Ralph Waldo Emerson
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Part 6 out of 7
"Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not,
And all their botany is Latin names;"
and in "The Walk," where the "learned men" with their glasses are
contrasted with the sons of Nature,--the poets are no doubt meant,--much
to the disadvantage of the microscopic observers. Emerson's mind
was very far from being of the scientific pattern. Science is
quantitative,--loves the foot-rule and the balance,--methodical,
exhaustive, indifferent to the beautiful as such. The poet is curious,
asks all manner of questions, and never thinks of waiting for the
answer, still less of torturing Nature to get at it. Emerson wonders,
for instance,--
"Why Nature loves the number five,"
but leaves his note of interrogation without troubling himself any
farther. He must have picked up some wood-craft and a little botany
from Thoreau, and a few chemical notions from his brother-in-law, Dr.
Jackson, whose name is associated with the discovery of artificial
anaesthesia. It seems probable that the genial companionship of Agassiz,
who united with his scientific genius, learning, and renown, most
delightful social qualities, gave him a kinder feeling to men of science
and their pursuits than he had entertained before that great master came
among us. At any rate he avails himself of the facts drawn from their
specialties without scruple when they will serve his turn. But he loves
the poet always better than the scientific student of nature. In his
Preface to the Poems of Mr. W.E. Channing, he says:--
"Here is a naturalist who sees the flower and the bud with a poet's
curiosity and awe, and does not count the stamens in the aster, nor the
feathers in the wood-thrush, but rests in the surprise and affection
they awake."--
This was Emerson's own instinctive attitude to all the phenomena of
nature.
Emerson's style is epigrammatic, incisive, authoritative, sometimes
quaint, never obscure, except when he is handling nebulous subjects.
His paragraphs are full of brittle sentences that break apart and are
independent units, like the fragments of a coral colony. His imagery is
frequently daring, leaping from the concrete to the abstract, from the
special to the general and universal, and _vice versa_, with a bound
that is like a flight. Here are a few specimens of his pleasing
_audacities_:--
"There is plenty of wild azote and carbon unappropriated, but it is
naught till we have made it up into loaves and soup."--
"He arrives at the sea-shore and a sumptuous ship has floored and
carpeted for him the stormy Atlantic."--
"If we weave a yard of tape in all humility and as well as we can, long
hereafter we shall see it was no cotton tape at all but some galaxy
which we braided, and that the threads were Time and Nature."--
"Tapping the tempest for a little side wind."--
"The locomotive and the steamboat, like enormous shuttles, shoot
every day across the thousand various threads of national descent and
employment and bind them fast in one web."--
He is fond of certain archaisms and unusual phrases. He likes
the expression "mother-wit," which he finds in Spenser, Marlowe,
Shakespeare, and other old writers. He often uses the word "husband"
in its earlier sense of economist. His use of the word "haughty" is so
fitting, and it sounds so nobly from his lips, that we could wish its
employment were forbidden henceforth to voices which vulgarize it. But
his special, constitutional, word is "fine," meaning something like
dainty, as Shakespeare uses it,--"my dainty Ariel,"--"fine Ariel." It
belongs to his habit of mind and body as "faint" and "swoon" belong to
Keats. This word is one of the ear-marks by which Emerson's imitators
are easily recognized. "Melioration" is another favorite word of
Emerson's. A clairvoyant could spell out some of his most characteristic
traits by the aid of his use of these three words; his inborn
fastidiousness, subdued and kept out of sight by his large charity and
his good breeding, showed itself in his liking for the word "haughty;"
his exquisite delicacy by his fondness for the word "fine," with a
certain shade of meaning; his optimism in the frequent recurrence of the
word "melioration."
We must not find fault with his semi-detached sentences until we quarrel
with Solomon and criticise the Sermon on the Mount. The "point and
surprise" which he speaks of as characterizing the style of Plutarch
belong eminently to his own. His fertility of illustrative imagery is
very great. His images are noble, or, if borrowed from humble objects,
ennobled by his handling. He throws his royal robe over a milking-stool
and it becomes a throne. But chiefly he chooses objects of comparison
grand in themselves. He deals with the elements at first hand. Such
delicacy of treatment, with such breadth and force of effect, is hard to
match anywhere, and we know him by his style at sight. It is as when the
slight fingers of a girl touch the keys of some mighty and many-voiced
organ, and send its thunders rolling along the aisles and startling
the stained windows of a great cathedral. We have seen him as an
unpretending lecturer. We follow him round as he "peddles out all the
wit he can gather from Time or from Nature," and we find that "he has
changed his market cart into a chariot of the sun," and is carrying
about the morning light as merchandise.
* * * * *
Emerson was as loyal an American, as thorough a New Englander, as
home-loving a citizen, as ever lived. He arraigned his countrymen
sharply for their faults. Mr. Arnold made one string of his epithets
familiar to all of us,--"This great, intelligent, sensual, and
avaricious America." This was from a private letter to Carlyle. In his
Essay, "Works and Days," he is quite as outspoken: "This mendicant
America, this curious, peering, itinerant, imitative America." "I
see plainly," he says, "that our society is as bigoted to the
respectabilities of religion and education as yours." "The war," he
says, "gave back integrity to this erring and immoral nation." All his
life long he recognized the faults and errors of the new civilization.
All his life long he labored diligently and lovingly to correct them.
To the dark prophecies of Carlyle, which came wailing to him across the
ocean, he answered with ever hopeful and cheerful anticipations. "Here,"
he said, in words I have already borrowed, "is the home of man--here is
the promise of a new and more excellent social state than history has
recorded."
Such a man as Emerson belongs to no one town or province or continent;
he is the common property of mankind; and yet we love to think of him
as breathing the same air and treading the same soil that we and our
fathers and our children have breathed and trodden. So it pleases us
to think how fondly he remembered his birthplace; and by the side of
Franklin's bequest to his native city we treasure that golden verse of
Emerson's:--
"A blessing through the ages thus
Shield all thy roofs and towers,
GOD WITH THE FATHERS, SO WITH US,
Thou darling town of ours!"
Emerson sympathized with all generous public movements, but he was not
fond of working in associations, though he liked well enough to attend
their meetings as a listener and looker-on. His study was his workshop,
and he preferred to labor in solitude. When he became famous he paid the
penalty of celebrity in frequent interruptions by those "devastators of
the day" who sought him in his quiet retreat. His courtesy and kindness
to his visitors were uniform and remarkable. Poets who come to recite
their verses and reformers who come to explain their projects are
among the most formidable of earthly visitations. Emerson accepted
his martyrdom with meek submission; it was a martyrdom in detail, but
collectively its petty tortures might have satisfied a reasonable
inquisitor as the punishment of a moderate heresy. Except in that one
phrase above quoted he never complained of his social oppressors, so far
as I remember, in his writings. His perfect amiability was one of his
most striking characteristics, and in a nature fastidious as was his in
its whole organization, it implied a self-command worthy of admiration.
* * * * *
The natural purity and elevation of Emerson's character show themselves
in all that he writes. His life corresponded to the ideal we form of him
from his writings. This it was which made him invulnerable amidst all
the fierce conflicts his gentle words excited. His white shield was so
spotless that the least scrupulous combatants did not like to leave
their defacing marks upon it. One would think he was protected by some
superstition like that which Voltaire refers to as existing about
Boileau,--
"Ne disons pas mal de Nicolas,--cela porte malheur."
