picture or the moral ? Is the moral contained in lines 9-12, 
 or 13-16 ? Why is beauty " its own excuse for being " ? Does Emer- 
 son suggest that the rhodora's beauty is of any use ? Can beauty of 
 any kind be wasted ? What do you mean by a thing's being wasted ? 
 
 EACH AND ALL. 
 
 Emerson's belief that "all are needed by each one," he carried into 
 the world of human beings as well as that of nature. He himself said 
 that much of the best society he had ever known was in a club at 
 Concord called the Social Circle, consisting always of twenty-five 
 citizens, — doctor, lawyer, farmer, trader, miller, mechanic, etc., solid- 
 est of men, who yielded the solidest of gospel. His son says that 
 Emerson always liked to speak with the fishermen, wood-choppers, 
 and drivers of cattle whom he met on his walks. He never took an 
 attitude of superiority. The story is told of a working woman who 
 admitted that she did not understand his lectures. "But," she said, 
 "I like to go and see him stand up there and look as if he thought 
 every one was as good as he was." In this Emerson is like Whittier, 
 who, Mrs. Field says, liked nothing better than going into " the store " 
 at Amesbury, and sitting on a barrel to hear " folks talk." 
 
 32. Choir : a company moving rhythmically. 
 
 In what part of a poem is the main thought usually placed ? Is 
 Emerson careful to follow the custom ? Which two lines give the 
 main thought of this poem ? Which of these two do lines 1-10 illus- 
 trate ? In how many ways ? Is there any climax in these illustra- 
 tions ? What are Emerson's three illustrations of the second line of the 
 main thought ? Is there any special arrangement of the objects enum- 
 erated in lines 40-47 ? In lines 1-36, why has he found beauty decep- 
 tive ? In lines 37-39, does he mean that truth is opposed to beauty ? 
 (Cf. line 12.) Is it beauty, or his interpretation of beauty, that has 
 
liOTES, 117 
 
 deceived him ? Can one person see all the beauty in a landscape ? 
 Why ? Can one person see all the truth on any subject ? Would 
 Emerson's reasoning in line 12 apply to truth ? What happens if we 
 give up trying to see more truth ? (Cf. Self-Bel iance, 26, sentence 2 ; 
 also Matthew xxv. 29.) What lines seem to you best worth remem- 
 bering ? 
 
 FORERUNNERS. 
 
 An exquisite little poem, expressing metaphorically the thought 
 that even if perfection is unattainable, the nearer one comes to it, the 
 more perfect is one's possession of the "peace that hallows rudest 
 ways." Do not try to interpret the metaphors literally. 
 
 4. Leaguer : camp. 
 
 36. Laughter: here, as also in the World-Soul, 102, Emerson 
 thinks of laughter as a mark of joy, rather than of amusement. He 
 says in his journal, "The wise are always cheerful " ; but he had no 
 sympathy with the " loud laugh that shows the vacant mind." 
 
 Note the words used in an unusual manner ; the comparisons ; the 
 musical lines ; the delicacy of the traces left by the "happy guides." 
 Comparing this poem with the Humhle-Bee, in which are color, sound, 
 fragrance, more distinct ? Why ? In line 3, what is the subject of 
 breaks f What are the associations with the harp (line 36) ? Why 
 compare this laughter to the harp, rather than to the flute or the piano ? 
 Is any part of this poem literal ? 
 
 WOODNOTES. 
 
 This description of the "forest seer" applies so well to Emerson's 
 friend Thoreau that it has often, but erroneously, been thought to 
 picture him. Much of it was written before Emerson knew Thoreau, 
 and seems to be a kind of presaging of the friend to come. See 
 biographical sketch of Thoreau in Emerson's works (Riverside edi- 
 tion, Vol. X., page 421). 
 
 1-12. Even this slight and almost conventional touch of repining is 
 omitted in later editions. 
 
 30. Fantastic : unreal. 
 
 35. Thoreau talks of the " mysteries of the number six." 
 
 63. Haps : happening upon what he most wished to see. 
 
 101. Event : result. 
 
 130. Public : belonging to all nature. 
 
118 NOTES. 
 
 1. 
 
 Lines 13-16 : cf. Forbearance, lines 1-2, Line 22 : is the poet 
 glad because of this, or does he repine ? Line 35 : illustrate nature's 
 use of the number five and the star-form. Lines 40-42 : how does 
 Emerson's thought suddenly broaden ? Cf. Each and All, lines 9-10. 
 
 2. 
 
