You cannot do a kindness too soon, for..........
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how
soon it will be too late. ~ Ralph Waldo
Emerson
Don’t be pushed by your problems..........
“Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.” -Ralph Emerson
The Laws of Wealth
In 1860 Ralph
Waldo Emerson published a collection of essays entitled The Conduct of Life.
One of those essays was entitled "Wealth," and in it he spelled out
the basic laws of wealth in a free economy. Here is a passage from that essay:
"Wealth
brings with it its own checks and balances. The basis of political economy is
non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of
demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your
sumptuary laws. Give no bounties: make equal laws: secure life and property,
and you need not give alms. Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue,
and they will do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands. In
a free and just commonwealth, property rushes from the idle and imbecile, to
the industrious, brave, and persevering."
Pieces of this
prescription will please economic conservatives while others will please social
liberals. And it is exactly this polarization that has paralyzed America today.
On the one hand Emerson decries regulation of the economy, those laws which
inhibit economic growth and development. On the other hand he demands that
governments open the doors to opportunity for every citizen to develop his or
her talents and ambitions.
For example, how do we project minors from being exploited in the marketplace while at the same time giving them an opportunity to learn how to work? New regulations being proposed for farmers would forbid minors from operating basic tools on the farm, like using a wheelbarrow or power tools. Such draconian measures inhibit the proper functioning of a farm in the name of child safety.
How do we not interfere while protecting consumers from fraud? How do we protect the nation's supply of clean water while not forbidding the development of natural gas? The answers to these questions need real debate and thoughtful solutions and not ideological stalemate.
When Emerson says that we must be careful not to make "sumptuary laws," he enters into difficult terrain. A sumptuary law, by definition, means a law intended to regulate personal habits on moral or religious grounds. In America today, sumptuary laws are not passed so much at the Federal level but rather by those states in which moral and religious beliefs dictate public policy. The most common examples are laws limiting abortions and marriage. That these laws inhibit wealth is a more tenuous connection. An example might be that a woman might seek an abortion in order to keep her job or continue to be the bread-winner if her husband is unemployed.
Finally, Emerson appears cruel in his conclusion that wealth (here cited as property) flows away from "the idle and imbecile" to the "industrious, brave and persevering." To be politically correct, we would substitute incapable or challenged for imbecile, but the point is that we cannot legislate against differences in ability without completely denying the facts of nature. When Emerson says, as he does often, that America is Opportunity, he does not mean America is Guarantee.
Money is the blood of the economic body and all its members need a life-giving supply. If the head hoards too much the limbs shrivel and the heart eventually stops. It is, then, that each human being is a sign of the health of the whole economy. In a 15 trillion dollar economy such as ours, there is enough blood to support the entire body, but only if it flows freely.
For example, how do we project minors from being exploited in the marketplace while at the same time giving them an opportunity to learn how to work? New regulations being proposed for farmers would forbid minors from operating basic tools on the farm, like using a wheelbarrow or power tools. Such draconian measures inhibit the proper functioning of a farm in the name of child safety.
How do we not interfere while protecting consumers from fraud? How do we protect the nation's supply of clean water while not forbidding the development of natural gas? The answers to these questions need real debate and thoughtful solutions and not ideological stalemate.
When Emerson says that we must be careful not to make "sumptuary laws," he enters into difficult terrain. A sumptuary law, by definition, means a law intended to regulate personal habits on moral or religious grounds. In America today, sumptuary laws are not passed so much at the Federal level but rather by those states in which moral and religious beliefs dictate public policy. The most common examples are laws limiting abortions and marriage. That these laws inhibit wealth is a more tenuous connection. An example might be that a woman might seek an abortion in order to keep her job or continue to be the bread-winner if her husband is unemployed.
Finally, Emerson appears cruel in his conclusion that wealth (here cited as property) flows away from "the idle and imbecile" to the "industrious, brave and persevering." To be politically correct, we would substitute incapable or challenged for imbecile, but the point is that we cannot legislate against differences in ability without completely denying the facts of nature. When Emerson says, as he does often, that America is Opportunity, he does not mean America is Guarantee.
