\

THROUGH THE YEAR
WITH EMERSON

SELECTED AND
ARRANGED BY
EDITH E. WOOD

DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY
40 EAST 19TH STREET, NEW YORK

Copyright, i 9 ° 5 , by
Dodge Publishing Company.

THROUGH THE YEAR
WITH EMERSON

(3)

FRIENDSHIP

SELECTED GEMS FROM RALPH WALDO
EMERSON'S ESSAY "FRIENDSHIP"

FRIENDSHIP.

January First.

E have a great deal more kind
ness than is ever spoken.
* * * the whole human
family is bathed with an ele
ment of love like a fine ether.

January Second.

The effect of the indulgence of this human affec
tion is a certain cordial exhilaration.

January Third.

Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too
good to be believed.

January Fourth.

Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot
take part in a conversation of the most sincere and
searching sort.

January Fifth.

Almost every man we meet requires some civility,
requires to be humored; * * * but a friend is a
sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me.

(7)

FRIENDSHIP.

January Sixth.

ET the soul be assured that
somewhere in the universe it
should rejoin its friend, and it
would be content and cheerful
alone for a thousand years.

January Seventh.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for
my friends, the old and the new.

January Eighth.

Let us approach our friend with an audacious trust
in the truth of his heart, in the breadth, impossible to
be overturned, of his foundations.

January Ninth.

My friends have come to me unsought. The great
God gave them to me.

January Tenth.

When friendships are real, they are not glass
threads of frost-work, but the solidest thing we
know.

(8)

FRIENDSHIP.
January Eleventh.

UR friendships hurry to short
and poor conclusions, because
we have made them a texture
of wine and dreams instead of
the tough fiber of the human
heart.

January Twelfth.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.
Before him I may think aloud.

January Thirteenth.

Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity,
but for the total worth of man.

January Fourteenth.

For perfect friendship may be said to require na
tures so rare and costly, so well tempered each, and so
happily adapted * * * that very seldom can its
satisfaction be realized.

January Fifteenth.

There are two elements that go to the composition
of friendship : one is Truth, the other is Tenderness.

(9)

FRIENDSHIP.

January Sixteenth.

RIENDSHIP— that select and
sacred relation which is a kind
of absolute, and which even
leaves the language of love
suspicious and common, so
much is this purer, and noth
ing is so much divine.

January Seventeenth.

Respect so far the holy laws of this fellowship as
not to prejudice its perfect flower by your impatience
for its opening. We must be our own before we can
be another's.

January Eighteenth.

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a
second person, hypocrisy begins.

January Nineteenth.

Our intellectual and active powers increase with
our affection.

January Twentieth.

A friend may well be reckoned the master-piece of
nature.

FRIENDSHIP.
January Twenty-first.

APPY is the house that shelters

a friend! It might well be
built, like a festal bower or
arch, to entertain him a single
day. Happier, if he know the

solemnity of that relation and
honor its law!

January Twenty-second.

I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to
signify modish and worldly alliances.

January Twenty-third.

Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his
echo.

January Twenty-fourth.

The only money of God is God. He pays never
with anything less, or anything else. The only re
ward of virtue is virtue : the only way to have a friend
Is to be one.

January Twenty-fifth.

When a man becomes dear to me I have touched
the goal of fortune.

(ii)

FRIENDSHIP.

January Twenty-sixth.

O two men but being left alone
with each other enter into sim
pler relations. Yet it is affin
ity that determines which
two shall converse.

January Twenty-seventh.

Let me alone to the end of the world, rather than
that my friend should overstep, by a word or a look,
his real sympathy.

January Twenty-eighth.

Pleasant are these jets of affection which make a
young world for me again.

January Twenty-ninth.

Almost all people descend to meet. All association
must be a compromise.

January Thirtieth.

I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I
would have them where I can find them, but I seldom
use them.

(12)

FRIENDSHIP.
January Thirty-first.

HE essence of friendship is en-
tireness, a total magnanimity
and trust. It must not sur
mise or provide for infirmity.
It treats its object as a god,
that it may deify both.

(13)

COM PENSATION

SELECTED GEMS FROM RALPH WALDO
EMERSON'S ESSAY "COMPENSATION"

ds)

COMPENSATION.
February First.

HERE is always some leveling
circumstance that puts down
the overbearing, the strong,
the rich, the fortunate sub
stantially on the same ground
with all others.

February Second.

The voice of the Almighty saith, "Up and onward
f orevermore !" We cannot stay amid the ruins.

February Third.

For everything you have missed, you have gained,
something else; and for everything you gain you lose
something.

February Fourth.

Every excess causes a defect; every defect an ex
cess. Every sw.e*"«& bath its sour, every evil its good.

February Fifth.

Treat men as pawns and nine-pins and you shall
suffer as well as they. If you leave out their heart
you shall lose your own.

d7)

COMPENSATION.

February Sixth.

LEARN the wisdom of St.
Bernard, "Nothing can work
me damage except myself; the
harm that I sustain I carry
about with me, and never am
a real sufferer but by my own
fault."

February Seventh.

The true doctrine of omnipresence is that God re
appears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb.

February Eighth.

He who by force of will or of thought is great and
overlooks thousands, has the responsibility of over
looking.

February Ninth.

The farmer imagines power and place are fine
things. But the President has paid dear for his White
House.

February Tenth.

Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within
the flower of the pleasure which concealed it.

(18)

COMPENSATION.
February Eleventh.

VERY opinion reacts on him
who utters it. It is a thread
ball thrown at a mark, but the
other end remains in the
thrower's bag.

February Twelfth.

As the royal armies sent against Napoleon * * *
from enemies became friends, so do disasters of all
kinds * * * prove benefactors.

February Thirteenth.

No man thoroughly understands a truth until first
he has contended against it.

February Fourteenth.

In general, every evil to which we do not succumb
is a benefactor * * * we gain the strength of the
temptation we resist.

February Fifteenth.

Though no checks to a new evil appear, the checks
exist, and will appear.

(19)

COMPENSATION.

February Sixteenth.

VERY faculty which is a re
ceiver of pleasure has an equal
penalty put on its abuse. It
is to answer for its moderation
with its life.

February Seventeenth.

Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit,
cannot be severed ; for the effect already blooms in the
cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the
seed.

February Eighteenth.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.
February Nineteenth.

Benefit is the end of nature. But for every benefit
which you receive, a tax is levied.

February Twentieth.

Always pay; for first or last you must pay your en
tire debt. Persons and events may stand for a time
between you and justice, but it is only a postponement.

