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JOURNALS
OF
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
1820–1872
VOL. III


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کر
اسی سره - ?






TYTO adi
Ezra Ripley
Ser is of Cor Lodge Sept 31 1842








JOURNALS
OF
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
WITH ANNOTATIONS
EDITED BY
EDWARD WALDO EMERSON
AND
WALDO EMERSON FORBES
1833-1835

€
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Che Riverside Press Cambridge
1910


AL)?:11,02:17:)
NOV TS 1010
Bright fund
II,IV)
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY EDWARD WALDO EMERSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published November 1910


CONTENTS
VOYAGE TO EUROPE
RETURN
JOURNAL XXIV
1833
(From Pocket Note-book)
The Brig Jasper; American seamen. Berth meditations.
The hospitable universe. Wind and calm. Passen-
o
ch
gers' nautical glory. Goldoni. Royal Æolus. Verses.
Varece
The passenger-species. Sailors; Columbus. Stars.
Azores. Be yourself. Memory. Old Europe. The
mate. English vessels. Always hope. Captain and
scholar. Inward music. The Straits. Capable men.
Quarantine at Malta. (Self-testing. St. John's at Va-
letta. The English chapel. Missionary press. Ball
at the Governor's. Dr. Davy. Embarks for Sicily.
Absurd crew. Syracuse; its sights. Mule-ride to Ca-
tania; its churches and museums. The opera. Ride
to Messina; kindly companions. Taormina. Sails to
Palermo; sights there. Thoughts on the opera .. 3-61
Naples. Be not overawed by new surroundings. Thank
your safeguards. Verses. The Museum; “ The counte-
nances of the first-born.” Virgil's tomb. The worth-
less people. Avernus. By stage to Rome. Verses.
First wanderings. The Vatican galleries. The Trans-
figuration. Churches. Thorwaldsen. The Pope blesses


CONTENTS
the palms. The Sistine Chapel. Artists' studios.
The Miserere twice heard. St. Peter's; Moonlight walk
with Cranch and Alexander. The Jew baptized.
Easter mass in St. Peter's. Walk with American
artists. The Vatican splendors. Churches, pictures,
gardens. Street singers and caffès. Expedition to
Tivoli and Villa d'Este. Capitoline; “The Gladi-
ator” and Byron. Taking the veil. The Moses of
Michel Angelo. Letter to Miss Mary Emerson; dis-
appointment in art and splendor; longing for persons,
for a teacher. The fault in one's self. The gift of
Rome . . . . . . . . . . . 61-103
Journey northward by vettura ; companions. Umbrian
towns. Tuscany. Lake Thrasimenus. Florence; Du-
omo; Santa Croce, homage to Galileo and Michel
Angelo. The Uffizzi, the Marble Lady. Byron's
rooms. Evening ramble. Death of Ellen's mother.
Jerome Bonaparte. Galleries. Amici and his micro-
scopes. Opera, prima donna and ballet. Unking one's
self to see. The Misericordia. Dante's seat. Landor
at his Villa. Ascension. Landor's pictures; talk with
him. Natural History Museum. Santa Croce again.
Erminia the flower-girl. Opera Ivanhoe. Italian su-
perlatives. Twilight and morning walks. I Promessi
Sposi. San Zenobio. Santa Croce yet again. Hold
your own opinion. Obligations to society. Leaving
Florence. Statue of Father Apennine. Bologna. Fer-
rara; Tasso, Ariosto, Byron, Jews. Valley of the Po.
Petrarch's house and comb. Padua. Venice. Mood
of humiliation. Venetian pictures, churches; Canova.
The palace and arsenal. Disappointment. Vicenza;