(Don't let us abuse Nicolas,--it brings ill luck.) The cooped-up
dogmatists whose very citadel of belief he was attacking, and who had
their hot water and boiling pitch and flaming brimstone ready for the
assailants of their outer defences, withheld their missiles from him,
and even sometimes, in a movement of involuntary human sympathy,
sprinkled him with rose-water. His position in our Puritan New England
was in some respects like that of Burns in Presbyterian Scotland. The
_dour_ Scotch ministers and elders could not cage their minstrel, and
they could not clip his wings; and so they let this morning lark rise
above their theological mists, and sing to them at heaven's gate, until
he had softened all their hearts and might nestle in their bosoms and
find his perch on "the big ha' bible," if he would,--and as he did. So
did the music of Emerson's words and life steal into the hearts of our
stern New England theologians, and soften them to a temper which would
have seemed treasonable weakness to their stiff-kneed forefathers. When
a man lives a life commended by all the Christian virtues, enlightened
persons are not so apt to cavil at his particular beliefs or unbeliefs
as in former generations. We do, however, wish to know what are the
convictions of any such persons in matters of highest interest about
which there is so much honest difference of opinion in this age of deep
and anxious and devout religious scepticism.
It was a very wise and a very prudent course which was taken by
Simonides, when he was asked by his imperial master to give him his
ideas about the Deity. He begged for a day to consider the question, but
when the time came for his answer he wanted two days more, and at the
end of these, four days. In short, the more he thought about it, the
more he found himself perplexed.
The name most frequently applied to Emerson's form of belief is
Pantheism. How many persons who shudder at the sound of this word can
tell the difference between that doctrine and their own professed belief
in the omnipresence of the Deity?
Theodore Parker explained Emerson's position, as he understood it, in an
article in the "Massachusetts Quarterly Review." I borrow this quotation
from Mr. Cooke:--
"He has an absolute confidence in God. He has been foolishly accused of
Pantheism, which sinks God in nature, but no man Is further from it.
He never sinks God in man; he does not stop with the law, in matter or
morals, but goes to the Law-giver; yet probably it would not be so easy
for him to give his definition of God, as it would be for most graduates
at Andover or Cambridge."
We read in his Essay, "Self-Reliance ": "This is the ultimate fact which
we so quickly reach on this, as on every topic, the resolution of all
into the ever-blessed ONE. Self-existence is the attribute of the
Supreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of good by the degree in
which it enters into all lower forms."
The "ever-blessed ONE" of Emerson corresponds to the Father in the
doctrine of the Trinity. The "Over-Soul" of Emerson is that aspect of
Deity which is known to theology as the Holy Spirit. Jesus was for him a
divine manifestation, but only as other great human souls have been in
all ages and are to-day. He was willing to be called a Christian just as
he was willing to be called a Platonist.
Explanations are apt not to explain much in dealing with subjects like
this. "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the
Almighty unto perfection?" But on certain great points nothing could be
clearer than the teaching of Emerson. He believed in the doctrine of
spiritual influx as sincerely as any Calvinist or Swedenborgian. His
views as to fate, or the determining conditions of the character,
brought him near enough to the doctrine of predestination to make him
afraid of its consequences, and led him to enter a caveat against any
denial of the self-governing power of the will.
His creed was a brief one, but he carried it everywhere with him. In all
he did, in all he said, and so far as all outward signs could show, in
all his thoughts, the indwelling Spirit was his light and guide; through
all nature he looked up to nature's God; and if he did not worship the
"man Christ Jesus" as the churches of Christendom have done, he followed
his footsteps so nearly that our good Methodist, Father Taylor, spoke of
him as more like Christ than any man he had known.
Emerson was in friendly relations with many clergymen of the church
from which he had parted. Since he left the pulpit, the lesson, not
of tolerance, for that word is an insult as applied by one set of
well-behaved people to another, not of charity, for that implies an
impertinent assumption, but of good feeling on the part of divergent
sects and their ministers has been taught and learned as never before.
Their official Confessions of Faith make far less difference in their
human sentiments and relations than they did even half a century ago.
These ancient creeds are handed along down, to be kept in their phials
with their stoppers fast, as attar of rose is kept in its little
bottles; they are not to be opened and exposed to the atmosphere so long
as their perfume,--the odor of sanctity,--is diffused from the carefully
treasured receptacles,--perhaps even longer than that.
Out of the endless opinions as to the significance and final outcome of
Emerson's religious teachings I will select two as typical.
Dr. William Hague, long the honored minister of a Baptist church in
Boston, where I had the pleasure of friendly acquaintance with him, has
written a thoughtful, amiable paper on Emerson, which he read before the
New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. This Essay closes with
the following sentence:--
"Thus, to-day, while musing, as at the beginning, over the works of
Ralph Waldo Emerson, we recognize now as ever his imperial genius as one
of the greatest of writers; at the same time, his life work, as a whole,
tested by its supreme ideal, its method and its fruitage, shows also a
great waste of power, verifying the saying of Jesus touching the harvest
of human life: 'HE THAT GATHERETH NOT WITH ME SCATTERETH ABROAD.'"
"But when Dean Stanley returned from America, it was to report," says
Mr. Conway "('Macmillan,' June, 1879), that religion had there passed
through an evolution from Edwards to Emerson, and that 'the genial
atmosphere which Emerson has done so much to promote is shared by all
the churches equally.'"
What is this "genial atmosphere" but the very spirit of Christianity?
The good Baptist minister's Essay is full of it. He comes asking what
has become of Emerson's "wasted power" and lamenting his lack of
"fruitage," and lo! he himself has so ripened and mellowed in that same
Emersonian air that the tree to which he belongs would hardly know him.
The close-communion clergyman handles the arch-heretic as tenderly as if
he were the nursing mother of a new infant Messiah. A few generations
ago this preacher of a new gospel would have been burned; a little later
he would been tried and imprisoned; less than fifty years ago he was
called infidel and atheist; names which are fast becoming relinquished
to the intellectual half-breeds who sometimes find their way into
pulpits and the so-called religious periodicals.
It is not within our best-fenced churches and creeds that the
self-governing American is like to find the religious freedom which the
Concord prophet asserted with the strength of Luther and the sweetness
of Melancthon, and which the sovereign in his shirt-sleeves will surely
claim. Milton was only the precursor of Emerson when he wrote:--
"Neither is God appointed and confined, where and out of what place
these his chosen shall be first heard to speak; for he sees not as man
sees, chooses not as man chooses, lest we should devote ourselves again
to set places and assemblies, and outward callings of men, planting our
faith one while in the old convocation house, and another while in the
Chapel at Westminster, when all the faith and religion that shall be
there canonized is not sufficient without plain convincement, and
the charity of patient instruction, to supple the least bruise of
conscience, to edify the meanest Christian who desires to walk in the
spirit and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number of
voices that can be there made; no, though Harry the Seventh himself
there, with all his liege tombs about him, should lend their voices from
the dead, to swell their number."
The best evidence of the effect produced by Emerson's writings and life
is to be found in the attention he has received from biographers and
critics. The ground upon which I have ventured was already occupied by
three considerable Memoirs. Mr. George Willis Cooke's elaborate work is
remarkable for its careful and thorough analysis of Emerson's teachings.
Mr. Moncure Daniel Conway's "Emerson at Home and Abroad" is a lively
picture of its subject by one long and well acquainted with him. Mr.
Alexander Ireland's "Biographical Sketch" brings together, from a great
variety of sources, as well as from his own recollections, the facts of
Emerson's history and the comments of those whose opinions were best
worth reproducing. I must refer to this volume for a bibliography of the
various works and Essays of which Emerson furnished the subject.
From the days when Mr. Whipple attracted the attention of our
intelligent, but unawakened reading community, by his discriminating and
appreciative criticisms of Emerson's Lectures, and Mr. Lowell drew the
portrait of the New England "Plotinus-Montaigne" in his brilliant "Fable
for Critics," to the recent essays of Mr. Matthew Arnold, Mr. John
Morley, Mr. Henry Norman, and Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, Emerson's
writings have furnished one of the most enduring _pieces de resistance_
at the critical tables of the old and the new world.
He early won the admiration of distinguished European thinkers and
writers: Carlyle accepted his friendship and his disinterested services;
Miss Martineau fully recognized his genius and sounded his praises; Miss
Bremer fixed her sharp eyes on him and pronounced him "a noble man."