 How was this lover of nature a "seer"? What is the "natural 
 year"? What is the derivation of harbinger 9 What "spheres" 
 are meant ? Why are they coupled with tides in Emerson's thought ? 
 Can one know nature if he does not love her ? Can you understand a 
 person whom you dislike ? Why? In line 58, what does and connect ? 
 What is meant by " its long-descended race " ? 
 
 Line 82 : from whom does the Linnrea take its name ? Who is the 
 "man of flowers" ? Lines 89-93 : explain |)?a;i^, living towers, green 
 tents. How were the tents "by eldest Nature dressed"? Line 97 : 
 how could his " great heart" make him a hermit ? Why did he not 
 need to ask his way? Cf. line 105; also Self-Beliance, 39, "The 
 wise man," etc. 
 
 4. 
 
 From the change of metre do you expect a lighter or a more serious 
 theme ? Line 117 : why is the peasant " lowly great" ? Line 123 : 
 why does Emerson call the shadows "proud"? How has he shown 
 his knowledge of nature and his sympathy with her ? What irregu- 
 larities of metre do you notice ? Are they a blemish ? What is the 
 moral of this poem ? 
 
 THE WORLD-SOUL. 
 
 Emerson thinks of the world as possessing a soul, and as being cap- 
 able of good and of evil. Over the world is its guardian spirit, or 
 daemon, that will lead it to final good. In the first stanza, Emerson 
 hopes for good from the analogy of nature ; in the second and third, 
 he pictures the evil in the world ; in stanzas 4-8, the nearness of good ; 
 in 6-10, the certainty that good will triumph. 
 
 3. Emerson makes many references to New Hampshire. He liked 
 to use tools that lay at hand, and he valued especially the view of 
 
NOTES. 119 
 
 Mount Monadnock that could be had from Concord. It was to 
 the White Mountains that he went when the most difficult decision 
 of his life was to be made. See Cabot's Memoir of Emerson^ 
 page 155. 
 
 25. A quaint reference to the parlors of earlier New England, 
 sacred to weddings, funerals, and the minister's calls. 
 
 31-32. A marvelous phrase to come from one who "could not 
 surely recognize the commonest airs." But Emerson had what he 
 called "musical eyes." He believed that the same moods that mel- 
 odies waken in the lovers of audible music were aroused in him by 
 the beauty that he saw everywhere in nature. As he put it, "That 
 which others hear, I see." 
 
 40. Intervals : spaces. Cf. Compensation, 13, 14. 
 
 41. Sprite : spirit, i.e., the wish for perfection. 
 
 48. Spell: as used by Milton, — to learn the meaning of anything 
 by study. 
 
 78. Roses and a shroud : gifts of life and of death. Cf. quota- 
 tion from Caliph Ali in Self-Beliance, 49. 
 
 84. The genius, with Emerson, is he who can interpret truth. 
 
 89-96. The Spirit of final good, whose viceroy is Love without 
 weakness, appreciates and saves all that is good. 
 
 92. Emerson's favorite idea of laying aside the past and making a 
 fresh beginning. See second note to Compensation, 48. 
 
 105. Emerson says that a walk in the woods is " one of the secrets 
 for dodging old age." 
 
 Why is Emerson grateful to the light, sea, uplands, etc.? What 
 does he learn from women ? (Cf. Self- Reliance, 20.) What does he 
 learn from boys? (Cf. Self-Beliance, 5.) In line 13, what is the 
 antecedent of " it" ? What is the prose order of lines 14, 15 ? What 
 does Emerson wish to keep pace with the new inventions ? (Line 20 ; 
 cf. Hymn, line 4.) Explain "the shot heard round the world." 
 Was its meaning any more " clear" than the shots of the Civil War? 
 What is the original meaning of angel? Why should music "'dis- 
 dain" mortals ? Do we generally use the word inevitable of pleasant 
 or of unpleasant things ? Why does Emerson speak of men as being 
 in a cell ? What does he mean by the " cipher " and the " secret" ? 
 In line 61, what does "within, without" mean? What are the 
 "eternal rings"? In lines 65-72, what comfort does he find for 
 lines 9-24? Why does he speak of Thought as having a "causing 
 stream"? Which are more real and powerful to Emerson's mind. 
 
120 NOTES. 
 
 cities or thoughts ? What is the meaning of Dcemon ? Does line 80 
 mean that we are helpless to choose our own way ? Who is the 
 "viceroy " ? What Spirit, then, does Emerson think rules the world ? 
 Is his belief pessimistic or optimistic? In lines 89-92, what is the 
 work of Love ? Does line 91 mean that Love destroys the wrong- 
 doer, or the wrong ? Give the outline of the poem. Give its main 
 thought. How does this thought compare with Tennyson's : — 
 
 " yet we trust that somehow good 
 Will be the final goal of ill." — In Memoriam:, 54. 
 