CONTENTS
vii
Verona; Brescia, the people. Milan, the cathedral
and sights, good houses. Thoughts on architecture
as imitation . . . . . . . . 104-146
The Diligence for Paris; pleasant companions. Domo
d'Ossola. The Simplon; Napoleon. A taste of Swit-
zerland, Vevay, Lausanne, Gibbon's house, Geneva.
Ferney and Voltaire under protest. Introduction to
scholars and clergy. France. Entrance to Paris. Henri
Quatre with tricolor. Hotel Montmorenci. Paris
seems too modern. A cousin. The Sorbonne. The
Louvre, Leonardo. Street sights. Out of place in
Paris. Fourth of July dinner. External life; reflec-
tions; call to teach religion, not of tradition, but of
the soul. St. Charles Borromeo. Don't be morbid.
Visit to Jardin des Plantes, its riches; reflections;
strange sympathies arise;"Striving to be man.” Jussieu.
Père la Chaise; grave of the lover of Montaigne.
Attractions and privileges of Paris Opera; Théâtre
Français, Madame Mars. Abbé Chatel; Eglise Catho-
lique Française. Frascati's. Biot, Arago, Gay Lus-
sac, Jouffroy. Sails from Boulogne . . . . 146-171
England. Landing in London. Reflections on Italy.
Westminster. Anecdote of Wordsworth. Matlock.
Kenilworth. English flowers. Scotland. Trip to the
Highlands; adventures in long, cold storm; lost bag-
gage. Glasgow. Visit to Carlyle at Ecclefechan;
his talk on persons and books; measure of his loyalty.
Mrs. Carlyle tells of Goethe. Visit to Wordsworth;
he repeats his verses; speaks of Dr. Channing. Lan-
caster to Manchester; first experience on railway.
Meeting with Jacob Perkins. Liverpool. Thankful


viji
CONTENTS
review of closing journey. Limitations of great men;
their value. Preaching of Martineau, Yates and
Hinckes. Reports about Wordsworth and Carlyle.
Delayed sailing. Thoughts about Carlyle. Visit to
new railway; Mr. Perkins on American and English
locomotives, and on steamships. Notes for Nature.
Sailing from Liverpool. The Golden Mean; resources
in danger. Likes his new book, Nature. Astronomy.
Want of religion in English great men. Calvinism's
strength, and weak Unitarianism; both observe the little,
neglecting the great; attempt to state it. Ship life.
The mails. Europe comes to us in books. Storm.
Captain Fox's clipper voyage. Sunday at sea. Be your-
self. Verses on the travelling American. Define Morals,
the great harmony, the angel from childhood up.
Immortality felt, not shown. Virtue purges the eye.
Ties of great men. Quietude. Verses, God's message.
Wild weather; remembrance of voyage with Achille
Murat. The steerage. Letter in verse to Edward.
Ben Jonson. The Banks. Praise of ship .. 171-219
(From Journal Q). Landing in New York. Thanks on
return. Sunday with mother at Newton. Sermon by
one of God's police. Respect men. Go alone to listen;
the woods, True love for Jesus; the advance in truth.
Teachers must study man, not text. Coming illumi-
nations of science; Emblems. Nature's Appeal. Stubler
the Quaker. Lessons for the wise all around. Quaker
conversation.
(From Note-book). Cheyne Row. Sifted character.
Cambridge jail. Wise moments; suicide. The family
of Fero.


CONTENTS
(From Journal A). Room in Boston. Follow your call-
ing. Good hope. The grandfather's word. The moral
wedge. The first philosophy. Reason is the divine
essence. « Practical” men yet sleep, and often schol-
ars. Life spellbound. TO FIND THE Sun. Reading 219–240
JOURNAL XXV
1834
(From Journal A)
Treasure everywhere for scholar. Good judgment. The
Standard Man. The Will. Chaste to the chaste.
Goethe's vanity. Michel Angelo; such men strengthen
ideals. Corinne. Plymouth Rock. Webster's oratory.
Evil times also do good. Owning property; position
and will. Preaching at New Bedford. Memories of
Ellen. Miss Rotch's religion of no choice ; her ex-
perience ; agreement with Socrates, Shakspear, Fichte.
Stories of the whalers. Live where you are understood.
A new Sabbath. Not alone in solitude. Real influence
from stars. Plymouth; ocean, people, flowers. Quaker
meetings. Emerson's Swedenborgianism. Self-re-
liance; advice, pledges. Friends' aid. Saving instincts.
Truth demands your defence. Ruth Emerson. Spring
day at Mount Auburn. Montaigne's rules of rhetoric.
We postpone our greatness. Abide your time. Feed-
ing with husks; then the strain of melody. Clear re-
lation to God. Fatal machinery of society. Beware of
disciples. The soul without God. Light always on
your path. All works for God. Birds, shells, flowers.
The Methodists. A day's gifts and demands. The
glorious post of duty. Books convert action to thought.