(20)

COMPENSATION.
February Twenty-first.

HILST I stand in simple rela
tions to my fellow-man I have
no displeasure in meeting
him. * * * But as soon
as there is any departure from
simplicity * * * there is
hate in him and fear in me.

February Twenty-second.

The wise man always throws himself on the side of
his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs
to find his weak point.

February Twenty-third.

As no man had ever a point of pride that was not
injurious to him, so no man had ever a defect that was
not somewhere made useful to him.

February Twenty-fourth.

Beware of too much good staying in your own
hands. It will fast corrupt and worm worms. Pay it
away quickly in some sort.

February Twenty-fifth.
A man cannot speak but he judges himself.

(21)

COMPENSATION.

February Twenty-sixth.

UR strength grows out of our
weakness. Not until we are
pricked and stung and sorely
shot at, awakens the indigna
tion which arms itself with
secret forces.

February Twenty-seventh.

Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.
There is no such thing as concealment.

February Twenty-eighth.

If the gatherer gathers too much, nature takes out of
the man what she puts into his chest; swells the es
tate, but kills the owner.

February Twenty-ninth.

All the good of nature is the soul's, and may be
had if paid for in nature's lawful coin, that is by labor
which the heart and the head allow.

(22)

SELF-RELIANCE

SELECTED GEMS FROM RALPH WALDO
EMERSON'S ESSAY "SELF-RELIANCE"

(23)

SELF-RELIANCE.

March First.

HERE is a time in every man's
education when he arrives at
the conviction that * * * no
kernel of nourishing corn can
come to him but through his
toil bestowed on that plot of
ground which is given to him
to till.

March Second.

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.

March Third.

When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as
sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of
the corn.

March Fourth.

Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.
March Fifth.

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.

SELF-RELIANCE.

March Sixth.

LSE, if you would be a man,
speak what you think to-day
in words as hard as cannon
balls, and to-morrow speak
what to-morrow thinks * * *
though it contradicts every
thing you said to-day.

March Seventh.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what
the people think.

March Eighth.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron
string.

March Ninth.

He who would gather immortal palms must not be
hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore
if it be goodness.

March Tenth.

Fear never but you shall be consistent in what
ever variety of actions, so that they be each honest
and natural in their hour.

(26)

SELF-RELIANCE.
March Eleventh.

N every work of genius we
recognize our own rejected
thoughts; they come back to
us with a certain alienated
majesty.

March Twelfth.

Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn ap
pearances and you always may.

March Thirteenth.

Let a man then know his worth, and keep things
under his feet.

March Fourteenth.

In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast
chained the wheels of Chance, and shall always drag
her after thee.

March Fifteenth.

It is only as a man puts off from himself all external
support and stands alone that I see him to be strong
and to prevail.

(27)

SELF-RELIANCE.

March Sixteenth.

RAYER that craves a particular
commodity — anything less
than all good, is vicious.

March Seventeenth.

Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-
helping man. For him all doors are flung wide.

March Eighteenth.

If we follow the truth it will bring us out safe at
last.

March Nineteenth.

All persons have their moments of reason, when
they look out into the region of absolute truth.

March Twentieth.

If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the
happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve
that you should. I must be myself.

(28)

SELF-RELIANCE.
March Twenty-first.

HERE is a great responsible
Thinker and Actor moving
wherever moves a man; that
a true man belongs to no other
time or place, but is the center
of things.

March Twenty-second.
Life only avails, not the having lived.

March Twenty-third.
Insist on yourself; never imitate.

March Twenty-fourth.

Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from
the highest point of view.

March Twenty-fifth.
If we live truly, we shall see truly.
March Twenty-sixth.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Noth
ing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

(29)

SELF-RELIANCE.

March Twenty-seventh.

RAVELING is a fool's paradise.

* * *

my giant goes with

me wherever I go.

March Twenty-eighth.
To be great is to be misunderstood.
March Twenty-ninth.

Discontent is the want of self-reliance ; it is infirmity
of will.

March Thirtieth.

We pass for what we are.
Character teaches above our wills.

March Thirty-first.

As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not
beg. He will then see prayer in all action.

(307

EXPERIENCE

SELECTED GEMS FROM RALPH WALDO
EMERSON'S ESSAY "EXPERIENCE"

(3D

EXPERIENCE.

April First.

O much of our time is prepara
tion, so much is routine, and
so much retrospect, that the
pith of each man's genius con
tracts itself to a very few
hours.

April Second.

Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and,
as we pass through them, they prove to be many col
ored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and
each shows only what lies in its focus.

April Third.

We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to
skate well on them.

April Fourth.

If we will take the good we find, asking no ques
tions, we shall have heaping measures.

April Fifth.

To fill the hour, — that is happiness; to fill the hour
and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval.

(33)

EXPERIENCE.

April Sixth.

O not craze yourself with think
ing, but go about your business
anywhere. Life is not intel
lectual or critical, but sturdy.
Its chief good is for well
mixed people, who can enjoy
what they find without ques
tion.

April Seventh.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.
It depends upon the mood of the man, whether he
shall see the sunset or the fine poem.

April Eighth.

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in
every step of the road, to live the greatest number of
good hours, is wisdom.

April Ninth.

The results of life are uncalculated and uncalculable.
The years teach much which the days never know.

April Tenth.

Every man is an impossibility until he is born;
everything impossible, until we see a success.

(34)

EXPERIENCE.
April Eleventh.

LL good conversation, manners,
and action, come from a spon
taneity which forgets usages,
and makes the moment great.
Nature hates calculators; her
methods are saltatory and im
pulsive.

April Twelfth.

Since our office is with moments let us husband
them. Five minutes of to-day are worth as much to
me as five minutes in the next millennium.

April Thirteenth.

We thrive by casualties. Our chief experiences
have been casual.

April Fourteenth.

We believe in ourselves, as we do not believe in
others. We permit all things to ourselves, and that
which we call sin in others, is experiment for us.

April Fifteenth.

There never was a right endeavor, but it succeeded.
Patience and patience, we shall win at the last.

(35)

EXPERIENCE.

April Sixteenth.

LL writings come by the grace
of God, and all doing and hav
ing. * * * I can see noth
ing at last, in success or fail
ure, than more or less of vital
force supplied from the Eter
nal.

April Seventeenth.

A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no
luster as you turn it in your hand, until you come to
a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful
colors.

April Eighteenth.

Every man thinks a latitude safe for himself, which
is no wise to be indulged to another.