ENGLISH. 3 
 
 Studies in English Composition. 
 
 By Harriet C. Keeler, High School, Cleveland, Ohio, and Emma 
 C. Davis, Cleveland, Ohio. i2mo, cloth, 210 pages. Price, 80 cents. 
 
 THIS book is the outgrowth of experience in teaching compo- 
 sition, and the lessons which it contains have all borne the 
 actual test of the class-room. Intended to meet the wants of 
 those schools which have composition as a weekly exercise in 
 their course of study, it contains an orderly succession of topics 
 adapted to the age and development of high school pupils, to- 
 gether with such lessons in language and rhetoric as are of con- 
 stant application in class exercises. 
 
 The authors believe that too much attention cannot be given 
 to supplying young writers with good models, which not only 
 indicate what is expected, and serve as an ideal toward which 
 to work, but stimulate and encourage the learner in his first 
 efforts. For this reason numerous examples of good writing 
 have been given, and many more have been suggested. 
 
 The primal idea of the book is that the pupil learns to write 
 by writing ; and therefore that it is of more importance to get 
 him to write than to prevent his making mistakes in writing. 
 Consequently, the pupil is set to writing at the very outset ; the 
 idea of producing something is kept constantly uppermost, and 
 the function of criticism is reserved until after something has 
 been done which may be criticised. 
 
 J. W. Stearns, Professor of Pedagogy, Lhiiversity of Wisconsin : It strikes 
 me that the author of your " Studies in English Composition " touches 
 the gravest defect in school composition work when she writes in her pref- 
 ace : " One may as well expect a sea-anemone to show its beauty when 
 grasped in the hand, as look for originality in a child, hampered by the 
 conviction that every sentence he writes will be dislocated in order to be 
 improved." In order to improve the beauty of the body we drive out the 
 soul in our extreme formal criticisms of school compositions. She has 
 made a book which teaches children to write by getting them to write 
 often and freely; and if used with the spirit which has presided over the 
 making of it, it will prove a most effective instrument for the reform of 
 school composition work. 
 
 Albert G. Owen, Superintendent, Afton, lotua : It is an excellent text. I 
 am highly pleased with it. The best of the kind I have yet seen. 
 
ENGLISH. 
 
 Composition-Rhetoric for Use in Secondary 
 Schools. 
 
 By Professors F. N. ScOTT, of the University of Michigan, and J. V. 
 Denney, of Ohio State University. i2mo, cloth, 370 pages. Price, 
 ^i.oo. 
 
 IN the preparation of this work the authors have been guided 
 by three considerations. 
 
 First, it is desirable that a closer union than has hitherto 
 prevailed be brought about between secondary composition and 
 secondary rhetoric. The rhetoric which is found in this book is 
 meant to be the theory of the pupiPs practice. 
 
 Second, it is desirable in secondary composition that greater 
 use be made of the paragraph than has hitherto been done. In 
 this book the paragraph is made the basis of a systematic method 
 of instruction. 
 
 A third idea which underlies the work is the idea of growth. 
 A composition is regarded not as a dead form, to be analyzed 
 into its component parts, but as a living product of an active, 
 creative mind. 
 
 In working out these ideas, care has been taken to provide 
 illustrative material of a kind that should be thought-provoking, 
 interesting, and valuable in itself, but not too far above the 
 standard of literary practice. 
 
 Professor Sophie C. Hart, Wellesley College, Welles ley, Mass. : As a whole 
 I consider it the best book on English Composition for the preparatory 
 school, and shall recommend it to all teachers who send students to 
 Wellesley. 
 
 Superintendent Mark S. W. Jefferson, Lexingtoti, Mass. : The only rational 
 book on the subject that I know. Apart from the practical manner of 
 approaching the subject, I am delighted with the material chosen for the 
 illustration of principles ; pupils will find enjoyment in every paragraph. 
 
 Miss Harriet L. Mason, Drexel histitute, Philadelphia, Pa. : I find it all 
 that I could wish. The book fills a unique place in English text-books, 
 and is in the very van of the best teaching of composition. I shall use it 
 during the coming year. 
 
 Professor Robert Herrick, University of Chicago, Chicago, III.: It is really 
 a long stride in the right direction. It throws overboard much use- 
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ENGLISH. 
 
 Paragraph- Writing. 
 
 By Professor F, N. ScoTT, University of Michigan, and Professor J, 
 V. Denney, Ohio State University. i2mo, 304 pages. Price, ^i.oo. 
 
