Emerson: His Contribution to Literature

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Tufts college Press, 1911 - 177 pages
 

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Page 124 - If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanished gods to me appear; And one to me are shame and fame. They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
Page 66 - Standing on the bare ground — my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.
Page 18 - The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right.
Page 90 - We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams.
Page 96 - 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.
Page 98 - Which of the patterns had the artificer in view when he made the world, — the pattern of the unchangeable, or of that which is created ? If the world be indeed fair and the artificer good, it is manifest that he must have looked to that which is eternal; but if what cannot be said without blasphemy is true, then to the created pattern.
Page 14 - Great genial power, one would almost say, consists in not being original at all ; in being altogether receptive ; in letting the world do all, and suffering the spirit of the hour to pass unobstructed through the mind.
Page 126 - Who far outstrips the senses, though as gods They strive to reach him ; who himself at rest Transcends the fleetest flight of other beings, Who like the air supports all vital action. He moves, yet moves not ; he is far, yet near. He is within this universe, and yet Outside this universe ; whoe'er beholds All living creatures, as in him, and him — The universal spirit — as in all, Henceforth regards no creature with contempt.
Page 133 - Hast not thy share? On winged feet, Lo ! it rushes thee to meet; And all that Nature made thy own, Floating in air or pent in stone, Will rive the hills and swim the sea And, like thy shadow, follow thee.
Page 10 - ... ways, arriving late, But ever coming in time to crown The truth, and hurl wrongdoers down. He is the oldest, and best known, More near than aught thou call'st thy own, Yet, greeted in another's eyes, Disconcerts with glad surprise. This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers, Floods with blessings unawares. Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line, Severing rightly his from thine, Which is human, which divine.

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