April Nineteenth.

The great and crescive self, rooted in absolute-na
ture, supplants all relative existence, and ruins the
kingdom of mortal friendship and love.

April Twentieth.

Life will be imaged, but cannot be divided nor
doubled. Any invasion of its unity would be chaos.

(36)

EXPERIENCE.

April Twenty-first.

HE most attractive class of peo
ple are those who are powerful
obliquely, and not by the direct
stroke: men of genius but not

yet accredited: one gets the
cheer of their light, without
paying too great a tax.

April Twenty-second.

Men live in their fancy, like drunkards whose hands
are too soft and tremulous for successful labor. It is
a tempest of fancies, and the only ballast I know, is
a respect to the present hour.

April Twenty-third.

A man is a golden impossibility. The line he must
walk is a hair's breadth. The wise through excess of
wisdom is made a fool.

April Twenty-fourth.

In popular experience everything good is on the
highway. * * * to say nothing of nature's pic
tures in every street, of sunsets and sunrises every
day, and the sculpture of the human body never ab
sent.

(37)

'EXPERIENCE.

April Twenty-fifth.

AM grown by sympathy a little
eager and sentimental, but
leave me alone and I should
relish every hour and what it
brought me. * * * I am
thankful for small mercies.

April Twenty-sixth.

Man lives by pulses; our organic movements are
such, * * * and the mind goes antagonizing on,
and never prospers but by fits.

April Twenty-seventh.

Life is a series of surprises, and would not be worth
taking or keeping, if it were not. God delights to
isolate us every day, and hide from us the past and
the future.

April Twenty-eighth.

Human life is made up of two elements, power and
form, and the proportion must be invariably kept, if
we would have it sweet and sound. Each of these
elements in excess makes a mischief as hurtful as its
defect.

(38)

EXPERIENCE.
April Twenty-ninth.

EVER mind the ridicule, never
mind the defeat: up again, old
heart! — it seems to say, — there

is victory yet for all justice.
April Thirtieth.

The ardors of piety agree at last with the coldest
skepticism, — that nothing is of us or our works, — that
all is of God.

139)

PRUDENCE

SELECTED GEMS FROM RALPH WALDO
EMERSON'S ESSAY "PRUDENCE"

(41)

PRUDENCE.

May First.

E write from aspiration and
antagonism, as well as from
experience. We paint those
qualities which we do not
possess.

May Second.

Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the
science of appearances. It is the outmost action of
the inward life.

May Third.

Prudence is false when detached. It is legitimate
when it is the Natural History of the soul incarnate,
when it unfolds the beauty of laws within the narrow
scope of the senses.

May Fourth.

Nature punishes any neglect of prudence.
May Fifth.

We are instructed by these petty experiences which
usurp the hours and years.

(43)

PRUDENCE.

May Sixth.

RUDENCE does not go behind
nature and ask whence it is?
It takes the laws of the world
whereby man's being is condi
tioned, as they are, and keeps
these laws that it may enjoy
their proper good.

May Seventh.

Time is always bringing the occasions that disclose
their value. Some wisdom comes out of every natural
and innocent action.

May Eighth.

Let a man keep the law, — any law, — and his way
will be strown with satisfactions.

May Ninth.

If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands,
instead of honey it will yield us bees.

May Tenth.

The application of means to ends ensures victory,
and the songs of victory not less in a farm or a shop
than in the tactics of party or of war.

(44)

PRUDENCE.

May Eleventh.

UR American character is
marked with a more than aver
age delight in accurate per
ception, which is shown by the
currency of the by-word, "No
Mistake."

May Twelfth.

The domestic man, who loves no music so well as
his kitchen clock and the airs which the logs sing to
him as they burn on the hearth, has solaces which
others never dream of.

May Thirteenth.

He that despiseth small things will perish by little
and little.

/

May Fourteenth.

As much wisdom may be expended on a private
economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom may
be drawn from it.

May Fifteenth.

In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.

(45)

PRUDENCE.

May Sixteenth.

Y diligence and self-command
let him put the bread he eats
at his own disposal, and not at
that of others, that he may not
stand in bitter and false rela
tions to other men ; for the best
good of wealth is freedom.

May Seventeenth.

Poetry and prudence should be coincident. Poets
should be law-givers ; that is, the boldest lyric inspira
tion should not chide and insult, but should announce
and lead the civil code and the day's work.

May Eighteenth.

Let him learn that everything in nature, even motes
and feathers, go by law and not by luck, and that
which he sows he reaps.

May Nineteenth.

The eye of prudence may never shut.
May Twentieth.

On him who scorned the world, as he said, the
scorned world wreaks its revenge.

(46)

PRUDENCE.

May Twenty-first.

RANKNESS proves to be the
best tactics, for it invites
frankness, puts the parties on
a convenient footing, and
makes their business a friend
ship.

May Twenty-second.

Keep the rake, says the haymaker, as nigh the
scythe as you can, and the cart as nigh the rake.

May Twenty-third.

A man of genius, of an ardent temperament, reckless
of physical laws, self-indulgent, becomes presently un
fortunate, querulous, a "discomfortable cousin," a
thorn to himself and others.

May Twenty-fourth.

Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide
in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.

May Twenty-fifth.

Trust men and they will be true to you, treat them
greatly and they will show themselves great.

(47)

PRUDENCE.

May Twenty-sixth.

HE good husband finds method
as efficient in the packing of
fire-wood in a shed or in the
harvesting of fruits in the cel
lar, as in the files of the De
partment of State.

May Twenty-seventh.

The prudence which secures an outward well-being
is not to be studied by one set of men, whilst heroism
and holiness are studied by another, but they are rec
oncilable.

May Twenty-eighth.

He who wishes to walk in the most peaceful parts
of life with any serenity must screw himself up to
resolution.

May Twenty-ninth.

Our words and actions to be fair must be timely.
A gay and pleasant sound is the whetting of the
scythe in the mornings of June ; yet what is more lone
some and sad than the sound of a whetstone or mow
er's rifle when it is too late in the season to make
hay?

(48)

PRUDENCE.

May Thirtieth.

ET him practice the minor vir
tues. How much of human
life is lost in waiting! Let
him not make his fellow crea
tures wait. How many words
and promises are promises of
conversation! Let his be
words of fate.

May Thirty-first.

It (prudence) is God taking thought for oxen. It
moves matter after the laws of matter. It is content
to seek health of body by complying with physical
conditions, and health of mind by the laws of the in
tellect.

(4?)