 THE principles embodied in this work were developed and 
 put in practice by its authors at the University of Michigan 
 several years ago. Its aim is to make the paragraph the basis of 
 a method of composition, and to present all the important facts 
 of rhetoric in their application to it. 
 
 In Part I. the nature and laws of the paragraph are presented; 
 the structure and function of the isolated paragraph are discussed, 
 and considerable space is devoted to related paragraphs ; that is, 
 those which are combined into essays. 
 
 Part II. is a chapter on the theory of the paragraph intended 
 for teachers and advanced students. 
 
 Part III. contains copious material for class work, selected 
 paragraphs, suggestions to teachers, lists of subjects for composi- 
 tions (about two thousand), and helpful references of many kinds. 
 
 The Revised Edition contains a chapter on the Rhetoric of 
 the Paragraph, in which will be found applications of the para- 
 graph-idea to the sentence, and to the constituent parts of the 
 sentence, so far as these demand especial notice. The new mate- 
 rial thus provided supplies, in the form of principles and illustra- 
 tions, as much additional theory as the student of Elementary 
 Rlietoric needs to master and apji^ly, in order to improve the 
 details of his paragraphs in unity, clearness, and force. 
 
 Professor J. M. Hart, Cornell Utziversity : The style of the writers is admi- 
 rable for clearness and correctness. . . . They have produced an uncom- 
 monly sensible text-book. . . . For college work it will be hard to beat. 
 I know of no other book at all comparable to it for freshman drill. 
 
 Professor Charles Mills Gayley, University of California : Paragraph- 
 Writing is the best thing of its kind, — the only systematic and exhaustive 
 effort to present a cardinal feature of rhetorical training to the educational 
 world. 
 
 The Dial, March, 1894 : Paragraph- Writing is one of the really practical 
 books on English composition. ... A book that successfully illustrates 
 the three articles of the rhetorician's creed, — theory, example, and practice. 
 
ENGLISH. 
 
 From Milton to Tennyson. 
 
 Masterpieces of English Poetry. Edited by L. Du PONT Syle, Uni- 
 versity of California. i2mo, cloth, 480 pages. Price, ^i.oo. 
 
 IN this work the editor has endeavored to bring together within 
 the compass of a moderate-sized volume as much narrative, 
 descriptive, and lyric verse as a student may reasonably be re- 
 quired to read critically for entrance to college. From the 
 nineteen poets represented, only such masterpieces have been 
 selected as are within the range of the understanding and the 
 sympathy of the high school student. Each masterpiece is 
 given complete, except for pedagogical reasons in the cases of 
 Thomson, Cowper, Byron, and Browning. Exigencies of space 
 have compelled the editor reluctantly to omit Scott from this 
 volume. The copyright laws, of course, exclude American poets 
 from the scope of this work. 
 
 The following poets are represented : — 
 
 MILTON, by the L' Allegro, II Penseroso, Lycidas, and a Selection from the Sonnets. 
 
 DRYDEN . . Epistle to Congreve, Alexander's Feast, Character of a Good Parson. 
 
 POPE .... Epistles to Mr. Jervas, to Lord BLirlington, and to Augustus. 
 
 THOMSON . . Winter. 
 
 JOHNSON . . Vanky of Human Wishes. 
 
 GRAY .... Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, and The Bard. 
 
 GOLDSMITH . Deserted Village. 
 
 CO'WPER . . Winter Morning's Walk. 
 
 BURNS . . . Cotter's Saturday Night, Tam O'Shanter, and a Selection t'rom the 
 
 Songs. 
 COLERIDGE . Ancient Mariner. 
 BYRON . . . Isles of Greece, and Selections from Childe Harold, Manfred, and 
 
 the Hebrew Melodies. 
 KEATS . . . Eve of St. Agnes, Ode to a Nightingale, Sonnet on Chapman's 
 
 Homer. 
 SHELLEY . . Euganean Hills, The Cloud, The Skylark, and the Two Sonnets 
 
 on the Nile. 
 WORDSWORTH Laodamia, The Highland Girl, Tintern Abbey, The Cuckoo, The 
 
 Ode to a Skylark, The Milton Sonnet, The Ode to Duty, and 
 
 the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality. 
 MACAULAY . Horatius. 
 CLOUGH . . . Two Ships, the Prologue to the Mari Magno, and the Lawyer's 
 
 First Tale. 
 ARNOLD . . The Scholar-Gypsy and the Forsaken Merman. 
 BROWNING . Transcript from Euripides (Balaiistion's Adventure). 
 TENNYSON . Okione, Morte D'Arthur, The Miller's Daughter, and a Selection 
 
 from the Songs. 
 
LIBRARY