Money is the blood of the economic body and all its members need a life-giving supply. If the head hoards too much the limbs shrivel and the heart eventually stops. It is, then, that each human being is a sign of the health of the whole economy. In a 15 trillion dollar economy such as ours, there is enough blood to support the entire body, but only if it flows freely.
quotes
"Out of love and hatred, out of earnings and borrowings and leadings and losses; out of sickness and pain; out of wooing and worshipping; out of traveling and voting and watching and caring; out of disgrace and contempt, comes our tuition in the serene and beautiful laws."
"Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine"
"A man is a god in ruins."
"The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennui s, vanish, all duties even."
"We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count."
"Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under fourscore winters."
"It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay."
"Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."
"The ship of heaven guides itself and will not accept a wooden rudder."
"The ship of heaven guides itself and will not accept a wooden rudder."
"There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it."
"Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?"
"Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny."
"Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated."
"'Tis a superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the same chemical atoms."
"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."
"There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right."
"Can anybody remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?"
"Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss."
"The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts."
"The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts."
"Self-command is the main discipline."
"If a man knew anything, he would sit in a corner and be modest; but he is such an ignorant peacock, that he goes bustling up and down, and hits on extraordinary discoveries."
"All diseases run into one. Old age."
"There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says, Anywhere but here."
"I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being perfectly well dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow."
"Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do."
"Do that which is assigned to you and you cannot hope too much or dare too much."
"Commerce is a game of skill which everyone cannot play and few can play well."
"I pay the schoolmaster, but it is the school boys who educate my son."
"Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude."
"The secret in education lies in respecting the student."
"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide."
"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide."
"We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a belly-full of words and do not know a thing. The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education."
"The pest of society are the egotist, they are dull and bright, sacred and profane, course and fine. It is a disease that like the flu falls on all constitutions."
"The eloquent man is he who is no eloquent speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a certain belief."
"An empire is an immense egotism."
"Coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power."
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
"Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is due to the triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it."
"Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding."
"Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved."
"Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay."
"There is no one who does not exaggerate!"
"'Tis a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration."
"The world is upheld by the veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome. They who lived with them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable only in our belief in such society."
"There is always a best way of doing everything."
"Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much."
"Intellectual tasting of life will not supersede muscular activity."
"How much of human life is lost in waiting."
"Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds."
"Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds."
"The more experiments you make the better."
"I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it."
"The eye is easily frightened."
"The eyes indicate the antiquity of the soul."
"A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants."
Health is the condition
Health is the condition of wisdom, and the sign is cheerfulness -- an
open and noble temper.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
open and noble temper.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Passion
Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.
The education of the will is the object of our existence.
Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door
transcendental summer at First Parish
KINGSTON —
Henry David Thoreau tramped all over Southeastern Massachusetts and the Cape during the 1830s and 1840s in his pursuit of truth through an intuitive, natural world rather than the one delivered to him by society. People mistook him for a vagabond in his ragged slacks and threadbare shirt. But this poet who distinguished himself among the transcendentalists of his time, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller, was the force behind idealism that rocked nations.
Advocating passive resistance against governments that promote racism and intolerance, Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience was a revolutionary volume read by both Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. The book’s tenets fueled Gandhi’s and King’s peaceful protests that impacted millions of oppressed people around the world.
All this summer, First Parish Church, Unitarian Universalist, will host “A Transcendental Summer,” highlighting the transcendentalists of the 1830s and 1840s. If you have a lot going on this summer, you can still make it to these short, half-hour presentations that First Parish member Ellen Snoeyenbos has compiled, complete with videos that address transcendental ideas that draw from Buddhist and Vedic thought and texts.
“Living in nature was the first topic we covered,” Snoeyenbos said. “The services are based on Taize worship – meditative, contemplative service with readings and a few, quiet hymns in the middle. This style of worship asks participants to stop, pray with song and silence, and listen to the ‘still, small voice within.’”
The half-hour services are held at 10:30 a.m. every Sunday at the Beal House, across Main Street from First Parish.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who led the transcendental movement, was a Unitarian dissident, fearlessly raising questions about established religions and social mores that promoted wrongs against women and African Americans, among others. The transcendentalists advocated for women’s rights, freeing slaves and the inherent worth and dignity of every human being regardless of race long before such ideas were acceptable.