LOVE

SELECTED GEMS FROM RALPH WALDO
EMERSON'S ESSAY "LOVE"

(51)

LOVE.

June First.

ATURE * * * in the first
sentiment of kindness antici
pates already a benevolence
which shall lose all particular
regards in its general light.
The introduction of this felic
ity is in a private and tender
relation of one to one, which is
the enchantment of human life.

June Second.

This passion of which we speak, though it begin
with the young, yet forsakes not the old, or rather
suffers no one who is truly its servant to grow old.

June Third.

Love is omnipresent in nature as motive and re
ward. Love is our highest word and the synonym of
God.

June Fourth.

Every soul is a celestial Venus to every other souL
June Fifth.

Like a certain divine rage (this enchantment) seizes
on man at one period and works a revolution in his
mind and body.

(S3)

LOVE.

June Sixth.

T matters not, whether we at
tempt to describe the passion
at twenty, at thirty, or at
eighty years. He who paints
it at the first period will lose
some of its later, he who paints
it at the last, some of its earlier
traits.

June Seventh.

Every promise of the soul has innumerable fulfill
ments. Each of its joys ripens into a new want.

June Eighth.

Alas! I know not why, but infinite compunctions
embitter in mature life all the remembrances of bud
ding sentiment, and cover every beloved name.

June Ninth.

Everything is beautiful seen from the point of the
intellect, or as truth. But all is sour if seen as ex-
perien

June Tenth.

Details are always melancholy; the plan is seemly
and noble.

(54)

LOVE.

June Eleventh.

ITH thought, with the ideal, is
immortal hilarity, the rose of
joy. Round it all the muses
sing. But with names and
persons and the partial inter
ests of to-day and yesterday is
grief.

June Twelfth.

Every heart has its sabbaths and jubilees in which
the world appears as a hymeneal feast.

June Thirteenth.

All mankind love a lover. The earliest demonstra
tions of complacency and kindness are nature's most
winning pictures.

June Fourteenth.

It is strange how painful is the actual world — the
painful kingdom of time and place. There dwells care
and canker and fear.

June Fifteenth.

He touched the secret of the matter who said of
love, "All other pleasures are not worth its pains."

(55)

LOVE.

June Sixteenth.

E our experience in particulars
what it may, no man ever for
got the visitations of that
power to his heart and brain,
which created all things new.

June Seventeenth.

Beauty is ever that divine thing the ancients es
teemed it. It is, they said, the flowering of virtue.

June Eighteenth.

Into the most pitiful and abject it will infuse a
heart and courage to defy the world, so only it have
the countenance of the beloved object.

June Nineteenth.

The passion re-makes the world for the youth.
* * * Nature grows conscious. Every bird on
the boughs of the tree sings now to his heart and
soul.

June Twentieth.

We are by nature observers, and thereby learners.
(56)

LOVE.

June Twenty-first.

HE statue is then beautiful when
it begins to be incomprehensi
ble, when it is passing out of
criticism * * * but de
mands an active imagination to
go with it, and to say what it
is in the act of doing.

June Twenty-second.

The strong bent of nature is seen in the proportion
which this topic of personal relations usurps in the con
versation of society. What do we wish to know of
any worthy person so much as how he sped in the
history of this sentiment.

June Twenty-third.

The Deity sends the glory of youth before the soul,
that it may avail itself of beautiful bodies as aids to its
recollection of the celestial good and fair.

June Twenty-fourth.

It is a fire that, kindling its first embers in the nar
row nook of a private bosom, caught from a wandering
spark out of another private heart, glows and enlarges,
* * * and so lights up the whole world and all
nature with its generous flame.

(57)

LOVE.

June Twenty-fifth.

HAT which is so beautiful and
attractive as these relations,
must be succeeded and sup
planted only by what is more
beautiful, and so on forever.

June Twenty-sixth.

We are often made to feel that our affections are
but tents of a night. Though slowly and with pain,
the objects of the affections change as the objects of
thought do.

June Twenty-seventh.

There are moments when the affections rule and
absorb the man and make his happiness dependent
upon a person or persons. But in health the mind is
presently seen again.

June Twenty-eighth.

By conversation with that which is in itself excel
lent, magnanimous, lowly and just, the lover comes
to a warmer love of these nobilities, and a quicker ap
prehension of them.

(58)

LOVE.

June Twenty-ninth.

F poetry the success is not at
tained when it lulls and satis
fies, but when it astonishes
and fires us with new en
deavors after the unattainable.

June Thirtieth.

We need not fear that we can lose anything by the
progress of the soul. The soul may be trusted to the
end.

(59)

CIRCLES

SELECTED GEMS FROM RALPH WALDO
EMERSON'S ESSAY "CIRCLES"

(61)

CIRCLES.

July First.

HE eye is the first circle; the
horizon which it forms is the
second; and throughout nature
this primary picture is re
peated without end.

July Second.

Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that
around every circle another can be drawn.

July Third.

St. Augustine described the nature of God as a circle
whose center was everywhere and its circumference
nowhere.

July Fourth.

There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is
fluid and volatile. * * * Our Globe seen by God
is a transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law
dissolves the fact and holds it fluid.

July Fifth.

Men walk as prophecies of the next age.
(63)

CIRCLES.

July Sixth.

VERYTHING looks permanent
until its secret is known. A
rich estate appears to women
and children a firm and lasting
fact; to a merchant, one easily
created out of any materials,
and easily lost.

July Seventh.

The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from
a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides out
wards to new and larger circles and that without end.

July Eighth.

The extent to which this generation of circles, wheel
without wheel, will go, depends on the force or truth
of the individual soul.

July Ninth.

How often must we learn this lesson? Men cease
to interest us when we find their limitations.

July Tenth.

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on
this planet.

(64)

CIRCLES.

July Eleventh.

HERE is not a piece of science
but its flank may be turned to
morrow; there is not any liter
ary reputation * * * that
may not be revised and con
demned.

July Twelfth.

Good as is discourse, silence is better, and shames it.
The length of the discourse indicates the distance of
thought betwixt the speaker and the hearer.

July Thirteenth.

Every man is not so much a workman in the world
as he is a suggestion of that he should be.

July Fourteenth.

Valor consists in the power of self-recovery, so that
a man cannot have his flank turned, cannot be out-
generalled, but put him where you will, he stands.

July Fifteenth.

Thus there is no sleep, no pause, no preservation,
but all things renew, germinate and spring.

(65)

CIRCLES.

July Sixteenth.

