Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Augustus, who died in 1828. He was the friend and patron of the great
German authors, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland.]
[Footnote 672: The Raphael in the Dresden gallery. The Sistine
Madonna, the most famous picture of the great Italian artist,
Raphael.]
[Footnote 673: Call a spade a spade. Plutarch, the Greek historian,
said, "These Macedonians ... call a spade a spade."]
[Footnote 674: Parts. A favorite eighteenth century term for
abilities, talents.]
[Footnote 675: We have found out, etc. Emerson always insisted that
morals and intellect should be united. He urged that power and
insight are lessened by shortcomings in morals.]
[Footnote 676: Goethe's Tasso. A play by the German poet
Goethe, founded on the belief that the imprisonment of Tasso was due
to his aspiration to the hand of Leonora d'Este, sister of the duke of
Ferrara. Tasso was a famous Italian poet of the seventeenth century.]
[Footnote 677: Richard III. An English king, the last of the
Plantagenet line, the hero--or villain--of Shakespeare's historical
play, Richard III.]
[Footnote 678: Bifold. Give a simpler word that means the same.]
[Footnote 679: Cæsar. Why is Cæsar the great Roman ruler, given as a
type of greatness?]
[Footnote 680: Job. Why is Job, the hero of the Old Testament book of
the same name, given as a type of misery?]
[Footnote 681: Poor Richard. _Poor Richard's Almanac_,
published (1732-1757) by Benjamin Franklin was a collection of maxims
inculcating prudence and thrift. These were given as the sayings of
"Poor Richard."]
[Footnote 682: State Street. A street in Boston, Massachusetts, noted
as a financial center.]
[Footnote 683: Stick in a tree between whiles, etc. "Jock, when ye hae
naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be
growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping."--Scott's _Heart of Midlothian_.
It is said that these were the words of a dying Scotchman to his son.]
[Footnote 684: Minor virtues. Emerson suggests that punctuality and
regard for a promise are two of these. Can you name others?]
[Footnote 685: The Latin proverb says, etc. This is quoted from
Tacitus, the famous Roman historian.]
[Footnote 686: If he set out to contend, etc. In contention,
Emerson holds, the best men would lose their characteristic virtues,
--the fearless apostle Paul, his devotion to truth; the gentle
disciple John, his loving charity.]
[Footnote 687: Though your views are in straight antagonism, &c. This
was Emerson's own method, and by it he won a courteous hearing from
those to whom his views were most objectionable.]
[Footnote 688: Consuetudes. Give a simpler word that has the same
meaning.]
[Footnote 689: Begin where we will, etc. Explain what Emerson means by
this expression.]
CIRCLES
[Footnote 690: This essay first appeared in the first series of
_Essays_, published in 1841. Unlike most of the other essays in the
volume, no earlier form of it exists, and it was probably not
delivered first as a lecture.
Dr. Richard Garnett says in his _Life of Emerson_: "The object of this
fine essay quaintly entitled _Circles_ is to reconcile this rigidity
of unalterable law with the fact of human progress. Compensation
illustrates one property of a circle, which always returns to the
point where it began, but it is no less true that around every circle
another can be drawn.... Emerson followed his own counsel; he always
keeps a reserve of power. His theory of _Circles_ reappears without
the least verbal indebtedness to himself in the splendid essay on
_Love_."]
[Footnote 691: St. Augustine. A celebrated father of the
Latin church, who flourished in the fourth century. His most famous
work is his _Confessions_, an autobiographical volume of religious
meditations.]
[Footnote 692: Another dawn risen on mid-noon. "Another morn has risen
on mid-noon." Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book V.]
[Footnote 693: Greek sculpture. The greatest development of
the art of sculpture that the world has ever known was that which took
place in Greece, with Athens as the center, in the fifth century
before Christ. The masterpieces which remain are the models on which
modern art formed itself.]
[Footnote 694: Greek letters. In literature--in drama, philosophy and
history--Greece attained an excellence as signal as in art. Emerson as
a scholar, felt that the literature of Greece was more permanent than
its art. Would an artist be apt to take this view?]
