OUR age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation... Essays, orations and lectures - Page 1by Ralph Waldo Emerson - 1848 - 385 pagesFull view - About this book
| Birmingham Public Libraries - 1885 - 220 pages
...this, and expressed it clearly in those remarkable words with which his Essay on Nature begins : " Our " age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It " writes biographies, history, criticism." Those words were written nearly fifty years ago, and every subsequent year's experience... | |
| Herman Friedrich Grimm - 1886 - 332 pages
...the weight of history and traditions sent over to them from the Old World. "Our age," Nature begins, "is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the...the universe ? Why should not we have a poetry and a philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history... | |
| Massachusetts Historical Society - 1886 - 628 pages
...qualities. It begins thus, with statements which were then paradoxes, but are now commonplaces : — " Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, criticisms. The foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face to face ; we, through their eyes.... | |
| Charles Francis Richardson - 1886 - 568 pages
...thoughts and utterance. The the teacher. same S pi r it breathes through a thousand variant words : Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, criticisms. The foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why... | |
| Charles Francis Richardson - 1889 - 572 pages
...his thoughts and utterance. The the teacher. same gpirjt breathes through a thousand variant words : Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, criticisms. The foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face to face ; we, through their eyes.... | |
| William Hague - 1888 - 386 pages
...new book the writer appealed to the century against the primary claim of Christianity, exclaiming, " The foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face...to face ; we, through their eyes. Why should not we enjoy also an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of... | |
| Hamilton Wright Mabie - 1894 - 200 pages
...his authority rests on his own clarity of vision and directness of insight. " Our age," says Emerson, "is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the...we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season... | |
| Burke Aaron Hinsdale - 1896 - 396 pages
...shonld not ascend to the head-springs of thought, feeling, and life. As Mr. Emerson voices this demand: Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres...Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of iiisight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed... | |
| James Freeman Clarke - 1897 - 388 pages
...hundred pages, called " Nature," published in 1836, indicates all these qualities. It begins thus:— " Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, criticisms. The foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why... | |
| Henry Augustin Beers - 1898 - 480 pages
...declaration of independence; and it asked, in substance, the question asked in Emerson's " Nature " : " Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?" Pope had said, in his " Essay on Criticism," * " follow Nature," and in order to follow Nature, learn... | |
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