“Ralph Waldo Emerson was discovering the Vedic Indian sacred writings,” Snoeyenbos added. “He was on the cutting edge of discovering eastern traditions. The service will include video snippets of Melvin Hopper, who speaks to the relevance of the transcendentalists in today’s time, and 20th century movements influenced by these guys. These men spoke of women’s rights long before it was even remotely cool. They were the 19th century hippies of their day!”
The transcendentalists embraced an ideal of spirituality that transcended the physical and empirical world. Emerson’s concept of God encompassed what he termed the Oversoul, “the supernatural essence or spirit that resides within each person and that is universal, eternal and moral.”
It is unlikely that Thoreau had any idea, as he trekked through the woods of Massachusetts, that his thoughts on equality and peaceful disobedience would help ignite civil rights and anti-war movements that changed the world. These ideas are still changing the world, Snoeyenbos said, and urged parishioners and the public to attend these inspiring services that are open to all.
Today, let's focus on the more modest stone second
Today, let's focus on the more modest stone second from the northeast corner of the plot, the corner closest to the Lothrops. [Photo 5] It marks the resting place of Robert Bulkeley Emerson, born in Boston, 11 April 1807, died in Littleton, 27 May 1859. Most visitors who notice (and are able to discern) the epitaph on the stone find it most puzzling: "Thou has been faithful over a few things." A few things! Who was this man and what had he done to deserve such faint praise?
Robert Bulkeley Emerson was one of Waldo's two younger brothers, four years his junior. The name Bulkeley, by which he was usually called, came from the Rev. Peter Bulkeley, a Puritan minister, one of Concord's founders, and Bulkeley's and Waldo's maternal ancestors in the seventh generation before their own. Biographers write that Bulkeley was what is now called "retarded." Some write that he was also "emotionally unstable" and "periodically deranged." Today he might be given a dual diagnosis -- mental retardation and mental illness.
Bulkeley was reportedly easily irritated and "notably garrulous," with a "loud voice and unruly ways." During Waldo's Harvard commencement, Waldo's and Bulkeley's mother, Ruth Emerson, took Bulkeley to Newton to stay with her sister so that he would not "spoil the day for Ralph."
Several times during his life, Bulkeley was admitted to McLean Asylum, a psychiatric facility in Boston (now McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass). (Waldo's and Bulkeley's brother, Edward Emerson, also spent time in McLean with mental or emotional problems.)
Bulkeley sometimes displayed ingenuity, initiative, and adaptive skills that raise questions regarding his diagnosis. Once, at age 20, he slipped away from his caretakers for a two-week ramble that led him to Mont Vernon, New Hampshire. There he made door to door calls bearing a roughly-written paper that said he was organizing a singing school. He had lined up some fifteen gullible subscribers before the village leaders found him out and sent him back home.
During most of his adult years, Bulkeley boarded with two farm families in Chelmsford and Littleton, Mass., where he helped with simple farm chores. He often visited Waldo on holidays, staying a week or so, and Waldo shared in the cost of keeping his brother. Biographers note that Waldo was always charitable in his attitude toward Bulkeley, recognizing that "the law of compensation had not functioned" for Bulkeley. Henry David Thoreau also looked after Bulkeley on occasion. In 1853, when Ruth Emerson died, Thoreau brought Bulkeley home and acted as his tender guardian throughout the funeral period.
When Bulkeley died in Littleton in 1859, Thoreau took charge of the funeral in Concord. "His face was not much changed by death," Waldo said, "but sadly changed by life from the comely boy I can well remember."
But what of that cryptic inscription on his gravestone? Readers who know the bible may have recognized in the epitaph words of the evangelist Matthew. According to Matthew, Jesus preached that the kingdom of heaven will be like a man going on a journey, who called together his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five talents put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the man with two talents gained two more. But the man who had received one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master's money.
After a while, the master returned to settle accounts with his servants. The master was most displeased with the miserly servant who had buried his one talent, and ordered that he be cast out into the darkness. But to each of the servants who had made good use of the talents he was given the master said: "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness."
Far from disparaging Bulkeley, the epitaph, likely chosen by Waldo (a former minister), is a loving tribute to a man who had used well the few talents he had been given, and would now be put "in charge of many things" -- would be welcomed into heaven to share his master's happiness.