Professor Tyndall found the inspiration of his life in Emerson's
fresh thought; and Mr. Arnold, who clipped his medals reverently but
unsparingly, confessed them to be of pure gold, even while he questioned
whether they would pass current with posterity. He found discerning
critics in France, Germany, and Holland. Better than all is the
testimony of those who knew him best. They who repeat the saying that
"a prophet is not without honor save in his own country," will find an
exception to its truth in the case of Emerson. Read the impressive words
spoken at his funeral by his fellow-townsman, Judge Hoar; read the
glowing tributes of three of Concord's poets,--Mr. Alcott, Mr. Channing,
and Mr. Sanborn,--and it will appear plainly enough that he, whose fame
had gone out into all the earth, was most of all believed in, honored,
beloved, lamented, in the little village circle that centred about his
own fireside.
It is a not uninteresting question whether Emerson has bequeathed to the
language any essay or poem which will resist the flow of time like "the
adamant of Shakespeare," and remain a classic like the Essays of Addison
or Gray's Elegy. It is a far more important question whether his thought
entered into the spirit of his day and generation, so that it modified
the higher intellectual, moral, and religious life of his time, and, as
a necessary consequence, those of succeeding ages. _Corpora non agunt
nisi soluta_, and ideas must be dissolved and taken up as well as
material substances before they can act. "That which thou sowest is not
quickened except it die," or rather lose the form with which it was
sown. Eight stanzas of four lines each have made the author of "The
Burial of Sir John Moore" an immortal, and endowed the language with a
classic, perfect as the most finished cameo. But what is the gift of a
mourning ring to the bequest of a perpetual annuity? How many lives
have melted into the history of their time, as the gold was lost
in Corinthian brass, leaving no separate monumental trace of their
influence, but adding weight and color and worth to the age of which
they formed a part and the generations that came after them! We can dare
to predict of Emerson, in the words of his old friend and disciple, Mr.
Cranch:--
"The wise will know thee and the good will love,
The age to come will feel thy impress given
In all that lifts the race a step above
Itself, and stamps it with the seal of heaven."
It seems to us, to-day, that Emerson's best literary work in prose and
verse must live as long as the language lasts; but whether it live or
fade from memory, the influence of his great and noble life and
the spoken and written words which were its exponents, blends,
indestructible, with the enduring elements of civilization.
* * * * *
It is not irreverent, but eminently fitting, to compare any singularly
pure and virtuous life with that of the great exemplar in whose
footsteps Christendom professes to follow. The time was when the divine
authority of his gospel rested chiefly upon the miracles he is reported
to have wrought. As the faith in these exceptions to the general laws
of the universe diminished, the teachings of the Master, of whom it was
said that he spoke as never man spoke, were more largely relied upon
as evidence of his divine mission. Now, when a comparison of these
teachings with those of other religious leaders is thought by many to
have somewhat lessened the force of this argument, the life of the
sinless and self-devoted servant of God and friend of man is appealed to
as the last and convincing proof that he was an immediate manifestation
of the Divinity.
Judged by his life Emerson comes very near our best ideal of humanity.
He was born too late for the trial of the cross or the stake, or even
the jail. But the penalty of having an opinion of his own and expressing
it was a serious one, and he accepted it as cheerfully as any of Queen
Mary's martyrs accepted his fiery baptism. His faith was too large and
too deep for the formulae he found built into the pulpit, and he was too
honest to cover up his doubts under the flowing vestments of a sacred
calling. His writings, whether in prose or verse, are worthy of
admiration, but his manhood was the underlying quality which gave them
their true value. It was in virtue of this that his rare genius acted on
so many minds as a trumpet call to awaken them to the meaning and the
privileges of this earthly existence with all its infinite promise.
No matter of what he wrote or spoke, his words, his tones, his looks,
carried the evidence of a sincerity which pervaded them all and was to
his eloquence and poetry like the water of crystallization; without
which they would effloresce into mere rhetoric. He shaped an ideal for
the commonest life, he proposed an object to the humblest seeker after
truth. Look for beauty in the world around you, he said, and you shall
see it everywhere. Look within, with pure eyes and simple trust, and you
shall find the Deity mirrored in your own soul. Trust yourself because
you trust the voice of God in your inmost consciousness.
There are living organisms so transparent that we can see their hearts
beating and their blood flowing through their glassy tissues. So
transparent was the life of Emerson; so clearly did the true nature of
the man show through it. What he taught others to be, he was himself.
His deep and sweet humanity won him love and reverence everywhere
among those whose natures were capable of responding to the highest
manifestations of character. Here and there a narrow-eyed sectary may
have avoided or spoken ill of him; but if He who knew what was in man
had wandered from door to door in New England as of old in Palestine, we
can well believe that one of the thresholds which "those blessed feet"
would have crossed, to hallow and receive its welcome, would have been
that of the lovely and quiet home of Emerson.
INDEX.
[For many references, not found elsewhere, see under the general
headings of _Emerson's Books, Essays, Poems_.]
Abbott, Josiah Gardiner, a pupil of Emerson, 49, 50.
Academic Races, 2, 3. (See _Heredity_.)
Action, subordinate, 112.
Adams, John, old age, 261.
Adams, Samuel, Harvard debate, 115.
Addison, Joseph, classic, 416.
Advertiser, The, Emerson's interest in, 348.
Aeolian Harp, his model, 329, 340.
(See _Emerson's Poems_,--Harp.)
Aeschylus, tragedies, 253. (See _Greek_.)
Agassiz, Louis:
Saturday Club, 222;
companionship, 403.
Agriculture:
in Anthology, 30;
attacked, 190;
not Emerson's field, 255, 256, 365.
Akenside, Mark, allusion, 16.
Alchemy, adepts, 260, 261.
Alcott, A. Bronson:
hearing Emerson, 66;
speculations, 86;
an idealist, 150;
The Dial, 159;
sonnet, 355;
quoted, 373;
personality traceable, 389.
Alcott, Louisa M., funeral bouquet, 351.
Alexander the Great:
allusion, 184;
mountain likeness, 322.
Alfred the Great, 220, 306.
Allston, Washington, unfinished picture, 334.
(See _Pictures_.)
Ambition, treated in Anthology, 30.
America:
room for a poet, 136, 137;
virtues and defects, 143;
faith in, 179;
people compared with English, 216;
things awry, 260;
_aristocracy_, 296;
in the Civil War, 304;
Revolution, 305;
Lincoln, the true history of his time, 307;
passion for, 308, 309;
artificial rhythm, 329;
its own literary style, 342;
home of man, 371;
loyalty to, 406;
epithets, 406, 407.
(See _England, New England_, etc.)
Amici, meeting Emerson, 63.
(See _Italy_.)
Amusements, in New England, 30.
Anaemia, artistic, 334.
Ancestry:
in general, 1-3;
Emerson's, 3 _et seq._
(See _Heredity_.)
Andover, Mass.:
Theological School, 48;
graduates, 411.
Andrew, John Albion:
War Governor, 223;
hearing Emerson, 379.
(See _South_.)
Angelo. (See _Michael Angelo_.)
Antinomianism:
in The Dial, 162;
kept from, 177.
(See _God, Religion_, etc.)
Anti-Slavery:
in Emerson's pulpit, 57;
the reform, 141, 145, 152;
Emancipation address, 181;
Boston and New York addresses, 210-212;
Emancipation Proclamation, 228;
Fugitive Slave Law, and other matters, 303-307.
(See _South_.)
Antoninus, Marcus, allusion, 16.
Architecture, illustrations, 253.
Arianism, 51.
(See _Unitarianism_.)
Aristotle:
influence over Mary Emerson, 17;
times mentioned, 382.
Arminianism, 51.
(See _Methodism, Religion_, etc.)
Arnim, Gisela von, 225.
Arnold, Matthew:
quotation about America, 137:
lecture, 236;
on Milton, 315;
his Thyrsis, 333;
criticism, 334;
string of Emerson's epithets, 406.
Aryans, comparison, 312.
Asia:
a pet name, 176;
immovable, 200.