HE key to every man is his
thoughts. Sturdy and defy
ing though he look, he has a
helm which he obeys, which
is the idea after which all his
facts are classified. He can
only be reformed by showing
him a new idea which com
mands his own.

July Seventeenth.

No truth so sublime but it may be trivial to-mor
row in the light of new thoughts.

July Eighteenth.

The only sin is limitation. As soon as you once
come up with a man's limitations, it is all over with
him.

July Nineteenth.

Life is a series of surprises. We do not guess to
day the mood, the pleasure, the power of to-morrow,
when we are building up our being.

July Twentieth.

No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure
it against a higher love.

(66)

CIRCLES.

July Twenty-first.

ONVERSATION is a game of
circles. In conversation we
pluck up the termini which
bound the common of silence
on every side.

July Twenty-second

, Nothing great was ever achieved without enthu
siasm.

July Twenty-third.

In nature every moment is new; the best is al
ways swallowed and forgotten; the coming only is
sacred.

July Twenty-fourth.

The sweet of nature is love ; yet if I have a friend I
am tormented by my imperfections. * * * If he
were high enough to slight me, then could I love him,
and rise by my affection to new heights.

July Twenty-fifth.

The great man is not convulsible. He is so much
that events pass over him without much impression.

(67)

CIRCLES.

July Twenty-sixth.

HE things which are dear to
men at this hour are so on ac
count of the ideas which have
emerged on their mental hori
zon, and which cause the pres
ent order of things, as a tree
bears its apples.

July Twenty-seventh.

The continual effort to raise himself above himself,
to •work a pitch above his last height, betrays itself in
a man's relations. We thirst for approbation, yet can
not forgive the approver.

July Twenty-eighth.

Infinitely alluring and attractive was he to you yes
terday, a great hope, a sea to swim in ; now, you have
found his shores, found it a pond, and you care not if
you never see it again.

July Twenty-ninth.

The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire
is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our pro
priety, to lose our sempiternal memory and to do
something without knowing how or why ; in short, to
draw a new circle.

(68)

CIRCLES.

July Thirtieth.

VERY personal consideration
that we allow costs us heav
enly state. We sell the
thrones of angels for a short
and turbulent pleasure.

July Thirty-first.

One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's
beauty another's ugliness ; one man's wisdom another's
folly; as one beholds the same objects from a higher
point of view.

THE OVER-SOUL

SELECTED GEMS FROM RALPH WALDO
EMERSON'S ESSAY "THE OVER-SOUL"

THE OVER-SOUL.

August First.

HE philosophy of six thousand
years has not searched the
chambers and magazines of
the soul. In its experiments
there has always remained, in
the last analysis, a residuum it
could not resolve.

August Second.

Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual.
Yet there is a depth in those brief moments which
constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to
all other experiences.

August Third.

I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a
higher origin for events than the will I call mine.

August Fourth.

Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Always
our being is descending into us from we know not
whence.

August Fifth.

There is a difference between one and another hour
of life in their authority and subsequent effect.

(73)

THE OVER-SOUL.

August Sixth.

HEN it (the soul) breathes
through his intellect, it is gen
ius; when it breathes through
his will, it is virtue; when it
flows through his affection, it
is love.

August Seventh.

How dear, how soothing to man arises the idea of
God, peopling the lonely place, effacing the scars of
our mistakes and disappointments!

August Eighth.

Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act
of the soul. * * * Ever it inspires awe and aston
ishment.

August Ninth.

The soul looketh steadily forwards, creating a world
always before her, leaving worlds always behind her.

August Tenth.

O, believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is
spoken over the round world, which thou oughtest to
hear, will vibrate on thine ear.

(74)

THE OVER-SOUL.

August Eleventh.

O the soul in her pure action all
the virtues are natural, and not
painfully acquired. Speak to
his heart, and the man becomes
suddenly virtuous.

August Twelfth.

A wise old proverb says, "God conies to see us
without bell."

August Thirteenth.

Those who are capable of humility, of justice, of
love, of aspiration, are already on a platform that com
mands the sciences and arts, speech and poetry, action
and grace.

August Fourteenth.

Before the great revelations of the soul, Time,
Space and Nature shrink away.

August Fifteenth.

She has no dates, nor rites, nor persons, nor special
ties, nor men. The soul knows only the soul; all else
is idle weeds for her wearing.

(75)

THE OVER-SOUL.

August Sixteenth.

HE weakness of the will begins
when the individual would be
some thing of himself. All
reform aims in some one par
ticular to let the great soul
have its way through us; in
other words, to engage us to
obey.

August Seventeenth.

The heart which abandons itself to the Supreme
Mind finds itself related to all its works, and will travel
a royal road to particular knowledges and powers.

August Eighteenth.

The most exact calculator has no prescience that
somewhat incalculable may not baulk the very next
moment.

August Nineteenth.

The whole intercourse of society, its trade, its re
ligion, its friendships, its quarrels, — is one wide judi
cial investigation of character.

August Twentieth.

That which we are, we shall teach, not voluntarily
but involuntarily.

(76)

THE OVER-SOUL.
August Twenty-first.

EAL so plainly with man and
woman as to constrain the ut
most sincerity and destroy all
hope of trifling with you. It
is the highest compliment you
can pay.

August Twenty-second.

More and more the surges of everlasting nature en
ter into me, and I become public and human in my
regards and actions.

August Twenty-third.

The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee.
August Twenty-fourth.

Some thoughts always find us young and keep us
so. Such a thought is the love of the universal and
eternal beauty.

August Twenty-fifth.

He that finds God a sweet enveloping thought to
him never counts his company. When I sit in that
presence who shall dare to come in?

(77)

THE OVER-SOUL.

August Twenty-sixth.

VERY friend whom not thy
fantastic will but the great and
tender heart in thee craveth,
shall lock thee in his embrace.
And this, because the heart in
thee is the heart of all.

August Twenty-seventh.

It is not in an arbitrary "decree of God," but in the
nature of man, that a veil shuts down on the facts of
to-morrow; * * * by this veil which curtains
events it instructs the children of men to live in to
day.

August Twenty-eighth.

The soul that ascendeth to worship the great God,
is plain and true; * * * does not want admira
tion ; dwells in the hour that now is, in the earnest ex
perience of the common day.

August Twenty-ninth.

The least activity of the intellectual powers redeems
us in a degree from the influence of time. In sickness,
in languor, give us a strain of poetry or a profound
sentence, and we are refreshed.

(78)

THE OVER-SOUL.

August Thirtieth.

