From Emerson’s essay
NATURE
To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary
whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.
The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One
might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies,
the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should
appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many
generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these
envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural
objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean
appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her
perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected
the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.
The production of a work of art throws a light upon the mystery of humanity. A work of art is an abstract or
epitome of the world. It is the result or expression of nature, in miniature. For, although the works of
nature are innumerable and all different, the result or the expression of them all is similar and single.
Nature is a sea of forms radically alike and even unique. A leaf, a sun-beam, a landscape, the ocean, make
an analogous impression on the mind. What is common to them all, -- that perfectness and harmony, is
beauty. The standard of beauty is the entire circuit of natural forms, -- the totality of nature; which the
Italians expressed by defining beauty.
From Emerson’s essay
THE OVER SOUL
The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be,
is that great nature in which we rest, that Unity, that Over-soul, within which every man's particular being is
contained and made one with all other; that common heart, of which all sincere conversation is the
worship, to which all right action is submission; that overpowering reality which confutes our tricks and
talents, and constrains every one to pass for what he is, and to speak from his character, and not from his
tongue, and which evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand, and become wisdom, and virtue,
and power, and beauty.
We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the
wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. And
this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and
perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, th
e seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun,
the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul.
Only by the vision of that Wisdom can the horoscope of the ages be read, and by falling back on our better
thoughts, by yielding to the spirit of prophecy which is innate in every man, we can know what it saith.
From Emerson’s essay
SELF RELIANCE
I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional.
The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instill
is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe our own thought, to believe that what is
true for you in your private heart is true for all men, -- that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it
shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,--and our first thought, is
rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the
highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and
spoke not what men but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light
which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he
dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize majesty.
We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be
safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his
work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and
done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which
does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for
you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and
confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely
trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And
we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and
invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and
benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark. So God has armed youth
and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and
its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot
speak to you and me.
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be
hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the
integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and
Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be
great is to be misunderstood.
I suppose no man can violate his nature.
WALT WHITMAN
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at
sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