Assabet River, 70, 71.
Astronomy:
Harp illustration, 108;
stars against wrong, 252, 253.
(See _Galileo, Stars, Venus_, etc.)
Atlantic Monthly:
sketch of Dr. Ripley, 14, 15;
of Mary Moody Emerson, 16;
established, 221;
supposititious club, 222;
on Persian Poetry, 224;
on Thoreau, 228;
Emerson's contributions, 239, 241;
Brahma, 296.
Atmosphere:
effect on inspiration, 290;
spiritual, 413, 414.
Augustine, Emerson's study of, 52.
Authors, quoted by Emerson, 381-383.
(See _Plutarch_, etc.)
Bacon, Francis:
allusion, 22, 111;
times quoted, 382.
Bancroft, George:
literary rank, 33;
in college, 45.
Barbier, Henri Auguste, on Napoleon, 208.
Barnwell, Robert W.:
in history, 45;
in college, 47.
Beaumont and Fletcher, disputed, line, 128, 129.
Beauty:
its nature, 74, 94, 95;
an end, 99, 135, 182;
study, 301.
Beecher, Edward, on preexistence, 391.
(See _Preexistence_.)
Behmen, Jacob:
mysticism, 201, 202, 396;
citation, 380.
Berkeley, Bishop:
characteristics, 189;
matter, 300.
Bible:
Mary Emerson's study, 16;
Mosaic cosmogony, 18;
the Exodus, 35;
the Lord's Supper, 58;
Psalms, 68, 181, 182, 253;
lost Paradise, 101;
Genesis, Sermon on the Mount, 102;
Seer of Patmos, 102, 103;
Apocalypse, 105;
Song of Songs, 117;
Baruch's roll, 117, 118;
not closed, 122;
the Sower, 154;
Noah's Ark, 191;
Pharisee's trumpets, 255;
names and imagery, 268;
sparing the rod, 297;
rhythmic mottoes, 314;
beauty of Israel, 351;
face of an angel, 352;
barren fig-tree, 367;
a classic, 376;
body of death, "Peace be still!" 379;
draught of fishes, 381;
its semi-detached sentences, 405;
Job quoted, 411;
"the man Christ Jesus," 412;
scattering abroad, 414.
(See _Christ, God, Religion,_ etc.)
Bigelow, Jacob, on rural cemeteries, 31.
Biography, every man writes his own, 1.
Blackmore, Sir Richard, controversy, 31.
Bliss Family, 9.
Bliss, Daniel, patriotism, 72.
Blood, transfusion of, 256.
Books, use and abuse, 110, 111.
(See _Emerson's Essays_.)
Boston, Mass.:
First Church, 10, 12, 13;
Woman's Club, 16;
Harbor, 19;
nebular spot, 25, 26;
its pulpit darling, 27;
Episcopacy, 28;
Athenaeum, 31;
magazines, 28-34;
intellectual character, lights on its three hills, high caste
religion, 34;
Samaria and Jerusalem, 35;
streets and squares, 37-39;
Latin School, 39, 40, 43;
new buildings, 42;
Mrs. Emerson's boarding-house, the Common as a pasture, 43;
Unitarian preaching, 51;
a New England centre, 52;
Emerson's settlement, 54;
Second Church, 55-61;
lectures, 87, 88, 191;
Trimount Oracle, 102;
stirred by the Divinity-School address, 126;
school-keeping, Roxbury, 129;
aesthetic society, 149;
Transcendentalists, 155, 156;
Bay, 172;
Freeman Place Chapel, 210:
Saturday Club, 221-223;
Burns Centennial, 224, 225;
Parker meeting, 228;
letters, 263, 274, 275;
Old South lecture, 294;
Unitarianism, 298;
Emancipation Proclamation, 307;
special train, 350;
Sons of Liberty, 369;
birthplace, 407;
Baptists, 413.
Boswell, James:
allusion, 138;
one lacking, 223;
Life of Johnson, 268.
Botany, 403.
(See _Science_.)
Bowen, Francis: literary rank, 34;
on Nature, 103, 104.
Brook Farm, 159, 164-166, 189, 191.
(See _Transcendentalism_, etc.)
Brown, Howard N., prayer, 355.
Brown, John, sympathy with, 211.
(See _Anti-Slavery, South_.)
Brownson, Orestes A., at a party, 149.
Bryant, William Cullen:
his literary rank, 33;
redundant syllable, 328;
his translation of Homer quoted, 378.
Buckminster, Joseph Stevens:
minister in Boston, 12, 26, 27, 52;
Memoir, 29;
destruction of Goldau, 31.
Buddhism:
like Transcendentalism, 151;
Buddhist nature, 188;
saints
298. (See _Emerson's Poems_,--Brahma,
--_India_, etc.)
Buffon, on style, 341.
Bulkeley Family, 4-7.
Bulkeley, Peter:
minister of Concord, 4-7, 71;
comparison of sermons, 57;
patriotism, 72;
landowner, 327.
Bunyan, John, quoted, 169.
Burke, Edmund:
essay, 73;
times mentioned, 382.
Burns, Robert:
festival, 224, 225;
rank, 281;
image referred to, 386;
religious position, 409. (See _Scotland_.)
Burroughs, John, view of English life, 335.
Burton, Robert, quotations, 109, 381.
Buttrick, Major, in the Revolution, 71, 72.
Byron, Lord:
allusion, 16;
rank, 281;
disdain, 321;
uncertain sky, 335;
parallelism, 399.
CABOT, J. ELLIOT:
on Emerson's literary habits, 27;
The Dial, 159;
prefaces, 283, 302;
Note, 295, 296;
Prefatory Note, 310, 311;
the last meetings, 347, 348.
Caesar, Julius, 184,197.
California, trip, 263-271, 359. (See _Thayer_.)
Calvin, John:
his Commentary, 103;
used by Cotton, 286.
Calvinism:
William Emerson's want of sympathy with, 11, 12;
outgrown, 51;
predestination, 230;
saints, 298;
spiritual influx, 412.
(See _God, Puritanism, Religion, Unitarianism.)_
Cambridge, Mass.:
Emerson teaching there, 50;
exclusive circles, 52.
(See _Harvard University_.)
Cant, disgust with, 156.
Carlyle, Thomas:
meeting Emerson, 63;
recollections of their relations, 78-80, 83;
Sartor Resartus, 81, 82, 91;
correspondence, 82, 83, 89, 90, 127, 176, 177, 192, 315, 317, 374,
380, 381, 406, 407;
Life of Schiller, 91;
on Nature, 104, 105;
Miscellanies, 130;
the Waterville Address, 136-138;
influence, 149, 150;
on Transcendentalism, 156-158;
The Dial, 160-163;
Brook Farm, 164;
friendship, 171;
Chelsea visit, 194;
bitter legacy, 196;
love of power, 197;
on Napoleon and Goethe, 208;
grumblings, 260;
tobacco, 270;
Sartor reprinted, 272;
paper on, 294;
Emerson's dying friendship, 349;
physique, 363;
Gallic fire, 386;
on Characteristics, 387;
personality traceable, 389.
Carpenter, William B., 230.
Century, The, essay in, 295.
Cerebration, unconscious, 112, 113.
Chalmers, Thomas, preaching, 65.
Channing, Walter, headache, 175, 390.
Channing, William Ellery:
allusion, 16;
directing Emerson's studies, 51;
preaching, 52;
Emerson in his pulpit, 66;
influence, 147, 149;
kept awake, 157.
Channing, William Ellery, the poet:
his Wanderer, 263;
Poems, 403.
Channing, William Henry:
allusions, 131, 149;
in The Dial, 159;
the Fuller Memoir, 209;
Ode inscribed to, 211, 212.
Charleston, S C, Emerson's preaching, 53. (See _South_.)
Charlestown, Mass., Edward Emerson's residence, 8.
Charles V., 197.
Charles XII., 197.
Chatelet, Parent du, a realist, 326.