You can read more about Robert Bulkeley Emerson in Bulkeley, The Other Emerson, by H.A. Beyer, 4(1) Journal of Religion, Disability & Health 81 (2000).
Seize the Day
Two poets race to make the most of their scarce time on Earth.
Ralph Waldo EmersonWork, some of us declare with some pride and some resignation, is one of life's greatest pleasures. Getting work done feels good. The other side of that pleasure is anxiety: anxiety about failure to get work done, failure even to get around to trying to get work done. The use of time is an issue: the use of each day and, represented by the use of each day, the use of a life.
Poetry about seizing the precious day may specify activities like gathering rosebuds or fulfillment of the poet's erotic intentions. For me, underlying those recreational, floral, sexual imperatives is the poet's deepest craving and anxiety: getting a poem written, which itself embodies anxieties about loving, being loved, living, and the inevitable end of living. Some poems are explicit about these anxieties. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), in "Days," expresses very compactly the shame of procrastination and the intense craving, too often evaporated, of accomplishment. I think that the strange, archaic and learned words "pleached" and "fillet" help intensify the feeling: Look it up online, says Emerson (in effect) from the 19th century, to remind yourself how much work of intertwining and binding others have done on dictionaries, in gardens, and in software.
Emerson, on the scale of his title, writes explicitly about a late-afternoon sensation I recognize: "Forgot my morning wishes," he says—if any reader has never felt that, my envious congratulations. On an apparently different scale, John Keats (1795–1821) writes just as explicitly about his anxiety that he will die before has done what he can as a writer. "Gleaning" suggests a small scale, and "high-pilèd books" a large one. Both images are immeasurably more moving because Keats died at the age of 26 and had reasons to anticipate an early death.
But on some level, Emerson's days and Keats' lifetime refer to one thing: the daily pressure and the lifetime's need to fulfill the intentions and capacities of imaginative work. Where the two poets differ most may appear in the resolving lines at the end of each poem. Emerson, with those effective pauses ("I, too late,") attributes the climactic word "scorn" to the most recent Day of the procession. Keats himself has the final emotion in his poem's conclusion, where he thinks until "love and fame to nothingness do sink"—a feeling more mysterious than its distant cousin scorn, and larger.
"Days"
Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdoms, stars, or sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
….….…................….….…—Ralph Waldo Emerson
"When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be"
When I have fears that I may cease to be
....Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
....Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starred face,
....Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
....Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
....That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the fairy power
....Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
….….…................….….…—John Keats
The Life of Waldo — Continuing a Walk Through Sleepy Hollow
Shadows of Emerson and the residents of the Old Manse loom in this week's continued exploration of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
Leaving the grave of Robert Bulkeley Emerson, we'll walk down the narrow path to get closer to that five-foot, rough-hewn chunk of rose quartz. [Photo 1] Quartz is plentiful in the earth's crust; but a quartz stone of this size, colored rose by the presence of iron, manganese, and possibly titanium or lithium, is striking. A fitting symbol to mark the grave of the nature-loving Transcendentalist leader, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Emerson (1803–1882), the philosopher, lecturer, essayist, abolitionist, and poet, led America's 19th century literary movement — indeed, America's literary movement. It was he who brought Bronson Alcott and his family to Concord; who influenced Thoreau to keep a journal; who was one of the four founders of the Transcendental Club, making Concord the center of the Transcendentalist movement. Emerson, during his Harvard student days, decided to go by the name "Waldo." So we will too. The biographer Walter Harding describes Waldo's Transcendentalism as the belief that there is "a body of knowledge innate within man and that this knowledge transcended the senses .... This knowledge was the voice of God within man — his conscience, his moral sense, his inner light, his over-soul."
Emerson developed his themes of individualism and freedom in lectures and many published essays, including Nature, Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, and The Transcendentalist. The lines on the bronze plaque, "The passive master lent his hand / To the vast soul that oer him planned" [Photo 2] are from his poem “The Problem.”
From age 26 through 33, Waldo's life was tumultuous: In 1929 he both married Ellen Tucker and was ordained a Unitarian minister. He served as a junior pastor at Boston's Second Church, but soon disagreed with church officials on many issues, including public prayer and the administration of communion. He mused in his journal that "We worship in the dead form of our forefathers," and "Have sometimes thought that, in order to be a good minister, it is necessary to leave the ministry."