CONTENTS
Nature's simple steps. Boy and alphabet. Limits.
Crises. Shakspear's sonnets. Units and laws. Teach-
ing of the wave; parties. The hidden idea. Not yet
the true classification. Face the question. Turn to
Nature. Each and All. Trust instinct. Works find
their level. Languages. The Berkshire dream. Wo-
man. Preaching at Waltham. Counterworkings. An-
tagonisms. The singing bird and the talker. Tides of
the soul. Devils of solitude. The railway ride. Visits
the animals, but not to preach. The schoolmaster.
Dilettantism may teach. The unpoetic West; Web-
ster . . . . . . . . . . . . 240–308
X Wilhelm Meister ; Goethe another poor monad. Lafay-
ette's death. High reason, low understanding. Fine
women ; elegance of kindness. Goethe and morals;
affects the God; self-culture. Carlyle. Our disguised
protectors. Lincoln bell. Sabbath. Languages. Beast
lingers in man. The scholar in company. Tone in
documents of Revolution. The hero. The divine in
all. Society always, but best men alone. The ordina-
tion. Renunciation; first thoughts. Dying Calvinism.
Misplaced worship. Seniority. The God in man.
The child. Artificial life, yet greatness always there ;
the turning wheel of life. Marry Natural History to
Life. Shakspear and Scott. Freedom or ruts? The
wisdom of ignorance; Milton, Wordsworth, Scott,
Coleridge, Homer, Shakspear — mouthpieces of the
mind of man. Reason of need of worship, temples,
churches; it may cease. Pasteboard religion. The
coming preachers. Shun hypocrisy. Write your
thought, not the tune of the time. The $ B K poem.


CONTENTS
xi
Great men considerate and humble, Failures make suc-
cess. Dreams. Courage in daily act. Speak your best
thought. Respect your taste and thought; single-
minded action. Rev. George Blagden's preaching.
Italy; Boswellism of travel; use your eyes at home.
The forming philosopher. Powers of intellect. A
September afternoon. Look straight forward. Proteus.
Harmony of will. Unconscious strength. The ser-
mon on Habit. Edward's death; his deliverance. Evil
days cry for cure. The seeming real; ideal truth.
True education coming. Party tactics; thoughtless
votes. Even sins may help. The halo of an idea.
Old war-cries pass. Fears transient. Luther quoted. Y
Broadway a symbol. Men bipolar. Humboldt. Each
age has new crisis. Euler. Whigs and Tories; un-
derlying merits; the elections. Symbols. Recoils in
politics. Mr. Maxwell's speech. Power danger-
ous . . . . . . . . . . . 309–360
Greeting to Concord as home; new resolves. Respect
God in man. The portrait of man. Descent of
thought. Dr. Ripley. History's lessons; small issues
appear. Spare preliminaries. Retiring instinct. Com-
fort in God. Democracy's root. Institutions clothe
themselves. English elegies. Money matters. The
star-shower of 1834. Universal beauty; Each and
All. Immortality at hand. Eclipse. Teaching sincer-
ity. Talent and character. Alexander Everett and
James Savage. Verses, “Compensation.” Puberty.
Sects. Luther. Woods. Devout freedom. Commerce
makes love. The niedrig tone. Heredity, its moral.
Avoid affection's superlatives. Truth will wear. Aunt -
:
he porerne new resoja