Chatham, Lord, 255.
Chaucer, Geoffrey:
borrowings, 205;
rank, 281;
honest rhymes, 340;
times mentioned, 382.
Chelmsford, Mass., Emerson teaching there, 49, 50.
Chemistry, 403. (See _Science_.)
Cheshire, its "haughty hill," 323.
Choate, Rufus, oratory, 148.
Christ:
reserved expressions about, 13;
mediatorship, 59;
true office, 120-122;
worship, 412. (See _Jesus, Religion_, etc.)
Christianity:
its essentials, 13;
primitive, 35;
a mythus, defects, 121;
the true, 122;
two benefits, 123;
authority, 124;
incarnation of, 176;
the essence, 306;
Fathers, 391.
Christian, Emerson a, 267.
Christian Examiner, The:
on William Emerson, 12;
its literary predecessor, 29;
on Nature, 103, 104;
repudiates Divinity School Address, 124.
Church:
activity in 1820, 147;
avoidance of, 153;
the true, 244;
music, 306. (See _God, Jesus, Religion_, etc.)
Cicero, allusion, 111.
Cid, the, 184.
Clarke, James Freeman:
letters, 77-80, 128-131;
transcendentalism, 149;
The Dial, 159;
Fuller Memoir, 209;
Emerson's funeral, 351, 353-355.
Clarke, Samuel, allusion, 16.
Clarke, Sarah, sketches, 130.
Clarkson, Thomas, 220.
Clergy:
among Emerson's ancestry, 3-8;
gravestones, 9. (See _Cotton, Heredity_, etc.)
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor:
allusion, 16;
Emerson's account, 63;
influence, 149, 150;
Carlyle's criticism, 196;
Ancient Mariner, 333;
Christabel, Abyssinian Maid, 334;
times mentioned, 382;
an image quoted, 386;
William Tell, 387.
Collins, William:
poetry, 321;
Ode and Dirge, 332.
Commodity, essay, 94.
Concentration, 288.
Concord, Mass.:
Bulkeley's ministry, 4-7;
first association with the Emerson name, 7;
Joseph's descendants, 8;
the Fight, 9; Dr. Ripley, 10;
Social Club, 14;
Emerson's preaching, 54;
Goodwin's settlement, 56;
discord, 57;
Emerson's residence begun, 69, 70;
a typical town, 70;
settlement, 71;
a Delphi, 72;
Emerson home, 83;
Second Centennial, 84, 85, 303;
noted citizens, 86;
town government, the, monument, 87;
the Sage, 102;
letters, 125-131, 225;
supposition of Carlyle's life there, 171;
Emancipation Address, 181;
leaving, 192;
John Brown meeting, 211;
Samuel Hoar, 213;
wide-awake, 221;
Lincoln obsequies, 243, 307;
an _under_-Concord, 256;
fire, 271-279;
letters, 275-279;
return, 279;
Minute Man unveiled, 292;
Soldiers' Monument, 303;
land-owners, 327;
memorial stone, 333;
Conway's visits, 343, 344;
Whitman's, 344, 345;
Russell's, 345; funeral, 350-356;
founders, 352;
Sleepy Hollow, 356;
a strong attraction, 369;
neighbors, 373;
Prophet, 415.
Congdon, Charles, his Reminiscences,
66.
Conservatism, fairly treated, 156,
157. (See _Reformers, Religion,
Transcendentalism,_ etc.)
Conversation:
C.C. Emerson's essay, 22, 258;
inspiration, 290.
Conway, Moncure D.:
account of Emerson, 55, 56, 66, 194;
two visits, 343, 344;
anecdote, 346;
error, 401;
on Stanley, 414.
Cooke, George Willis:
biography of Emerson, 43, 44, 66, 88;
on American Scholar, 107, 108;
on anti-slavery, 212;
on Parnassus, 280-282;
on pantheism, 411.
Cooper, James Fenimore, 33.
Corot, pearly mist, 335, 336. (See
_Pictures_, etc.)
Cotton, John:
service to scholarship, 34;
reading Calvin, 286.
Counterparts, the story, 226.
Cowper, William:
Mother's Picture, 178;
disinterested good, 304;
tenderness, 333;
verse, 338.
Cranch, Christopher P.:
The Dial, 159;
poetic prediction, 416, 417.
Cromwell, Oliver:
saying by a war saint, 252;
in poetry, 387.
Cudworth, Ralph, epithets, 200.
Cupples, George, on Emerson's lectures, 195.
Curtius, Quintus for Mettus, 388.
Cushing, Caleb:
rank, 33;
in college, 45.
Dana, Richard Henry, his literary place, 33, 223.
Dante:
allusion in Anthology, 31;
rank, 202, 320;
times mentioned, 382.
Dartmouth College, oration, 131-135.
Darwin, Charles, Origin of Species, 105.
Dawes, Rufus, Boyhood Memories, 44.
Declaration of Independence, intellectual,
115. (See _American_, etc.)
Delirium, imaginative, easily produced,
238. (See _Intuition_.)
Delia Cruscans, allusion, 152. (See
_Transcendentalism_.)
Delos, allusion, 374.
Delphic Oracle:
of New England, 72;
illustration, 84.
Democratic Review, The, on Nature, 103.
De Profundis, illustrating Carlyle's spirit, 83.
De Quincey, Thomas:
Emerson's interview with, 63, 195;
on originality, 92.
De Stael, Mme., allusion, 16.
De Tocqueville, account of Unitarianism, 51.
Dewey, Orville, New Bedford ministry, 67.
Dexter, Lord Timothy, punctuation, 325, 326.
Dial, The:
established, 147, 158;
editors, 159;
influence, 160-163;
death, 164;
poems, 192;
old contributors, 221;
papers, 295;
intuitions, 394.
Dial, The (second), in Cincinnati, 239.
Dickens, Charles:
on Father Taylor, 56;
American Notes, 155.
Diderot, Denis, essay, 79.
Diogenes, story, 401. (See _Laertius_.)
Disinterestedness, 259.
Disraeli, Benjamin, the rectorship, 282.
Dramas, their limitations, 375. (See _Shakespeare_.)
Dress, illustration of poetry, 311, 312.
Dryden, John, quotation, 20, 21.
Dwight, John S.:
in The Dial, 159;
musical critic, 223.
East Lexington, Mass., the Unitarian pulpit, 88.
Economy, its meaning, 142.
Edinburgh, Scotland:
Emerson's visit and preaching, 64, 65;
lecture, 195.
Education:
through friendship, 97, 98;
public questions, 258, 259.
Edwards, Jonathan:
allusions, 16, 51;
the atmosphere changed, 414.
(See _Calvinism, Puritanism, Unitarianism_, etc.)
Egotism, a pest, 233.
Egypt:
poetic teaching, 121;
trip, 271, 272;
Sphinx, 330. (See _Emerson's Poems_,--Sphinx.)
Election Sermon, illustration, 112.
Elizabeth, Queen, verbal heir-loom, 313. (See _Raleigh_, etc.)
Ellis, Rufus, minister of the First Church, Boston, 43.
Eloquence, defined, 285, 286.
Emerson Family, 3 _et seq_.
Emerson, Charles Chauncy, brother of Ralph Waldo:
feeling towards natural science, 18, 237;
memories, 19-25, 37, 43;
character, 77;
death, 89, 90;
influence, 98;
The Dial, 161;
"the hand of Douglas," 234;
nearness, 368;
poetry, 385;
Harvard Register, 401.
Emerson, Edith, daughter of Ralph Waldo, 263.
Emerson, Edward, of Newbury, 8.
Emerson, Edward Bliss, brother of Ralph Waldo:
allusions, 19, 20, 37, 38;
death, 89;
Last Farewell, poem, 161;
nearness, 368.
Emerson, Edward Waldo, son of Ralph Waldo:
in New York, 246;
on the Farming essay, 255;
father's last days, 346-349;
reminiscences, 359.