Ellen died of tuberculosis in 1831, after just two years of marriage. Waldo resigned the ministry in 1832. His brother Edward, who worked in Daniel Webster's law office, suffered a "mental collapse" and died in 1834. His brother Charles died of tuberculosis in 1836. In 1834, Waldo moved to Concord to live with his step-grandfather, Ezra Ripley, in the home now called The Old Manse. [Photo 3]
Take a moment to consider step-grandpa Ripley's remarkable life: Waldo's grandfather, Rev. William Emerson, had built the Manse in 1770. Five years later, he witnessed the American Revolution begin at nearby Old North Bridge, and soon departed for Ft. Ticonderoga as a chaplain in the Continental Army. William never returned to Concord, but died of "camp fever" and was buried in Rutland, Vt. When George Washington's troops occupied Harvard dormitories in 1775, the college was temporarily moved to Concord. Ripley, a Harvard theology student, moved into the Manse with the newly-widowed Phebe Bliss Emerson. In 1776, Ripley returned to Cambridge and graduated from Harvard. In 1778, he was ordained minister of Concord's First Parish and, in 1780, he married the widow Phebe. Living in the Manse, Ripley served as the "good if sometimes harsh" minister of the First Parish for almost 63 years, a Concord record.
Back to Waldo's story. In 1835 he married Lydia Jackson of Plymouth Mass. They bought a Concord home that they called "Bush," [Photo 4] and moved in. It still sits on Cambridge Turnpike at the corner of Lexington Road and is seasonally open to the public. Lydia's gravestone, adorned with a frieze of tulips, stands to the left of Waldo's. [Photo 5]
But wait! Why does Lydia's stone say "Lidian?" Some say Waldo called her Lidian to avoid having New Englanders call her "Lydiar Emerson." *See "Boston Accent," Boston Globe editorial (7/17/11): In New England pronunciation, "'ear' sometimes takes the place of word-ending vowels."
Others point to Waldo's apparent omniscience, quoting his remark to a cousin that "the philistines baptized her Lydia, but her name is Lidian." The stone to the right of Waldo's, "Ellen Tucker Emerson," [Photo 6] is that of a daughter of Waldo and Lidian.
You're right — that was Waldo's first wife's name. Biographers seem to agree that it was Lidian who proposed that name for their daughter. The Emersons had a second daughter whom Waldo wanted to call Lidian, but his wife would not agree and the baby girl was named Edith. The Emerson's first child was a son named Waldo, whom Ralph Waldo described as "a piece of love and sunshine."
Lidian and Waldo senior were devastated when young Waldo died of scarlet fever at age five. Emerson's poem "Threnody" is in memory of little Waldo: "The South Wind brings / Life, Sunshine, and desire, / And on every mount and meadow / Breathes aromatic fire; / But over the dead he has no power, / The lost, the lost he cannot restore; / And, looking over the hills, I mourn / The darling who shall not return."
The Emerson's named their second son Edward Waldo.
Emerson gave over 1,500 public lectures during his life. The first, "The Uses of Natural History," was delivered in Boston in 1933. He later turned it into the essay Nature. In it, he expresses his philosophy of science: "Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word ... I wish to learn this language ... that I may read the great book that is written in that tongue."
James Elliot Cabot, Waldo's close friend and official literary executor and biographer, wrote that Emerson appeared to have regarded the natural history of the intellect as "the chief task of his life." In 1837 Emerson became friends with Henry David Thoreau. As Waldo was awkward with tools, Thoreau became his carpenter, as well as his intellectual brother and life-long friend, practically a member of the Emerson family. That year, Waldo gave a speech called The American Scholar before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge. In it he encouraged Americans to develop their own style of writing, free from European constraints. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. called the lecture America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence." To James Russell Lowell it was "an event without former parallel on our literary annals."
However, another member of the audience, Rev. John Pierce, called it "an apparently incoherent and unintelligible address." Pierce was in the minority; Waldo's lectures were generally well received. He stood tall and handsome with a beautiful smile and a deep musical voice, showed great respect for and bonded with his audience, and was soon being called "The Sage of Concord." But some, like Pierce, found his lectures disjointed.