xii
CONTENTS
Mary on prayer. Human gifts. Sympathy with others'
gifts. Choice, not pledges. The early philosophers.
Demosthenes. Biographies for lectures. Thought must
supplement common sense. Men must use their light.
A new language. Dr. Ripley's utterances. Thoughts
in winter ride. Schleiermacher. Generous feelings.
Reason perfect. Offensive lecture. Writing an art.
Yearning idealism. The ways of arts common. Spir-
itual religion self-evident; Calvinism. Chains. Michel
Angelo, his Sonnet VII. The finished man. True
life makes every spot a centre. Arts harmonious. Wait-
ing. Serve friends by what you are. Democracy's
seamy side; monarchs and courts. Mis-estimates among
men. Scholars are watchers. Optical deceptions. The
Aunt. The Lyceum. Spiritual riches. Equality of
great men. Man through the ages. Writings endure.
Sacrificing truth. Thread uniting mythologies. Per-
sons. Jesus. Light. Man implies the State. Shakspear,
Bacon, Milton. Poetry. Christianity. Benevolence.
Each man's idea. Expression. Sunset. Our debt to
+ Greece. Beware tradition; living sermons. At the
Manse. The winter storm; resolves; spiritual laws.
* “ Mere Morality.” Unitarian, Orthodox, Quaker.
Virtue's elegance. Reading . . . . . . 360-429
JOURNAL XXVI
1835
(From Journal B)
Joy in Concord. A Swedenborgian sermon; Father Tay-
lor's sermon. Religious enthusiasts alike find God
within. Influence of Jesus. Dead gods and God


CONTENTS
xiii
here. Trust the Spirit. Prometheus. The æillade ; a
tragedy. Delicious memory. The manifold soul.
Each can help all. Unspoken conversation's value.
Biography a spiritual help. Ringing music from the
past. Disguised gods. Thoughts. Chaplain William
Emerson. Courtesy. Plymouth. John Marshall.
Casting composition. Lydia Jackson. Christianity and X
slavery. French Revolution. Milton, Burns, Bryant.
Edward's “ Farewell.” Sea-skies. Sense under poetry.
Winckelmann defines beauty. Enchanting Nature. Tay.
lor's Van Artevelde ; Shakspear. Sacrifice, bereavement,
joyful trust. Landor on argument. Webster. Boccaccio.
Illuminating Reason, Common conversation. Men of
business without far aims. Sects feed on one another.
Discussion distrusted. Delight. Study and drifting.
A calendar of Nature. Saturn. Await your call.
Man an assembly. Dreams. The Room-mate. Man
upright. Village music. Idea of God changes, truth
stable. Principles hidden in base politics. Quotation
belps conviction. Nature's language. Men explained.
Idealize bravely. Secret doctrines. A court house
shows man. Merits of Abolition cause. Carlyle. Duty
is plain. Richter. Magic mantle. Goethe. Genius is
true seeing. Hard times; which are they? Preacher's
opportunity. Greatness not cheaply won. Orientation.
True men. Advance necessary to soul. Mind must
have material; composition everywhere. Sincere faith
suspected. Rich matter for coming Essays. An epi-
sode in Sicily. Speak to young America. Miracle of
letter. The farmer and locomotive. Curiosity in botany.
Herrick. Poems · · · · · · · 430-483