Emerson, Ellen, daughter of Ralph Waldo:
residence, 83;
trip to Europe, 271;
care of her father, 294;
correspondence, 347.
Emerson, Mrs. Ellen Louisa Tucker, first wife of Ralph Waldo, 55.
Emerson, Joseph, minister of Mendon, 4, 7, 8.
Emerson, Joseph, the second, minister of Malden, 8.
Emerson, Mrs. Lydia Jackson, second wife of Ralph Waldo:
marriage, 83;
_Asia_, 176.
Emerson, Mary Moody:
influence over her nephew, 16-18;
quoted, 385.
Emerson, Robert Bulkeley, brother of Ralph Waldo, 37.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, His Life:
moulding influences, 1;
New England heredity, 2;
ancestry, 3-10;
parents, 10-16;
Aunt Mary, 16-19;
brothers, 19-25;
the nest, 25;
noted scholars, 26-36;
birthplace, 37, 38;
boyhood, 39, 40;
early efforts, 41, 42;
parsonages, 42;
father's death, 43;
boyish appearance, 44;
college days, 45-47;
letter, 48;
teaching, 49, 50;
studying theology, and preaching, 51-54;
ordination, marriage, 55;
benevolent efforts, wife's death, 56;
withdrawal from his church, 57-61;
first trip to Europe, 62-65;
preaching in America, 66, 67;
remembered conversations, 68, 69;
residence in the Old Manse, 69-72;
lecturing, essays in The North American, 73;
poems, 74;
portraying himself, 75;
comparison with Milton, 76, 77;
letters to Clarke, 78-80, 128-131;
interest in Sartor Resartus, 81;
first letter to Carlyle, 82;
second marriage and Concord home, 83;
Second Centennial, 84-87;
Boston lectures, Concord Fight; 87;
East Lexington church, War, 88;
death of brothers, 89, 90;
Nature published, 91;
parallel with Wordsworth, 92;
free utterance, 93;
Beauty, poems,
94;
Language, 95-97;
Discipline, 97, 98;
Idealism, 98, 99;
Illusions, 99, 100;
Spirit and Matter, 100;
Paradise regained, 101;
the Bible spirit, 102;
Revelations, 103;
Bowen's criticism, 104;
Evolution, 105, 106;
Phi Beta Kappa oration, 107, 108;
fable of the One Man, 109;
man thinking, 110;
Books, 111;
unconscious cerebration, 112;
a scholar's duties, 113;
specialists, 114;
a declaration of intellectual independence, 115;
address at the Theological School, 116, 117;
effect on Unitarians, 118;
sentiment of duty, 119;
Intuition, 120;
Reason, 121;
the Traditional Jesus, 122;
Sabbath and Preaching, 123;
correspondence with Ware, 124-127;
ensuing controversy, 127;
Ten Lectures, 128;
Dartmouth Address, 131-136;
Waterville Address, 136-140;
reforms, 141-145;
new views, 146;
Past and Present, 147;
on Everett, 148;
assembly at Dr. Warren's, 149;
Boston _doctrinaires_, 150;
unwise followers, 151-156;
Conservatives, 156, 157;
two Transcendental products, 157-166;
first volume of Essays, 166;
History, 167, 168;
Self-reliance, 168, 169;
Compensation, 169;
other essays, 170;
Friendship, 170, 171;
Heroism, 172;
Over-Soul, 172-175;
house and income, 176;
son's death, 177, 178;
American and Oriental qualities, 179;
English virtues, 180;
Emancipation addresses in 1844, 181;
second series of Essays, 181-188;
Reformers, 188-191;
Carlyle's business, Poems published, 192;
a second trip to Europe, 193-196;
Representative Men, 196-209;
lectures again, 210;
Abolitionism, 211, 212;
Woman's Rights, 212, 213;
a New England Roman, 213, 214;
English Traits, 214-221;
a new magazine, 221;
clubs, 222, 223;
more poetry, 224;
Burns Festival, 224;
letter about various literary matters, 225-227;
Parker's death, Lincoln's Proclamation, 228;
Conduct of Life, 228-239;
Boston Hymn, 240;
"So nigh is grandeur to our dust," 241;
Atlantic contributions, 242;
Lincoln obsequies, 243;
Free Religion, 243, 244;
second Phi Beta Kappa oration, 244-246;
poem read to his son, 246-248;
Harvard Lectures, 249-255;
agriculture and science, 255, 256;
predictions, 257;
Books, 258;
Conversation, 258;
elements of Courage, 259;
Success, 260, 261;
on old men, 261, 262;
California trip, 263-268;
eating, 269;
smoking, 270;
conflagration, loss of memory, Froude banquet, third trip abroad, 272;
friendly gifts, 272-279;
editing Parnassus, 280-282;
failing powers, 283;
Hope everywhere, 284;
negations, 285;
Eloquence, Pessimism, 286;
Comedy, Plagiarism, 287;
lessons repeated, 288;
Sources of Inspiration, 289, 290;
Future Life, 290-292;
dissolving creed, 292;
Concord Bridge, 292, 293;
decline of faculties, Old South lecture, 294;
papers, 294, 295;
quiet pen, 295;
posthumous works, 295 _et seq.;_
the pedagogue, 297;
University of Virginia, 299;
indebtedness to Plutarch, 299-302;
slavery questions, 303-308;
Woman Question, 308;
patriotism, 308, 309;
nothing but a poet, 311;
antique words, 313;
self-revelation, 313, 314;
a great poet? 314-316;
humility, 317-319;
poetic favorites, 320, 321;
comparison with contemporaries, 321;
citizen of the universe, 322;
fascination of symbolism, 323;
realism, science, imaginative coloring, 324;
dangers of realistic poetry, 325;
range of subjects, 326;
bad rhymes, 327;
a trick of verse, 328;
one faultless poem, 332;
spell-bound readers, 333;
workshop, 334;
octosyllabic verse, atmosphere, 335, 336;
comparison with Wordsworth, 337;
and others, 338;
dissolving sentences, 339;
incompleteness, 339, 340;
personality, 341, 342;
last visits received, 343-345;
the red rose, 345;
forgetfulness, 346;
literary work of last years, 346, 347;
letters unanswered, 347;
hearing and sight, subjects that interested him, 348;
later hours, death, 349;
last rites, 350-356;
portrayal, 357-419;
atmosphere, 357;
books, distilled alcohol, 358;
physique, 359;
demeanor, 360;
hair and eyes, insensibility to music, 361;
daily habits, 362;
bodily infirmities, 362, 363;
voice, 363;
quiet laughter, want of manual dexterity, 364;
spade anecdote, memory,
ignorance of exact science, 305;
intuition and natural sagacity united, fastidiousness, 366;
impatience with small-minded worshippers, Frothingham's Biography, 367;
intimates, familiarity not invited, 368;
among fellow-townsmen, errand to earth, inherited traditions, 369;
sealed orders, 370, 371;
conscientious work, sacrifices for truth, essays instead of sermons,
372;
congregation at large, charm, optimism, 373;
financially straitened, 374;
lecture room limitations, 374, 375;
a Shakespeare parallel, 375, 376;
platform fascination, 376;
constructive power, 376, 377;
English experiences, lecture-peddling, 377;
a stove relinquished, utterance, an hour's weight, 378;
trumpet-sound, sweet seriousness, diamond drops, effect on Governor
Andrew, 379;
learning at second hand, 380;
the study of Goethe, 380;
a great quoter, no pedantry, 381;
list of authors referred to, 381, 382;
special indebtedness, 382;
penetration, borrowing, 383;
method of writing and its results, aided by others, 384;
sayings that seem family property, 385;
passages compared, 385-387;
the tributary streams, 388;
accuracy as to facts, 388;
personalities traceable in him, 389;
place as a thinker, 390;
Platonic anecdote, 391;
preexistence, 391, 392;
mind-moulds, 393;
relying on instinct, 394;
dangers of intuition, 395;
mysticism, 396;
Oriental side, 397;
transcendental mood, 398;
personal identity confused, 399;
a distorting mirror, 400;
distrust of science, 401-403;
style illustrated, 403, 404;
favorite words, 405;
royal imagery, 406;
comments on America, 406, 407;
common property of mankind, 407;
public spirit, solitary workshop, martyrdom from visitors, 408;
white shield invulnerable, 409;
religious attitude, 409-411;
spiritual influx, creed, 412;
clerical relations, 413;
Dr. Hague's criticism, 413, 414;
ameliorating religious influence, 414;
freedom, 415;
enduring verse and thought, 416, 417;
comparison with Jesus, 417;
sincere manhood, 418;
transparency, 419.