After one talk, James Russell Lowell said "It was as if, after vainly trying to get his paragraphs into sequence and order, he had at last tried the desperate expedient of shuffling them."
Just last year, two English professors at the University of Hartford called Emerson's prose "obscurantist" and "peripatetic," and wrote that the typical English student gains little from reading Emerson "other than a rough appreciation for what it must be like to sit in the company of a boorish deity."
*See "Giving the Boot to the Sage of Concord."
I believe, however, that most scholars would agree with Yale Professor Harold Bloom that Emerson "helped define U.S. identity in the 19th century," and that "his views on power, rejection of Old Europe and belief in a personal god are even more influential today, pervading American culture and politics."
*See "The Sage of Concord."
No, I didn't shuffle the paragraphs above. Should I have done so?
— Harry Beyer, a licensed town guide, has lived and walked in Concord since 1966.
13 Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes That Transformed My Life
It was well over a decade ago, and a time in my life where I desperately wanted to discover the very purpose I had been planted on planet earth. I knew that I had something of significance to offer others, but yet didn’t know what it was.
I had an inkling that it had something to do with my natural ability to create words. From the age of 14 I had begun to shape lyrics for my original songs that I composed. I loved to read and write poetry, and so day in and day out I found myself sharpening my talent on the grindstone of consistency and practice. Deep within me I knew that I had books in me as well. Little did I know that those skills would one day take me into the world of the blog.
I had written three books and had been rejected by publishers and literary agents all over my country. And yet I pressed on with another creation. Ultimately I have successfully self published a number of books to date and even assisted three other authors get into print with sales in both my own country and the U.K.
My Personal Search For ‘Liquid Gold’
One of the ways that I sustained myself during this ‘desert’ period of my life was by planting myself physically in my local university library in search of ‘liquid gold’. I was voraciously searching for mentors whom I could draw upon as I was creating my own voice and unveiling my personal uniqueness.
And in my search through the tens of thousands of volumes that were presented to me as I walked through the doors of that library, I stumbled across a man whom I had seen quoted time and time again in other books that were in my personal possession, and his name was Ralph Waldo Emerson.
To my joy, I found his original volumes in the depths of the library’s basement, and it is there that I visited day after day and week after week until I had read nearly everything he had ever written. I took notes and created my own personal summary through the eyes of someone seeking inspiration, motivation and a sense of worth. I didn’t like or necessarily understand everything that he wrote because he had written in another century and used the language of his times. But there were moments when his heart penetrated my very own – and his words burnt deep into the very depths of my soul.
So here are just 13 of his quotes with some short commentary from myself as I now return, after many years, to dwell in their company and share him with you.
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men – that is genius.
It is amazing how what I write resonates with the hearts of men and women from all around the world. Writing in one sense is a selfish endeavor, because we write for ourselves in most cases – but the beauty of writing for yourself, and even at times about yourself, empowers your readers as they face the very same challenges and seek answers to the same issues. And let’s face it – that it is the nature of human beings to love a good story.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Through the years I have had to learn how to trust myself. I have stepped out in business, published books, created blogs and online courses not knowing whether or not they would succeed – but when you do that there is a strength that is implanted deeply into your heart – an inner vibration that creates music – and that music is aligned to your passion. And what a wonderful place it is to reside.
Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.
Identify your strengths and then make your strengths strong. This is a principle that has stood me in good stead for many years now. When you identify your personal uniqueness and then proceed to operate your life from that center, then the world becomes your oyster. That’s where the magic happens. That’s where the opportunities come. That’s where the finance flows. That’s where the resources rise to the surface.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
To be happy with who you are – therein is peace. To be true to your inner compass and to the principles that build a strong life – filled with integrity. That enables one to be able to sleep at night and to never have to look over one’s shoulder. The ability to say ‘no’ because of your principles is a powerful weapon for good in your life.
Like the wounded oyster, he mends his shell with pearl.
This is where bitterness is transformed into betterness. This is where rejection is changed into a trajectory forward. This is where another ‘no’ is one step closer to the ‘yes’ that we are in search of. This is where forgiveness overcomes harm and love covers a multitude of sins. Longsuffering. Patient. Kind.
Always do what you are afraid to do.