HE action of the soul is oftener
in that which is felt and left
unsaid than in that which is
said in any conversation.

August Thirty-first.

We owe many valuable observations to people who
are not very acute or profound, and who say the thing
without effort which we want and have long been
hunting in vain.

(79)

CHARACTER

SELECTED GEMS FROM RALPH WALDO
EMERSON'S ESSAY "CHARACTER"

CHARACTER.

September First.

E cannot find the smallest part
of the personal weight of
Washington, in the narrative
of his exploits. * * * but
somewhat resided in these
men which begot an expecta
tion that outran all their per
formance.

September Second.

This is that which we call Character, — a reserved
force which acts directly by presence, and without
means.

September Third.

The purest literary talent appears at one time great,
at another time small, but character is of a stellar and
undiminishable greatness.

September Fourth.

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of
character.

September Fifth.

The reason why this or that man is fortunate, is not
to be told. It lies in the man ; that is all anybody can
tell you about it.

(83)

CHARACTER.

September Sixth.

IGHER natures overpower
lower ones by affecting with a
certain sleep. The faculties
are locked up and offer no re
sistance. Perhaps that is the
universal law.

September Seventh.

A healthy soul stands united with the Just and the
True, as the magnet arranges itself with the pole.
* * * he is thus the medium of the highest influ
ence to all who are not on the same level.

September Eighth.

Men of character are the conscience of the society
to which they belong.

September Ninth.

Truth is the summit of being: justice is the appli
cation of it to affairs.

September Tenth.

Our action should rest mathematically on our sub
stance. In nature, there are no false valuations.

(84)

CHARACTER.

September Eleventh.

HE covetousness * * * which
saddens me, when I ascribe it
to society, is my own. I am
always environed by myself.
On the other part, rectitude is
a perpetual victory, celebrated
* * * by serenity, which
is joy fixed or habitual.

September Twelfth.

Justice must prevail, and it is the privilege of truth
to make itself believed. Character is this moral order
seen through the medium of an individual.

September Thirteenth.

How often has the influence of a true master real
ized all the tales of magic ! A river of command seems
to run down from his eyes into all those who behold
him.

September Fourteenth.

Divine persons are character born, or, to borrow a
phrase from Napoleon, they are victory organized.

September Fifteenth.

Those who live to the future must always appear
selfish to those who live to the present.

(85)

CHARACTER.

September Sixteenth.

T is not enough that the intel
lect should see the evils, and
their remedy. We shall still
postpone our existence, nor
take the ground to which we
are entitled, whilst it is only
a thought and not a spirit that
incites us.

September Seventeenth.

New actions are the only apologies and explana
tions of old ones, which the noble can bear to offer
or receive.

September Eighteenth.

The history of those gods and saints which the
world has written, and then worshiped, are documents
of character.

September Nineteenth.

When the high cannot bring up the low to itself, it
benumbs it, as man charms down the resistance of the
lower animals. Men exert on each other a similar
occult power.

September Twentieth.

Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise,
and whenever the vein of thought reaches down into
the profound, there is no danger from vanity.

(86)

CHARACTER.
September Twenty-first.

HARACTER is nature in the
highest form. * * * This
masterpiece is best when no
hands but nature's have been
laid on it.

September Twenty-second.

If your friend has displeased you, you shall not sit
down to consider it, for he has already lost all memory
of the passage, and has doubled his power to serve
you, and, ere you can rise up again, will burden you
with blessings.

September Twenty-third.

Men should be intelligent and earnest. They must
also make us feel, that they have a controlling happy
future, opening before them, which sheds a splendor
on the passing hour.

September Twenty-fourth.

Character wants room; must not be crowded on by
persons, nor be judged from glimpses got in the press
of affairs, or on few occasions. It needs perspective,
as a great building.

(87)

CHARACTER.

September Twenty-fifth.

VERY trait which the artist re
corded in stone, he had s,een
in life, and better than his
copy. We have seen many
counterfeits, but we are born
believers in great men.

September Twenty-sixth.

I know nothing which life has to offer so satisfying
as the profound good understanding, which can sub
sist * * * between two virtuous men, each of
whom is sure of himself, and sure of his friend.

September Twenty-seventh.

When men shall meet as they ought, each a bene
factor, * * * clothed with thoughts, with deeds,
with accomplishments, it should be the festival of na
ture which all things announce.

September Twenty-eighth.

We have no pleasure in thinking of a benevolence
that is only measured by its works. Love is inex
haustible, and if its estate is wasted, its granary
emptied, still cheers and enriches.

(88)

CHARACTER.

September Twenty-ninth.

RIENDS also follow the laws of
divine necessity; they gravi
tate to each other, and cannot
otherwise : —

"When each the other shall

avoid

Shall each by each be most
enjoyed."

September Thirtieth.

We shall one day see that the most private is the
most public energy, that quality atones for quantity,
and grandeur of character acts in the dark, and suc
cors them who never saw it.

(89)

NATURE

SELECTED GEMS FROM RALPH WALDO
EMERSON'S ESSAY "NATURE"

(91)

NATURE.

October First.

HE rounded world is fair to see,
Nine times folded in mystery:
Though baffled seers cannot

impart
The secret of its laboring

heart,
Throb thine with Nature's

throbbing Breast,
And all is clear from East to

West."

October Second.

A man can only speak, so long as he does not feel his
speech to be partial and inadequate.

October Third.

It seems as if the day was not wholly profane, in
which we have given heed to some natural object.

October Fourth.

Nature cannot be surprised in undress. Beauty
breaks in everywhere.

October Fifth.

The difference between landscape and landscape is
small, but there is great difference in the beholders.

(93)

NATURE.

October Sixth.

ERE (at the gates of the forest)
we find nature to be the cir
cumstance which dwarfs every
other circumstance, and judges
like a god all men that come
to her.

October Seventh.

The day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad
hills and warm wide fields. To have lived through all
its sunny hours, seems longevity enough.

October Eighth.

No man is quite sane ; each has a vein of folly in his
composition.

October Ninth.

We aim above the mark, to hit the mark. Every act
hath some falsehood of exaggeration in it.

October Tenth.

The tempered light of the woods is like a perpetual
morning, and is stimulating and heroic. * * *
The incommunicable trees begin to persuade us to live
with them, and quit our life of solemn trifles.

(94)

NATURE.

October Eleventh.

E who knows the most, he who
knows what sweets and virtues
are in the ground, the water,
the plants, the heavens, and
how to come at these enchant
ments, is the rich and royal
man.