xiv
CONTENTS
The candid observer. Superlatives. Real and apparent
good speaking. Torpor and lapses of the mind. Ideal-
ism. Doctrine of Compensation. Be, not seem. All-
ston. Truth, or appearance. Heaven the world of
Reason. Cudworth. The great laws of the First Phi-
losophy. Books are blessings. Self-education. Questions
for Homer. Language of thought. The good of pub-
lishing. Poetry precedes prose. Witty speech. Public
speaking. George Fox. Those silent revolutions in
England. The English gentleman. Universal language.
Discomfort shakes idealism. Humility. Good society,
four views. God a seed. Historical discourse at Con-
cord; introduction. Hours of Reason immortal. Nor-
ris's Ideal World; St. Augustine. Locke. Alcott.
Languishing arts. Doom of solitude. Starved at Divinity
Șchool. Man needs a shrine. Quotation. Elastic wit of
man. Clean mind necessary. Oegger's True Messiah.
Books and memory. Veterans' stories of Concord
Fight. English writers individual. Excellence in writ-
ing holds good. English view of our democracy. Al-
cott's Record of a School. Force of parables. Our
multiple lives. Child civilizes the father. Quotations
from Oegger. Humility is a time-saver. History, the
maker and chronicler. Principles open eyes. Everett
and slavery. God cannot be described. Jesus not
W final. Books of the future. Ideas or facts ? Reading.
Y Duties done. Samuel J. May. Virtue sure of its due.
Happy eyes and tongue. Abolition grows strong. Two
sincere men. John Barbour's Bruce. History of hu-
man wit. System-grinders; advancing teachers . 484-524
Jacob Behme; his Aurora. Sphinx. Fancy and imagi-


CONTENTS
ху
nation. God hides in light. Sober age; Samuel Hoar.
Journal keeping. Symbols help; instances. À Kempis,
Aristotle, Plato. Language of Nature. Jests; sen- x
tences. Letter to Miss Peabody on Swedenborg;
disproportioned minds ; premature theories. Jesus
beautiful but incomplete. The strong old poets.
Thought families. Wordsworth; “Ode to Duty.”
Dreams and animals. Thinkers are reporters. Thad-
deus Blood's memories of April, 1775. Wordsworth's
limitations. True and faint love. Books, perusal or
chance readings. Your own surroundings. Rainy-
day treats. The mind's far focus. Dunbar of Saltoun.
Visual power of man of science. Robert Wyer, on
women. Praise of Montaigne. Scott's line. Reason's
eye. Purchase of the Coolidge house in Concord;
description of place. Immortality will be proved from
intellect; Coleridge. Visit to Harriet Martineau; con-
temporary English writers. Harvard College. Patriot- ka
ism a duty? Father Taylor at battle-ground. Marriage
to Lydia Jackson. Plutarch’s “. Apophthegms,” “Tam-
lane.” Wise poetry. “ King Laurin.” Bead-eyes.
Each must arrange his own knowledge. Visit of Samuel
J. May and George Thompson. Culture. Charles on
Christianity and the English Church. Thompson.
Minister must be simple in manners; decorum now
in demand; prune the sermon bravely; trust your
genius in writing, and yourself observe the great laws.
What is a book to different men ? History's jewels
are anecdotes; facts rank themselves; idealizing. Janus
reputations. English blank verse. English childish in
Middle Ages. Be the channel of law. Literature of


xvi
CONTENTS
a country. The strong country preacher. Tantalus-
life. Charles on Carlyle. God's private door. Per-
suasion. Science kills legend. Luther's pious spite.
Hearing and speaking. Alcott's visit. Spiritual words;
X security in Wordsworth. What oaths mean. Conjunc-
tion of stars; inspiration. Wordsworth’s platitudes.
Persecution. Our wild ancestry. Trifles eat the hours.
Mobs. Scholar's assurance of eternity. Halo of the
past. Rev. Hersey Goodwin's sermon. Witness of
the eye. The preacher must be universal. Ideas as
walls. Edward; epigrammatic answers. Webster.
Oriental man. Republican courtesy. Sharon Turner's
systematizing. Burke. Plutarch. Spiritual man sees
identity. Antigone. Ellen. The ancient poets held
sacred. Walk and talk with Charles. High Church.
Alcott, Hedge, Bradford. Carlyle. Letter to Henry
Ware on abolition of War. Reading . . . 524-575


ILLUSTRATIONS
'Ezra Ripley, D.D. (Photogravure) . . . Frontispiece
From a silhouette, 1841; in the possession of Mrs.
James B. Thayer.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 346
EDWARD Bliss EMERSON .
From a silhouette, 1827.
THE OLD MANSE . . . . . . . . . . 360
Built by Rev. William Emerson in 1769; later the
bome of Rev. Ezra Ripley.
Concord BATTLEGROUND. ....508
After the drawing by F. H. Lane in 1837.
The Emerson Home . . . . . . . . . . 540
After the drawing by W. R. Miller in 1852.





