The first series of 'Emerson's Essays' was published in the year 1841, and the second in 1844. In The World's Classics' they were first printed in 1901, and reprinted in 1902, 1903, 1904, and 1905.

Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh

EMERSON'S ESSAYS

I

HISTORY

There is no great and no small
To the Soul that maketh all:
And where it cometh, all things are !
And it cometh everywhere.
I am owner of the sphere,
Of the seven stars and the solar year,
Of Cæsar's hand, and Plato's brain,
Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakespeare's strain.

same.

THERE is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the

He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought he may think; what a saint has felt he may feel ; what at any time has befallen any man he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.

Of the works of this mind history is the record. Its genius is illustrated by the entire series of days. Man is explicable by nothing less than all his history. Without hurry, without rest, the human spirit goes forth from the beginning to embody, every faculty, every thought, every emotion, which belongs to it in

B