Emerson's Books:--
Conduct of Life, 229, 237.
English Traits:
the first European trip, 62;
published, 214;
analysis, 214-220;
penetration, 383;
Teutonic fire, 386.
Essays:
Dickens's allusion, 156;
collected, 166.
Essays, second series, 183.
Lectures and Biographical Sketches, 128, 295, 296, 347.
Letters and Social Aims, 210, 283, 284, 296.
May-day and Other Pieces, 161, 192, 224, 242, 257, 310, 318, 346.
Memoir of Margaret Fuller, 209.
Miscellanies, 302, 303.
Nature, Addresses, and Lectures, 179.
Nature:
resemblance of extracts from Mary Moody Emerson, 17;
where written, 70;
the Many in One, 73;
first published, 91, 92, 373;
analysis, 93-107;
obscure, 108;
Beauty, 237.
Parnassus:
collected, 280;
Preface, 314;
allusion, 321.
Poems, 293, 310, 318, 339.
Representative Men, 196-209.
Selected Poems, 311, 347.
Society and Solitude, 250.
Emerson's Essays, Lectures, Sermons, Speeches, etc.:--
In general:
essays, 73, 88, 91, 92, 310;
income from lectures, 176, 191, 192;
lectures in England, 194-196;
long series, 372;
lecture-room, 374;
plays and lectures, 375;
double duty, 376, 377;
charm, 379.
(See _Emerson's Life, Lyceum_, etc.)
American Civilization, 307.
American Scholar, The, 107-115, 133, 188.
Anglo-Saxon Race, The, 210.
Anti-Slavery Address, New York, 210-212.
Anti-Slavery Lecture, Boston, 210, 211.
Aristocracy, 296.
Art, 166, 175, 253, 254.
Beauty, 235-237.
Behavior, 234.
Books, 257, 380.
Brown, John, 302, 305, 306.
Burke, Edmund, 73.
Burns, Robert, 224, 225, 307.
Carlyle, Thomas, 294, 302, 317.
Channing's Poem, preface, 262, 263, 403.
Character, 183, 295, 297.
Chardon Street and Bible Convention, 159, 302.
Circles, 166, 174, 175.
Civilization, 250-253.
Clubs, 258.
Comedy. 128.
Comic, The, 286, 287.
Commodity, 94.
Compensation, 166, 169.
Concord Fight, the anniversary speech, 292, 293.
Concord, Second Centennial Discourse, 84-86.
Conservative, The, 156, 157, 159.
Considerations by the Way, 235.
Courage, 259.
Culture, 232, 233.
Demonology, 128, 296.
Discipline, 97, 98.
Divinity School Address, 116-127, 131.
Doctrine of the Soul, 127.
Domestic Life, 254, 255.
Duty, 128.
Editorial Address, Mass. Quarterly Review, 193, 302, 307.
Education, 296, 297.
Eloquence, 254;
second essay, 285, 286.
Emancipation in the British West Indies, 181, 303.
Emancipation Proclamation, 228, 307.
Emerson, Mary Moody, 295, 296, 302.
English Literature, 87.
Experience, 182.
Farming, 255, 256.
Fate, 228-330.
Fortune of the Republic, 294, 302, 307-309.
Fox, George, 73.
France, 196.
Free Religious Association, 243, 302, 307.
Friendship, 166, 170.
Froude, James Anthony, after-dinner speech, 271.
Fugitive Slave Law, 303, 304.
Genius, 127.
Gifts, 184, 185.
Goethe, or the Writer, 208, 209.
Greatness, 288, 346.
Harvard Commemoration, 307.
Heroism, 166, 172.
Historical Discourse, at Concord, 303.
Historic Notes of Life and Letters in New England, 147, 165, 296, 302.
History, 166, 167.
Hoar, Samuel, 213, 214, 295, 302.
Home, 127.
Hope, 284, 285.
Howard University, speech, 263.
Human Culture, 87.
Idealism, 98-100.
Illusions, 235, 239.
Immortality, 266, 290-292, 354.
Inspiration, 289.
Intellect, 166, 175.
Kansas Affairs, 305.
Kossuth, 307.
Language, 95-97.
Lincoln, Abraham, funeral remarks, 242, 243, 307.
Literary Ethics, 131-136.
Lord's Supper, 57-60, 303.
Love, 127,128,166,170. (See _Emerson's Poems_.)
Luther, 73.
Manners, 183, 234.
Man of Letters, The, 296, 298.
Man the Reformer, 142, 143.
Method of Nature, The, 136-141.
Michael Angelo, 73, 75.
Milton, 73, 75.
Montaigne, or the Skeptic, 202-204.
Napoleon, or the Man of the World, 206-209.
Natural History of the Intellect, 249, 268, 347.
Nature (the essay), 185, 186, 398.
New England Reformers, 188-191, 385.
Nominalism and Realism, 188.
Old Age, 261, 262.
Over-Soul, The, 166, 172-175, 398, 411.
Parker, Theodore, 228, 306.
Perpetual Forces, 297.
Persian Poetry, 224.
Phi Beta Kappa oration, 347.
Philosophy of History, 87.
Plato, 198-200;
New Readings, 200.
Plutarch, 295, 299-302.
Plutarch's Morals, introduction, 262.
Poet, The, 181, 182.
Poetry, 210.
Poetry and Imagination, 283;
subdivisions: Bards and Trouveurs,
Creation, Form, Imagination,
Melody, Morals, Rhythm, Poetry,
Transcendency, Veracity, 283, 284;
quoted, 325.
Politics, 186, 187.
Power, 230, 231.
Preacher, The, 294, 298.
Professions of Divinity, Law, and Medicine, 41.
Progress of Culture, The, 244, 288.
Prospects, 101-103.
Protest, The, 127.
Providence Sermon, 130.
Prudence, 166, 171, 172.
Quotation and Originality, 287, 288.
Relation of Man to the Globe, 73.
Resources, 286.
Right Hand of Fellowship, The, at Concord, 56.
Ripley, Dr. Ezra, 295, 302.
Scholar, The, 296, 299.
School, The, 127.
Scott, speech, 302, 307.
Self-Reliance, 166, 168, 411.
Shakespeare, or the Poet, 204-206.
Social Aims, 285.
Soldiers' Monument, at Concord, 303.
Sovereignty of Ethics, The, 295, 297, 298.
Spirit, 100, 101.
Spiritual Laws, 166, 168.
Success, 260, 261.
Sumner Assault, 304.
Superlatives, 295, 297.
Swedenborg, or the Mystic, 201, 202, 206.
Thoreau, Henry D., 228, 295, 302.
Times, The, 142-145.
Tragedy, 127.
Transcendentalist, The, 145-155, 159.
Universality of the Moral Sentiment, 66.
University of Virginia, address, 347.
War, 88, 303.
Water, 73.
Wealth, 231, 232.
What is Beauty? 74, 94, 95.
Woman, 307, 308.
Woman's Rights, 212, 213.
Work and Days, 256, 312, 406, 407.
Worship, 235.
Young American, The, 166, 180, 181.