JOURNAL
VOYAGE TO EUROPE.
CITIES AND MEN. RETURN





JOURNAL XXIV
1833
(From Pocket Note-books and Q)
At Sea. January 2, 1833.
Sailed from Boston for Malta, December 25,
1832, in Brig Jasper, Captain Ellis, 236 tons,
laden with logwood, mahogany, tobacco, sugar,
coffee, beeswax, cheese, etc. A long storm from
the second morn of our departure consigned all
the five passengers to the irremedial chagrins of
the stateroom, to wit, nausea, darkness, unrest,
uncleanness, harpy appetite and harpy feeding,
the ugly “sound of water in mine ears,” antici-
pations of going to the bottom, and the treasures
of the memory. I remembered up nearly the
whole of Lycidas, clause by clause, here a verse
and there a word, as Isis in the fable the broken
body of Osiris.
Out occasionally crawled we from our several
holes, but hope and fair weather would not; so
there was nothing for it but to wriggle again into
the crooks of the transom. Then it seemed
strange that the first man who came to sea did not


JOURNAL
[AGE 29
turn round and go straight back again. Strange
that because one of my neighbours had some
trumpery logs and notions which would sell for
a few cents more here than there, he should thrust
forth this company of his poor countrymen to
the tender mercies of the northwest wind.
We study the sailor, the man of his hands, man
of all work; all eye, all finger, muscle, skill and
endurance: a tailor, a carpenter, cooper, steve-
dore and clerk, and astronomer besides. He is a
great saver, and a great quiddle, by the necessity
of his situation.
The Captain believes in the superiority of the
American to every other countryman. “You will
see,” he says, “when you get out here how they
manage in Europe; they do everything by main
strength and ignorance. Four truckmen and four
stevedores at Long Wharf will load my brig
quicker than a hundred men at any port in the
Mediterranean.” It seems the Sicilians have tried
once or twice to bring their fruit to America in
their own bottoms, and made the passage, he says,
in one hundred and twenty days.
P. M.
A crop of meditations in the berth. Thought
again of the sailor, and how superficial the dif-
ferences. How shallow to make much of mere


18331 THOUGHTS AT SEA
coat and hat distinctions. You can't get away from
the radical, uniform, interior experiences which
peep out of the new faces, identical with those of
the old. New tongues repeat the old proverbs,
primeval truths. The thought occurred, full of
consolation, that if he would deal towards him-
self with severest truth, man must acknowledge
the Deity. So far from being a conventional idea,
built on reason of State, it is in strict soliloquy,
in absolute solitude when the soul makes itself
a hermit in the creation, that this thought nat-
urally arises. This unavoidable acknowledgment
of God, this valid prayer, puts the soul in equi-
librium. In this state the question whether your
boat shall float in safety or go to the bottom is
no more important than the flight of a snow-flake.
January 3.
I rose at sunrise, and under the lee of the
spencer-sheet had a solitary, thoughtful hour.
All right thought is devout.
The clouds were touched
And in their silent faces might be read
Unutterable love.
ere
They shone with light that shines on Europe,
Afric, and the Nile, and I opened my spirit's


