The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays, 2d seriesHoughton, Mifflin, 1876 |
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Page 7
... words are as costly and admirable to Homer as Agamemnon's victories are to Agamemnon . The poet does not wait for the hero or the sage , but , as they act and think primarily , so he writes primarily what will and must be spoken , reck ...
... words are as costly and admirable to Homer as Agamemnon's victories are to Agamemnon . The poet does not wait for the hero or the sage , but , as they act and think primarily , so he writes primarily what will and must be spoken , reck ...
Page 8
... Words and deeds are quite indifferent modes of the divine energy . Words are also actions , and actions are a kind of words . The sign and credentials of the poet are that he announces that which no man foretold . He is the true and ...
... Words and deeds are quite indifferent modes of the divine energy . Words are also actions , and actions are a kind of words . The sign and credentials of the poet are that he announces that which no man foretold . He is the true and ...
Page 11
... word ever spoken , and the phrase will be the fittest , most musical , and the unerring voice of the world for that time . All that we call sacred history attests that the birth of a poet is the principal event in chrono- logy . ' Man ...
... word ever spoken , and the phrase will be the fittest , most musical , and the unerring voice of the world for that time . All that we call sacred history attests that the birth of a poet is the principal event in chrono- logy . ' Man ...
Page 15
... words . The writer wonders what the coachman or the hunter values in riding , in horses and dogs . It is not superficial qualities . When you talk with him he holds these at as slight a rate as you . His worship is sympathetic ; he has ...
... words . The writer wonders what the coachman or the hunter values in riding , in horses and dogs . It is not superficial qualities . When you talk with him he holds these at as slight a rate as you . His worship is sympathetic ; he has ...
Page 17
... words and images excluded from polite conversation . What would be base , or even obscene , to the obscene , becomes illustrious , spoken in a new connection of thought . The piety of the He- brew prophets purges their grossness . The ...
... words and images excluded from polite conversation . What would be base , or even obscene , to the obscene , becomes illustrious , spoken in a new connection of thought . The piety of the He- brew prophets purges their grossness . The ...
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Common terms and phrases
action animal Antinomians appear beauty begin to hope believe Boston Brook Farm character church conversation Dæmon divine earth Emerson England essay Eumenides experience expression eyes fact faith fancy fashion feel flowers force Fruitlands genius gentleman gift give gods heart heaven Heracleitus hour individual intellect James Naylor John Sterling labor Lectures and Biographical live look Lord man's manners ment mind moral morning natura naturata nature never NOMINALIST numbers object party passage persons phrenology Plato Plotinus Plutarch Poems poet poetry politics poor present Proclus Pythagoras RALPH WALDO EMERSON reform religion rich Samuel Hoar secret seems sense sentiment society soul speak spirit stand stars symbol talent thee things thou thought tion truth universal virtue whilst whole wise wonder words write
Popular passages
Page 9 - For, it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem, — a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.
Page 173 - He who knows the most, he who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal man.
Page 27 - As the traveller who has lost his way, throws his reins on his horse's neck, and trusts to the instinct of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through this world.
Page 216 - We think our civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star. In our barbarous society the influence of character is in its infancy. As a political power, as the rightful lord who is to tumble all rulers from their chairs, its presence is hardly yet suspected. Malthus and Ricardo quite omit it ; the Annual Register is silent ; in the Conversations...
Page 6 - The poet is the person in whom these powers are in balance, the man without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience, and is representative of man, in virtue of being the largest power to receive and to impart.
Page 42 - And this is the reward; that the ideal shall be real to thee, and the impressions of the actual world shall fall like summer rain, copious, but not troublesome to thy invulnerable essence.
Page 147 - And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth In form and shape compact and beautiful, In will, in action free, companionship, And thousand other signs of purer life ; 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: nor are we Thereby more conquer'd than by us the rule Of shapeless Chaos.
Page 7 - The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre. For the world is not painted, or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful ; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe.
Page 25 - A rhyme in one of our sonnets should not be less pleasing than the iterated nodes of a seashell, or the resembling difference of a group of flowers.
Page 65 - Human life is made up of the two elements, power and form, and the proportion must be invariably kept, if we would have it sweet and sound.