The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 10

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Houghton, Mifflin, 1904 - 461 pages

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Page 95 - But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, To perish never...
Page 512 - O for a blast of that dread horn, On Fontarabian echoes borne, That to King Charles did come, When Rowland brave, and Olivier, And every paladin and peer, On Roncesvalles died...
Page 541 - When we have broken our god of tradition, and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with his presence.
Page 548 - Yourself a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost, cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity.
Page 474 - The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length the middle-aged man concludes to build a wood-shed with them.
Page 541 - He spoke of miracles ; for he felt that man's life was a miracle, and all that man doth, and he knew that this daily miracle shines as the character ascends. But the word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression ; it is Monster.
Page 511 - So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can...
Page 599 - Folk say, a wizard to a northern king, At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show, That through one window men beheld the spring, And through another saw the summer glow, And through a third the fruited vines arow, While still, unheard, but in its wonted way, Piped the drear wind of that December day.
Page 469 - I hearing get, who had but ears, And sight, who had but eyes before ; I moments live, who lived but years, And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore.
Page 96 - ... to lay down his life for the sake of a truth, or in the cause of his country, or to save his son or his friend. And under the action of this sentiment of the Right, his heart and mind expand above himself, and above Nature. Though Love repine, and Reason chafe, There came a voice without reply, — " 'T is man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.

About the author (1904)

Known primarily as the leader of the philosophical movement transcendentalism, which stresses the ties of humans to nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet and essayist, was born in Boston in 1803. From a long line of religious leaders, Emerson became the minister of the Second Church (Unitarian) in 1829. He left the church in 1832 because of profound differences in interpretation and doubts about church doctrine. He visited England and met with British writers and philosophers. It was during this first excursion abroad that Emerson formulated his ideas for Self-Reliance. He returned to the United States in 1833 and settled in Concord, Massachusetts. He began lecturing in Boston. His first book, Nature (1836), published anonymously, detailed his belief and has come to be regarded as his most significant original work on the essence of his philosophy of transcendentalism. The first volume of Essays (1841) contained some of Emerson's most popular works, including the renowned Self-Reliance. Emerson befriended and influenced a number of American authors including Henry David Thoreau. It was Emerson's practice of keeping a journal that inspired Thoreau to do the same and set the stage for Thoreau's experiences at Walden Pond. Emerson married twice (his first wife Ellen died in 1831 of tuberculosis) and had four children (two boys and two girls) with his second wife, Lydia. His first born, Waldo, died at age six. Emerson died in Concord on April 27, 1882 at the age of 78 due to pneumonia and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.

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