[Footnote 695: New arts destroy the old, etc. Tell the ways in which
the improvements and inventions mentioned by Emerson have been
superseded by others; give the reasons. Mention other similar cases of
more recent date.]
[Footnote 696: The life of man is a self-evolving circle, etc. "Throw a
stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the
beautiful type of all influence."--EMERSON, in _Nature_.]
[Footnote 697: The heart refuses to be imprisoned. It is a
superstition current in many countries that an evil spirit cannot
escape from a circle drawn round it.]
[Footnote 698: Crass. Gross; coarse.]
[Footnote 699: The continual effort to raise himself above
himself, etc.
"Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!"
SAMUEL DANIEL.
]
[Footnote 700: If he were high enough, etc.
Have I a lover
Who is noble and free?--
I would he were nobler
Than to love me.--EMERSON, _The Sphinx._
]
[Footnote 701: Aristotle and Plato. Plato was a famous Greek
philosopher who flourished in the fourth century before Christ. He was
the disciple of Socrates, the teacher of Aristotle, and the founder of
the academic school of philosophy. His exposition of idealism was
founded on the teachings of Socrates. Aristotle, another famous Greek
philosopher, was for twenty years the pupil of Plato. He founded the
peripatetic school of philosophy, and his writing dealt with all the
then known branches of science.]
[Footnote 702: Berkeley. George Berkeley was a British clergyman of
the eighteenth century. He was the author of works on philosophy which
are marked by extreme subjective idealism.]
[Footnote 703: Termini. Boundaries or marks to indicate boundaries. In
Roman mythology, Terminus was the god who presided over boundaries or
landmarks. He is represented with a human head, but without feet or
arms,--to indicate that he never moved from his place.]
[Footnote 704: Pentecost. One of three great Jewish festivals. On the
day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the infant Christian
church, with the gift of tongues. See Acts ii. 1-20.]
[Footnote 705: Hodiernal. Belonging to our present day.]
[Footnote 706: Punic. Of Carthage, a famous ancient city, and
state of northern Africa. Carthage was the rival of Rome, but was,
after long warfare, overcome in the second century before Christ.]
[Footnote 707: In like manner, etc. Emerson always urged that in order
to get the best from all, one must pass from affairs to thought,
society to solitude, books to nature.
"See thou bring not to field or stone
The fancies found in books;
Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own,
To brave the landscape's look."--EMERSON,
_Waldeinsamkeit_.
]
[Footnote 708: Petrarch. (See note 563.)]
[Footnote 709: Ariosto. A famous Italian author of the sixteenth
century, who wrote comedies, satires, and a metrical romance, _Orlando
Furioso_.]
[Footnote 710: "Then shall also the Son", etc. See 1 Corinthians xv.
28: Does Emerson quote the passage verbatim?]
[Footnote 711: These manifold tenacious qualities, etc. It is
remarked of Emerson that the idea of the symbolism of nature which he
received from Plato, was the source of much of his pleasure in
Swedenborg, the Swedish mystic philosopher. Emerson says in his volume
on _Nature_: "The noblest ministry of nature is to stand as an
apparition of God."]
[Footnote 712: "Forgive his crimes," etc. This is quoted from _Night
Thoughts_ by the English didactic poet, Edward Young.]
[Footnote 713: Pyrrhonism. A doctrine held by a follower of Pyrrho, a
Greek philosopher of the third century before Christ, who founded the
sceptical school. He taught that it is impossible to attain truth, and
that men should be indifferent to all external circumstances.]
[Footnote 714: I own I am gladdened, etc. Emerson always held fast to
the consoling thought that there was no evil without good, none out of
which Good did not or could not come.]
[Footnote 715: Sempiternal. Everlasting; eternal.]
[Footnote 716: Oliver Cromwell. An Englishman of the middle classes
who became the military and civil leader of the English Revolution of
the seventeenth century. He refused the title of king; but as Lord
Protector of the English commonwealth, he exercised royal power.]