Fear is terrified of action. We cannot escape the tentacles of fear – but we can remove their power by being a man and woman of action. Operate as one whose tribal cry is ‘Do it now!’ and ‘Action cures fear.’
What is the hardest task in the world? To think.
Now what a great thought. But this is where periods of solitude are required to hop off the treadmill of life as it were. Thinking is hard work, and yet so rewarding. Whenever I think I create but one thing – ‘magnificence!’ How about you?
Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they are executed.
The execution is of prime importance. We must be inspired into action or else we remain unmoved and unchanged. Thinking forms the foundations for the construction of great edifices. Once you have thought, then roll up your sleeves and get to work.
Divine persons are victory organised.
I never consider losing. It’s not in my make-up. I have a catch-cry, which I declare in the midst of my day – ‘I will find a way!’ But alas someone comes along and says that it is impossible and that I will never make it. I stuff my fingers in my ears and continue to say but one thing – ‘Nothing is impossible to me because I believe – and I will find a way.’
Humility is the secret of the wise.
The great men that I know personally are those who walk in humility. I have seen rich men who are not humble and yet I witnessed poor men who know no vestige of humility within their bones. And yet I have met others from both ends of the spectrum who reflect a spirit of humility - in all that they do and say – and they light up my life.
Thus the so-called fortunate man is one who…relies on his instincts, and simply does not act where he should not, but waits his time, and without effort acts when the need is. If to this you add a fitness to the society around him, you have the elements of fortune.
Timing is everything. Success comes when there is a collision between preparedness and opportunity. If you can supply what is needed by society – provide an answer to their question, a solution to their problem, food for the hungry, and education for those who wish to learn – therein lies your fortune.
Here are the two capital facts, genius and drill.
Each of us has been born with a genius. There is something that each of us do very well. It has been assigned to us, and yet many of us ever really pause in life to discover it deeply and then apply the other necessary ingredient. And that is drill. That is practice. That is taking that which is good and making it great. That is pursuing your niche. That is unveiling your uniqueness. That is finding your voice and learning how to vocalize - not like everybody else - but your way. That requires you to at times to swim upstream, to go against the flow, to stand out in the crowd declaring – ‘here I am, and here is what I offer to create a much better world – that is now better because I have not hidden my gift – and have risked rejection by bringing it forth in public.
And a final word from Emerson:
The enthusiast always finds the master, the masters, whom he seeks. Always genius seeks genius, desires nothing so much as to be a pupil and to find those who can lend it aid to perfect itself.
I found my master deep in the depths of that university library.
Why?
Because in the words of the master himself, ‘the enthusiast always finds the master, the masters, whom he seeks.’ Oh yes and that I did – because Emerson introduced me to all his friends from throughout all the ages, and we have had and will continue to have a wonderful time communing with each other - both now and into eternity.
How has Emerson impacted your life, or have there been others whom you could recommend?
Happy Birthday, Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Ideal in America
Philosophy, entrepreneurship, and what classic spiritual movements have to do with modern geeks.
Today marks the 208th birthday of poet, essayist, lecturer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, father of Transcendentalism — a belief system in which spirituality transcends the physical and the doctrines of organized religion, and is instead based on the individual’s intuition, advocating for “a poetry and philosophy of insight and not tradition.” His iconic 1837 speech, The American Scholar, is commonly considered the American “Intellectual Declaration of Independence” and, to put it in modern layman terms, is easily the original geek manifesto. His seminal essay, Self-Reliance, remains one of history’s most important works on individuality and anti-conformity.
Emerson: The Ideal in America is the first documentary about the life and work of the great thinker, whose belief in “the infinitude of the private man” is embedded in contemporary concepts ranging from spirituality to spirit of entrepreneurship to ideals of individualism and personal agency. The film is available both online in its entirety and on DVD, and is very much a must-see.
Here is the real secret to Emerson’s work: He stands still, he listens to his heart, and he writes as he listens.”
Today marks the 208th birthday of poet, essayist, lecturer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, father of Transcendentalism — a belief system in which spirituality transcends the physical and the doctrines of organized religion, and is instead based on the individual’s intuition, advocating for “a poetry and philosophy of insight and not tradition.” His iconic 1837 speech, The American Scholar, is commonly considered the American “Intellectual Declaration of Independence” and, to put it in modern layman terms, is easily the original geek manifesto. His seminal essay, Self-Reliance, remains one of history’s most important works on individuality and anti-conformity.
