Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. Book Two (7),

1803 -1882. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1983.

Why read it? Emerson’s unit of thought is the epigrammatic sentence. Emerson writes a poetic prose. Emerson’s beliefs—that each man shares in the Over-Soul, or God, that man possesses, within himself, the means to all knowledge—expressed in his memorable sentences, are of central importance in the history of American culture. The only trouble is most of his ideas are half-truths.

Ideas:

“Talent alone can not make a writer.” P. 756. ………. “I join Napoleon with Goethe as being both representatives of the impatience and reaction of nature against the morgue of conventions…..” P. 761. ………. “It is the last lesson of modern science, that the highest simplicity of structure is produced, not by few elements, but by the highest complexity.” ………. “Man is the most composite of all creatures….” P. 761. ……... “…the disadvantages of any epoch exist only to the faint-hearted.” P. 761. ……….. “The secret of genius is…to realize all that we know.” P. 761. ………. “…to honor every truth by use.” P. 761. ………. “Gibbon was said by Carlyle to be the splendid bridge from the old world to the new.” P. 774. ………. Wordsworth: “Faith is necessary…to reconcile the foreknowledge of God with human evil.” P. 776. ………. “Classics which at home are drowsily read have a strange charm in a country inn, or on…a merchant brig.” P. 782. ………. “…we exchanged our experiences and all learned something.” P. 782. ………. “This light they [the English] derive from the liberty of speaking and writing, and thereby thinking.” P. 289. ………. “An ingenious anatomist has written a book to prove that races are imperishable, but nations are pliant political constructions, easily changed or destroyed.” P. 790.

To be continued.