...self-reliant Aunt Debby anticipates Emerson's "Self-Reliant" man, who leaves the domestic scene on a "whim": "I shun father and mother and wife and brother when...would write on the lintels of the doorpost, Whim."* The material, psychological, and social functions of marriage for women are central to the novel. Ellen...

...total devotion to his work, which prevented him from giving more of his time to Sophia and Geddes. "I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me," Emerson had proclaimed in "Self-Reliance," words that Mumford himself might have written. And like...

...the lintels of the door-post, Whim," but he quickly adds, "I hope it is somewhat [that is, something] better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation." 4 Will is strong, but willfulness is close to petulance; and when will is strong, it can be blind or...

...emerges as a dangerous distraction from the self-involvement that genius requires. Emerson writes, "I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me. . . . Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company" (30). And above all, as the...

...violent shunning, whereas Emerson's and Thoreau's worlds begin with or after the shunning of others ("I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me") and typically depict the "I" just beside itself. The interest of the connection is that all undertake...

...others, the most ordinary perhaps affording, as in Emerson's case, a certain melancholy. MORAL PARADOXES I shun father and mother and wife and brother when...last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are...

...himself as a writer the following sentences from one of his early, most famous essays, "Self-Reliance": I shun father and mother and wife and brother when...last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Two remarks about this. First, shunning father and mother and wife and brother is, according to the...

...some verses . . . which were original" (E&L 259). One of its most nonchalantly daring passages begins, "I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when...would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim" (E&L 262). Here, in the very act of audaciously asserting his independence and "genius," Emerson is...

...enjoins upon himself the commandment to whim, he pauses to question the very basis of his own idea: "I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation."2" And more dramatically still, having sounded the tocsin for self-reliance repeatedly...

...last reference to Emerson evokes another aspect of genius— single-minded dedication to one's work: "I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me." Once again the image which Emerson evokes refers to a high level of self-esteem, in this case, the...