Emerson's Poems:--
In general: inspiration from nature, 22, 96;
poetic rank in college, 45, 46;
prose-poetry and philosophy, 91, 93;
annual _afflatus_, in America, 136, 137;
first volume, 192;
five immortal poets, 202;
ideas repeated, 239;
true position, 311 _et seq.; in carmine veritas_, 313;
litanies, 314;
arithmetic, 321, 322;
fascination, 323;
celestial imagery, 324;
tin pans, 325;
realism, 326;
metrical difficulties, 327, 335;
blemishes, 328;
careless rhymes, 329;
delicate descriptions, 331;
pathos, 332;
fascination, 333;
unfinished, 334, 339, 340;
atmosphere, 335;
subjectivity, 336;
sympathetic illusion, 337;
resemblances, 337, 338;
rhythms, 340;
own order, 341, 342;
always a poet, 346.
(See _Emerson's Life, Milton, Poets_, etc.)
Adirondacs, The, 242, 309, 327.
Blight, 402.
Boston, 346, 407, 408.
Boston Hymn, 211, 221, 241, 242.
Brahma, 221, 242, 396, 397.
Celestial Love, 170. (Three Loves.)
Class Day Poem, 45-47.
Concord Hymn, 87, 332.
Daemonic Love, 170. (Three Loves.)
Days, 221, 242, 257, 312;
_pleached_, 313.
Destiny, 332.
Each and All, 73, 74, 94, 331.
Earth-Song, 327.
Elements, 242.
Fate, 159, 387.
Flute, The, 399.
Good-by, Proud World, 129, 130, 338.
Hamatreya, 327.
Harp, The, 320, 321, 329, 330. (See _Aeolian Harp_.)
Hoar, Samuel, 213, 214.
Humble Bee, 46, 74, 75, 128, 272, 326, 331, 338.
Initial Love, 170, 387. (Three Loves.)
In Memoriam, 19, 89.
Latin Translations, 43.
May Day, 242;
changes, 311, 333.
Merlin, 318, 319. (Merlin's Song.)
Mithridates, 331.
Monadnoc, 322, 331;
alterations, 366.
My Garden, 242.
Nature and Life, 242.
Occasional and Miscellaneous Pieces, 242.
Ode inscribed to W.H. Channing, 211, 212.
Poet, The, 317-320, 333.
Preface to Nature, 105.
Problem, The, 159, 161, 253, 284, 326, 337, 380.
Quatrains, 223, 242.
Rhodora, The, 74, 94, 95, 129.
Romany Girl, The, 221.
Saadi, 221, 242.
Sea-Shore, 333, 339.
Snow-Storm, 331, 338, 339.
Solution, 320.
Song for Knights of Square Table, 42.
Sphinx, The, 113, 159, 243, 330, 398.
Terminus, 221, 242;
read to his son, 246-248, 363.
Test, The, 201, 202, 320.
Threnody, 178, 333.
Titmouse, The, 221, 326.
Translations, 242, 399.
Uriel, 326, 331, 398.
Voluntaries, 241.
Waldeinsamkeit, 221.
Walk, The, 402.
Woodnotes, 46, 159, 331, 338.
World-Soul, The, 331.
Emersoniana, 358.
Emerson, Thomas, of Ipswich, 38.
Emerson, Waldo, child of Ralph Waldo:
death, 177, 178;
anecdote, 265.
Emerson, William, grandfather of Ralph Waldo:
minister of Concord, 8-10, 14;
building the Manse, 70;
patriotism, 72.
Emerson, William, father of Ralph Waldo:
minister, in Harvard and Boston, 10-14;
editorship, 26, 32, 33;
the parsonage, 37, 42;
death, 43.
Emerson, William, brother of Ralph Waldo, 37, 39, 49, 53.
England:
first visit, 62-65;
Lake Windermere, 70;
philosophers, 76;
the virtues of the people, 179, 180;
a second visit, 192 _et seq.;_
notabilities 195;
the lectures, 196;
Stonehenge, 215;
the aristocracy, 215;
matters wrong, 260;
Anglo-Saxon race, trade and liberty, 304;
lustier life, 335;
language, 352;
lecturing, a key, 377;
smouldering fire, 385. (See _America, Europe_, etc.)
Enthusiasm:
need of, 143;
weakness, 154.
Epicurus, agreement with, 301.
Episcopacy:
in Boston, 28, 34, 52;
church in Newton, 68;
at Hanover, 132;
quotation from liturgy, 354;
burial service, 356. (See _Calvinism, Church, Religion_, etc.)
Esquimau, allusion, 167.
Establishment, party of the, 147. (See _Puritanism, Religion,
Unitarianism_, etc.)
Eternal, relations to the, 297. (See _God, Jesus, Religion_, etc.)
Europe:
Emerson's first visit, 62-65;
return, 72;
the Muses, 114;
debt to the East, 120;
famous gentlemen, 184;
second visit, 193-196;
weary of Napoleon, 207;
return, 210;
conflict possible, 218;
third visit, 271-279;
cast-out passion for, 308. (See _America, England, France_, etc.)
Everett, Edward:
on Tudor, 28;
literary rank, 33;
preaching, 52;
influence, 148.
Evolution, taught in "Nature," 105, 106.
Eyeball, transparent, 398.
Faith:
lacking in America, 143,
building cathedrals, 253. (See _God, Religion_, etc.)
Fine, a characteristic expression, 405.
Fire, illustration, 386. (See _England, France_, etc.)
Forbes, John M., connected with the Emerson family, 263-265;
his letter, 263.
Foster, John, minister of Brighton, 15.
Fourth-of-July, orations, 386. (See _America_, etc.)
Fox, George, essay on, 73.
France:
Emerson's first visit, 62, 63;
philosophers, 76;
Revolution, 80;
tired of Napoleon, 207, 208;
realism, 326;
wrath, 385, 386. (See _Carlyle, England, Europe_, etc.)
Francis, Convers, at a party, 149.
Franklin, Benjamin:
birthplace, 37;
allusion, 184;
characteristics, 189;
Poor Richard, 231;
quoted, 236;
maxims, 261;
fondness for Plutarch, 382;
bequest, 407.
Fraunhofer, Joseph, optician, 230, 324.
Frazer's Magazine:
"The Mud," 79;
Sartor Resartus, 81. (See _Carlyle_.)
Freeman, James, minister of King's Chapel, 11, 12, 52.
Free Trade, Athenaeum banquet, 220.
Friendship, C.C. Emerson's essay, 22, 23, 77.
Frothingham, Nathaniel L., account of Emerson's mother, 13.
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks: Life of Ripley, 165;
an unpublished manuscript, 365-367.
Fuller, Margaret:
borrowed sermon, 130;
at a party, 149;
The Dial, 159, 160, 162;
Memoir, 209;
causing laughter, 364;
mosaic Biography, 368.
Furness, William Henry:
on the Emerson family, 14;
Emerson's funeral, 350, 353.
Future, party of the, 147.
Galton, Francis, composite portraits, 232.
Gardiner, John Sylvester John:
allusion, 26;
leadership in Boston, 28;
Anthology Society, 32.
(See _Episcopacy_.)
Gardner, John Lowell, recollections of Emerson's boyhood, 38-42.
Gardner, S.P., garden, 38.
Genealogy, survival of the fittest, 3.
(See _Heredity_.)
Gentleman's Magazine, 30.
Gentleman, the, 183.
Geography, illustration, 391.
German:
study of, 48, 49, 78, 380;
philosophers, 76;
scholarship, 148;
oracles, 206;
writers unread, 208;
philosophers, 380;
professors, 391.
Germany, a visit, 225, 226.
(See _Europe, France, Goethe_, etc.)
Gifts, 185.
Gilfillan, George:
on Emerson's preaching, 65;
Emerson's physique, 360.
Gilman, Arthur, on the Concord home, 83.
Glasgow, the rectorship, 280.
God:
the universal spirit, 68, 69, 94;
face to face, 92, 93;
teaching the human mind, 98, 99;
aliens from, 101;
in us, 139-141;
his thought, 146;
belief, 170;
seen by man, 174;
divine offer, 176;
writing by grace, 182;
presence, 243;
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