October Twelfth.

Only as far as the Masters of the world have called
in nature to their aid, can they reach the height of
magnificence.

October Thirteenth.

Nature is always consistent though she feigns to
contravene her own laws. She keeps her laws and
seems to transcend them.

October Fourteenth.

Every moment instructs, and every object: for wis
dom is infused into every form. * * * we did not
guess its essence until after a long time.

October Fifteenth.

The hunger for wealth, which reduces the planet to
a garden, fools the eager pursuer.

(95)

NATURE.

October Sixteenth.

(HE stars at night stoop down
over the brownest, homeliest
common, with all the spiritual
magnificence which they shed
on the Campagna, or on the
marble deserts of Egypt.

October Seventeenth.

The reflections of trees and flowers in glassy lakes,
the musical * * * south wind, * * * — these
are the music and pictures of the most ancient religion.

October Eighteenth.

We exaggerate the praises of local scenery. In
every landscape the point of astonishment is the meet
ing of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the
first hillock as well as from the Alleghanies.

October Nineteenth.

There are days which occur in this climate, at al
most any season of the year, wherein the world
reaches its perfection, when the air, the heavenly
bodies, and the earth, make a harmony, as if nature
would indulge her offspring.

(96)

NATURE.

October Twentieth.

HE discovery that wisdom has
other tongues and ministers
than we, that though we
should hold our peace, the
truth would not the less be
spoken, might check injuri
ously the flames of our zeal.

October Twenty-first.

The beauty of nature must always seem unreal and
mocking, until the landscape has human figures, that
are as good as itself.

October Twenty-second.

Nature is loved by what is best in us. It is loved
as the City of God, although, or rather because there
is no citizen. The sunset is unlike anything that is
underneath it: it wants men.

October Twenty-third.

It is an odd jealousy : but the poet finds himself not
near enough to his object. * * * What splendid
distance, what recesses of ineffable pomp and loveli
ness in the sunset! But who can go where they are
or lay his hand or plant his foot thereon?

(97)

NATURE.

October Twenty-fourth.

ATURE is the incarnation of a
thought, and turns to a
thought again, as ice becomes

water and gas.
October Twenty-fifth.

"Spirit that lurks each form within
Beckons to spirit of its kin;
Self-kindled every atom glows,
And hints the future which it owes."

October Twenty-sixth.

No man can write anything, who does not think that
what he writes is for the time the history of the world ;
or do anything well who does not esteem his work to
be of importance.

October Twenty-seventh.

After every foolish day we sleep off the fumes and
furies of its hours ; and though we are always engaged
with particulars, and often enslaved to them, we bring
with us to every experiment the innate universal laws.

(98)

NATURE.

October Twenty-eighth.

HE moral sensibility which
makes Edens and Tempes so
easily, may not be always
found, but the material land
scape is never far off. We can
find these enchantments with
out visiting Como Lake or the
Madeira Islands.

October Twenty-ninth.

We live in a system of approximations. Every end
is prospective of some other end, which is also tempo
rary, a round and final success no where.

October Thirtieth.

We are escorted on every hand through life by
spiritual agents, and a beneficent purpose lies in wait
for us.

October Thirty-first.

To the intelligent, nature converts itself into a vast
promise, and will not be rashly explained. Her secret
is untold.

(99)

NOMINALIST*™ REALIST

SELECTED GEMS FROM
RALPH WALDO EMERSON'S
ESSAY "NOMINALIST AND REALIST"

(101)

NOMINALIST AND REALIST.
November First.

E have such exorbitant eyes that
on seeing the smallest arc we
complete the curve, and when
the curtain is lifted * * *
we are vexed to find that no
more was drawn, than just
that fragment of arc which we
first beheld.

November Second.

Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily
find, but symmetrical men never.

November Third.

All persons exist to society by some shining trait
of beauty or utility, which they have.

November Fourth.

A personal influence is an IGNIS FATUUS. * * *
the Will-o'-the-wisp vanishes if you go too near, van
ishes if you go too far, and only blazes at one angle.

November Fifth.

Beautiful details we must have, or no artist: but
they must be means and never other. The eye must
not lose sight for a moment of the purpose.

(103)

NOMINALIST AND REALIST.
November Sixth.

T is bad enough, that our
geniuses cannot do anything
useful, but it is worse that no
man is fit for society who has
fine traits. He is admired at
a distance, but he cannot come
near without appearing a
cripple.

November Seventh.

All our poets, heroes, and saints fail utterly in some
one or in many parts to satisfy our idea, fail to draw
out spontaneous interest, and so leave us without any
hope of realization but in our own future.

November Eighth.

Our proclivity to details cannot quite degrade our
life, and divest it of poetry.

November Ninth.

There is nothing we cherish and strive to draw to
us, but in some hour we turn and rend it.

November Tenth.

Proportion is almost impossible to human beings.
There is no one who does not exaggerate.

(104)

NOMINALIST AND REALIST.
November Eleventh.

ENCE the immense benefit of
party in politics, as it reveals
faults of character in a chief,
which the intellectual force of
the person, with ordinary op
portunity and not hurled into
aphelion by hatred, could not
have been seen.

November Twelfth.

Lively boys write to their ear and eye, and the cool
reader finds nothing but sweet jingles in it. When
they grow older they respect the argument.

November Thirteenth.

Wherever you go a wit like your own has been be
fore you, and has realized its thought.

November Fourteenth.

Nature keeps herself whole, and her representation
complete in the experience of each mind. She suffers
no seat to be vacant in her college.

November Fifteenth.

All things show us, that on every side we are very
near to the best.

(105)

NOMINALIST AND REALIST.

November Sixteenth.

OR, rightly, every man is
a channel through which
heaven floweth, and, whilst I
fancied I was criticising him,
I was censuring or rather ter
minating my own soul.

November Seventeenth.

The rotation which whirls every leaf and pebble to
the meridian, reaches to every gift of man, and we all
take turns at the top.

November Eighteenth.

As long as any man exists there is some need of
him; let him fight for his own.

November Nineteenth.

Our affections and our experience urge that every
individual is entitled to honor, and a very generous
treatment is sure to be repaid.

November Twentieth.

What is best in each kind is an index of what should
be the average of that thing.

(106)

NOMINALIST AND REALIST.
November Twenty-first.

T is commonly said by farmers,
that a good pear or apple costs
no more time or pains to rear
than a poor one; so I would
have no work of art, no speech,
or action, or thought, or
friend, but the best.

November Twenty-second.