JOURNAL
[AGE 29
CI
ear to their most ancient hymn. What, they said
to me, goest thou so far to seek — painted can-
vas, carved marble, renowned towns ? But fresh
from us, new evermore, is the creative efflux from
whence these works spring. You now feel in gaz-
ing at our fleecy arch of light the motions that
express themselves in arts. You get no nearer to
the principle in Europe. It animates man. It is
the America of America. It spans the ocean like
a hand-breadth. It smiles at Time and Space.
Yet welcome, young man ! The Universe is hos-
pitable. The Great God, who is Love, hath made
you aware of the forms and breeding of his wide
house. We greet you well to the Place of His-
tory, as you please to style it, to the mighty Lilli-
put or ant-hill of your genealogy, if, instructed
as you have been, you must still be the dupe of
shows, and count it much, the three or four bub-
bles of foam that preceded your own on the
Sea of Time. This strug-winged sea-gull and
striped sheer-water +l; ..;pave watched as they
skimmed the war... . » vault, they are
works of art bei“ ? " p rivhusiasm, mas-
i terpieces of Eterr..! 27 ) ' eternal be-
cause now active, and yarations so far to
seek what ye would not sekat.'is in ore not
within you. Yet welcome and his Song in


1833) WIND AND CALM 7
my ear the silver-grey mists, and the winds and
the sea said Amen.
Thursday, January 3. N. lat. 37° 53.
Dr. Johnson rightly defends conversation
upon the weather. With more reason we at sea
beat that topic thin. We are pensioners of the
wind. The weathercock is the wisest man. All
our prosperity, enterprise, temper, come and go
with the fickle air. If the wind should forget to
blow, we must eat our masts. Sea-farmers must
make hay when the sun shines. The gale collects
plenty of work for the calm. Now are we all await-
ing a smoother sea to stand at our toilette. A
head wind makes grinning Esaus of us. Happy
that there is a time for all things under the moon,
so that no man need give a dinner-party in a brig's
cabin, nor shave himself by the gulf lightning.
CS
Saturday evening, January 5.
I like the latitude of 37° better than my bitter
native 42°. We have sauntered all this calm day
at one or two knots the hour, and nobody on
board well pleased but I, and why should I be
pleased ? I have nothing to record. I have read
little. I have done nothing. What then? Need
we be such barren scoundrels that the whole


JOURNAL
[AGE 29
beauty of heaven, the main, and man, cannot en-
tertain us unless we too must needs hold a candle
and daub God's world with a smutch of our own
insignificance. Not I, for one. I will be pleased,
though I do not deserve it. I will act in all up
to my conceit of last week, when I exulted in the
power and art with which we rode tilting over
this January ocean, albeit, to speak truth, our in-
dividual valours lay very sick the while, lodged
each in the waistcoat pocket of the brave brig's
transom. So that each passenger's particular share
in the glory was much the same as the sutler's
or grocer's who turns his penny in the army of
Leonidas or Washington. The southing latitude
does notyet make early mornings. The steward's
lanthorn and trumpery matutinal preparations
are to me for the rosy ray, the silver cloud, or
chaunt of earliest bird. But days will come.
Poor book, this Scelta di Goldoni. He is puffed
in the Preface, and also by Sismondi, as the Re-
storer or Reformer of the Italian stage, etc., etc.
Not a just sentiment, or a well-contrived scene
in the book. His highest merit that of a good
phrase - book. Perrin might as well knit his
conversations into a dialogue and call it a
Drama.


1833]
SEA-LIFE. WRITING
9
Sunday, January 6.
Lat. 37° 23; long. 39° 59 W.
Last evening, fair wind and full moon sud-
denly lost in squall and rain. There are no at-
tractions in the “sailor's life.” Its best things are
only alleviations. “A prison with the chance of
being drowned.” It is even so, and yet they do
not run blind into unmeasured danger, as seems
to the landsman; these chances are all counted
and weighed, and experience has begotten this
confidence in the proportioned strength of spars
and rigging to the ordinary forces of wind and
water, which, by being habitual, constitutes the
essence of a sailor's fearlessness. Suppose a stu-
dent confined to a ship, I see not why he might
not trim his lamp to as good purpose as in col-
lege attic. Why should he be less efficient in his
'vocation than the poor steward who ingloriously
deals ever in pork and beans, let the quadrant
or the chart or the monsoon say what they will.
The caboose is his Rome.
It occurred forcibly this morning, whether sug-
gested by Goldoni, or Bigelow, or some falsetto
of my own, that the thing set down in words is
not affirmed. It must affirm itself, or no forms
of grammar and no verisimilitude can give it evi-