Emerson: The Ideal in America is the first documentary about the life and work of the great thinker, whose belief in “the infinitude of the private man” is embedded in contemporary concepts ranging from spirituality to spirit of entrepreneurship to ideals of individualism and personal agency. The film is available both online in its entirety and on DVD, and is very much a must-see.
Here is the real secret to Emerson’s work: He stands still, he listens to his heart, and he writes as he listens.”
Who Knew? Ralph Waldo Emerson Lived In Waltham
Seeds of Transcendentalism sprouted here in Waltham.
"At Waltham, last Sunday, on the hill near the old meeting-house, I heard music so soft I fancied it was a pianoforte in some neighbouring farmhouse, but on listening more attentively I found it was the church bells in Boston, nine miles distant, which were playing for me this soft tune.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s life, his writing and beliefs are as valid now as they were in the 19th century. He challenged the way people think about and approach life, then and now. Once again we learn that Waltham played a large part in those beliefs.
Emerson’s father died when he was about 8. Poor and sickly, he and his siblings were farmed to various relatives. Our Ralph spent a lot of his time and a great many summers in Waltham with Rev. Sam Ripley and his wife, Sarah Alden Ripley.
Alex Green is putting Emerson’s early life back into history – and Waltham is front and center in his book, The Shaking Tent, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s First Sermons from the First Industrial Town in America.
Last week, Green, a Waltham resident, author and member of Waltham’s Historical Society and Historic Commission, spoke about Emerson to a full audience in a conference room in the RTN Federal Credit Union building on Main Street. Ironically, that building is across the street from the spot where Rumford Hall once stood – another place where Emerson spoke.
As Emerson grew up, he taught students at the Ripley’s home and eventually accepted the mantle of minister, just as his father, his grandfather and his great grandfather before him.
But, this transcendentalist philosopher, writer and orator had another more esoteric view of life. In his writing and speeches, he asked people to think outside the box, at a time when everyone lived and thought inside a constrained mental cabinet.
He gave two sermons at his uncle’s First Parish Church in Waltham – and they show the first real signs of transcendental seeds. He stood at the pulpit in mid-October of 1826 with his first: Pray without Ceasing. The second was called, The Uses of Unhappiness.
Green’s book provides the full text of both sermons – and Christianity and God don’t play a role in either, although he does talk about the self and the soul.
Pray without Ceasing’s smacks of the talks that occurred in Concord’s transcendental circles: “…because we are not able to discern the processes of thought, to see the soul – it were very ridiculous to doubt or deny that any beings can. It is not incredible that the thoughts of the mind are the subjects of perception to some beings …”
“Transcendentalism is evident in the preamble of that first sermon as much as it is in any of his secular writing,” Green said.
I’ll say. It must have been pretty radical for those who heard something that wasn’t bible-based. Some of Emerson’s Waltham messages suggest the world reflects back on us and that we need to be in tune with our form of perception, Green said. Sounds a bit like the 1960s and 1970s, doesn’t it?
Why isn’t any of this in all those books we read about Emerson’s life? Green tells us, and it’s pretty evident, Emerson kept his early years private.
“He wanted to hide the fact that he was a minister,” Green said. “He worked very hard to try and get around his upbringing.”
Eventually Emerson walked away from ministry and, back in Concord, walked toward the philosophical life most of us already know. But, he took Waltham life with him. And Waltham, at the time, was half agricultural and half industrial. Emerson witnessed both. He taught the mill children and saw the difficulties they faced and saw the bucolic farm life too.
Green suggests that those interactions and Sarah and Sam Ripley’s kindnesses affected how he thought and who he became. After reading the sermons, I’d have to agree and would be curious to learn what you think.
Once happily entrenched in Concord, Emerson didn’t spend much time in Waltham, although he did return to speak at Rumford Hall for “$5 and four quarts of oats for his horses.”
It’s exciting to know that Waltham and Ralph Waldo Emerson are connected and that we can claim a small piece of him. It’s even more exciting to know that Concord has asked for a few copies of Green’s book
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