The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude

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Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1904

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Page 446 - And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have ; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
Page 362 - The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity: Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew : The conscious stone to beauty grew.
Page 371 - As, in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious ; Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard; no man cried, God save him...
Page 447 - Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, Like wealthy men who care not how they give. But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills, And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me. And tho...
Page 309 - The affirmative of affirmatives is love. As much love, so much perception. As caloric to matter, so is love to mind ; so it enlarges, and so it empowers it.
Page 196 - The mathematics and the metaphysics, Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you ; No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en : In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
Page 155 - DAUGHTERS of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars and sky that holds them all...
Page 196 - ... stop at the best hotels; for, though they cost more, they do not cost much more, and there is the good company and the best information. In like manner, the scholar knows that the famed books contain, first and last, the best thoughts and facts. Now and then, by rarest luck, in some foolish Grub Street is the gem we want. But in the best circles is the best information. If you should transfer the amount of your reading day by day from the newspaper to the standard authors But who dare speak of...
Page 298 - What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now forever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower...
Page 382 - O friend, my bosom said, Through thee alone the sky is arched, Through thee the rose is red. All things through thee take nobler form, And look beyond the earth, The mill-round of our fate appears A sun-path in thy worth. Me too thy nobleness has taught To master my despair; The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair.

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