...of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith."1 The activist preservationist position later was undertaken by John Muir, who explored the...

...mentor here) contraries, are joined or married in this experience, which is one of profound consolation. "There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,...(leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair." The only fear is blindness; his eyesight is the mode and grounding of the consolation. In the experience...

...self-as-represented-tothe-self. But Emerson seeks to transcend the Kantian limit. Here is the key passage: In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There...repair. Standing on the bare ground - my head bathed by blithe air and uplifted into infinite space - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball;...

...resonant of transcendentalism. It recalls the most famous passage from Emerson's essay, "Nature": / /('e/ that nothing can befall me in life, - no disgrace,...eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the hare ground, - my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, - all mean egotism...

...parenthesis in the statement that precedes the transparent eyeball passage: "I feel that nothing can befal me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair" (CW1:10). In prose as in poetry, complex metaphors make complex arguments. Anyone who reads Emerson...

...Richard Brookhiser. Copyright © 1991 by Richard Brookhiser. propriated for his own project. "Standing on bare ground — my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space ... I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all . . .2 The way that conscience sees must...

...of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we feel we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,— no disgrace,...

...of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods,...to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befal me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing...

...of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods,...to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befal me in life, - no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. In...

...the assertion that the visual faculty is the sine qua non of human existence — "In the woods ... I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no...(leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair" — Emerson offers his famous catachresis: "I become a transparent eye-balL I am nothing. I see alL...