The men of fine parts protect themselves by solitude
or by courtesy; or by satire or by an acid worldly
manner, each concealing as he best can, his incapacity
for useful association, but they want either love or self-
reliance.

November Twenty-third.

How sincere and confidential we can be, saying all
that lies in the mind, and yet go away feeling that
all is yet unsaid, from the incapacity of the parties to
know each other, although they use the same
words !

November Twenty-fourth.

If you criticise a fine genius the odds are that you
are out of your reckoning, and, instead of the poet, are
censuring your own caricature of him.

(107)

NOMINALIST AND REALIST.

November Twenty-fifth.

JF we were not of all opinions ! if
we did not in any moment
shift the platform on which we
stand, and look and speak from
another !

November Twenty-sixth.

Each man's genius being nearly and affectionately
explored, he is justified in his individuality, as his na
ture is found to be immense.

November Twenty-seventh.

It is the secret of the world that all things subsist,
and do not die, but only retire a little from sight, and
afterwards return again.

November Twenty-eighth.

The reason of idleness and of crime is the deferring
of our hopes. Whilst we are waiting we beguile the
time with jokes, with sleep, with eating and with
crimes.

(108)

NOMINALIST AND REALIST.

November Twenty-ninth.

E fancy men are individuals; so
are pumpkins; but every
pumpkin in the Held goes
through every point of pump
kin history.

November Thirtieth.

It is all idle talking; as much as a man is a whole,
so is he also a part ; and it were partial not to see it.

I ioo)

I NTELLECT

SELECTED GEMS FROM RALPH WALDO
EMERSON'S ESSAY "INTELLECT"

(in)

INTELLECT.

December First.

ATER dissolves wood and iron
and salt; air dissolves water;
electric fire dissolves air, but
the intellect dissolves fire,
gravity, laws, method and the
subtlest unnamed relations on
nature in its resistless men
struum.

December Second.

Intellect lies behind genius, which is intellect con
structive.

December Third.

Gladly would I unfold in calm degrees a natural
history of the intellect, but what man has yet been
able to mark the steps and boundaries of that trans
parent essence?

December Fourth.

Intellect is void of affection, and sees an object as
it stands in the light of science, cool and disengaged.

December Fifth.

A truth, separated by the intellect, is no longer a
subject of destiny. We behold it as a god upraised
above care and fear.

(113)

INTELLECT.

December Sixth.

VERY man beholds his human
condition with a degree of
melancholy. As a ship aground
is battered by the waves, so
man, imprisoned in mortal
life, lies open to the mercy of
coming events.

December Seventh.

Nature shows all things formed and bound. The
intellect pierces the form, overleaps the wall, detects
intrinsic likeness between remote things and reduces
all things into a few principles.

December Eighth.

The making a fact the subject of thought raises it.
December Ninth.

What is addressed to us for contemplation does not
threaten us but makes us intellectual beings.

December Tenth.

All our progress is an unfolding like the vegetable
bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then
a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud and fruit.

("4)

INTELLECT.

December Eleventh.

ONG prior to the age of reflec
tion is the thinking of the
mind. Out of darkness it came
insensibly into the marvelous
light of to-day.

December Twelfth.

And so any fact in our life, * * * disentangled
from the web of our unconsciousness, becomes an ob
ject impersonal and immortal. It is the past re
stored, but embalmed.

December Thirteenth.
We have little control over our thoughts.
December Fourteenth.

In the fog of good and evil affections it is hard for
man to walk forward in a straight line.

December Fifteenth.

The walls of rude minds are scrawled all over with
facts, with thoughts. They shall one day bring a lan
tern and read the inscriptions.

(us)

INTELLECT.

December Sixteenth.

E are the prisoners of ideas.
They catch us up for moments
into their heaven and so fully
engage us that we take no
thought for the morrow.

December Seventeenth.

In the most worn, pedantic, introverted self-tor
mentor's life, the greatest part is incalculable by him,
unforeseen, unimaginable, and must be, until he can
take himself up by his own ears.

December Eighteenth.

God enters by a private door into every individual.
December Nineteenth.

If we consider what persons have stimulated and
profited us, we shall perceive the superiority of the
spontaneous or intuitive principle over the arith
metical or logical.

December Twentieth.

What is the hardest task in the world? To think,
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INTELLECT.

December Twenty-first.

RUST the instinct to the end,
though you can render no rea
son. It is vain to hurry it.
By trusting it to the end, it
shall ripen into truth and you
shall know why you believe.

December Twenty-second.

Each mind has its own method. A true man never
acquires after college rules. What you have aggre
gated in a natural manner surprises and delights when
it is produced.

December Twenty-third.

The considerations of time and place, of you and
me, of profit and hurt, tyrannize over most men's
minds. Intellect separates the fact considered, from
you, from all local and personal reference, and dis
cerns it as if it existed for its own sake.

December Twenty-fourth.

The constructive intellect produces thoughts, sen
tences, poems, plans, designs, systems. It is the gen
eration of the mind, the marriage of thought with na
ture.

("7)

INTELLECT.

December Twenty-fifth.

ESUS says, Leave father, mother,
house and lands, and follow
Me. Who leaves all, receives
more. This is as true intel
lectually as morally.

December Twenty-sixth.

Our spontaneous action is always the best. You
cannot with your best deliberation and heed come so
close to any question as your spontaneous glance will
bring you whilst you rise from your bed, * * *
after meditating the matter before sleep on the previ
ous night.

December Twenty-seventh.

Not by any conscious imitation of particular forms
are the grand strokes of the painter executed, but by
repairing to the fountain-head of all forms in his mind.

December Twenty-eighth.

If the constructive powers are rare and it is given
to few men to be poets, yet every man is a receiver of
this descending holy ghost, and may well study the
laws of its influx.

("8)

INTELLECT.
December Twenty-ninth.

OD offers to every mind its
choice between truth and re
pose. Take which you please,

— you can never have both.
December Thirtieth.

He in whom the love of repose predominates will
accept the first creed, the first philosophy. * * *
He gets rest, commodity and reputation ; but he shuts
the door of truth.

December Thirty-first.

The ancient sentence said, Let us be silent, for so are
the gods. Silence is a solvent that destroys person
ality, and gives us leave to be great and universal.

(U9)

HERE ENDS "THROUGH THE
YEAR WITH EMERSON" AS
COMPILED BY EDITH
E. WOOD AND PUB
LISHED BY DODGE
PUBLISHING
COMPANY
N. Y.

(121)

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