10
JOURNAL
[Age 29
dence. This is a maxim which holds to the core
of the world.
Storm, storm; ah we! the sea to us is but a
lasting storm. We have had no fine weather to
lastan hour. Yet I must thank the sea and rough
weather for a truckman's health and stomach, -
how connected with celestial gifts !
The wind is the sole performer in these parts
of nature, and the royal Æolus understands his
work well, and to give him his due, shifts the
scene and varies the accompaniment as featly and
as often as the audience can desire. Certainly he
rings his few chimes with wondrous skill of per-
mutation. Sometimes we, his pets, are cross, and
say 't is naught but salt and squalls, and some-
times we are ourselves and admit that it is divine
Architecture.
What is it to sail
Upon the calm blue sea,
To ride as a cloud
Over the purple floor
With golden mists for company?
And Day and Night are drest
Ever in their jocund vest,
And the water is warm to the hands,
And far below you see motes of light
By day, and streams of fire by night.


1833]
THE PASSENGER
II
What is it to sail upon the stormy sea,
To drive with naked spars
Before the roaring gale,
Hemmed round with ragged clouds,
Foaming and hissing and thumping waves ?
The reeking cabin is cold and wet,
The masts are strained, and the sail is torn,
The gale blows fiercer as the night sets in
Scarce can the seaman aloft master his struggling reef.
Even the stout captain in his coat of storms
Sighs as he glances astern at the white, white combs,
And the passenger sits unsocial
And puts his book aside
And leans upon his hand.
Yet is the difference less
Between this grey sea and that golden one
Than 'twixt the moods of the man that sails upon it
To-day and yesterday.
What is a passenger? He is a much-endur-
ing man who bends under the load of his leisure.
He fawns upon the captain, reveres the mate, but
his eye follows the steward; scans accurately, as
symptomatic, all the motions of that respectable
officer. The species is contemplative, given to
imitation, viciously inquisitive, immensely capa-
ble of sleep, large eaters, swift digesters, their
thoughts ever running on men and things ashore,


12
JOURNAL
[AGE 29
and their eye usually squinting over the bulwark
to estimate the speed of the bubbles.
0
CVO
January 7.
W. long. 36° 11; N. lat. 37° 4.
Sailors are the best dressed of mankind. Con-
venience is studied from head to heel, and they
have a change for every emergency. It seems to
me they get more work out of the sailor than out
of any other craftsman. His obedience is prompt
as a soldier's, and willing as a child's, and recon-
ciles me to some dim remembrances of authority
I wondered at. Thin skins do not believe in
thick. Jack never looks an inch beyond his
orders. “Brace the yards," quoth the master;
“Ay, ay, sir,” answers Jack, and never looks over
the side at the squall or the sea that cometh, as
if it were no more to him than to the capstan.
But though I do not find much attraction in the
seaman, yet I can discern that the naval hero is
a hero. It takes all the thousand thousand Euro-
pean voyages that have been made to establish
our faith in the practicability of this our hodiurnal
voyage. But to be Columbus, to steer WEST
steadily day after day, week after week, for the
first time, and wholly alone in his opinion, shows
a mind as solitary and self-subsistent as any that


1833) THE STARS. AZORES 13
ever lived. I am learning the use of the quad-
rant. Another voyage would make an astrono-
mer of me. How delicately come out these stars
at sea! The constellations show smaller, and a
ship, though with the disadvantage of motion, is
a fine observatory. But I am ashamed of myself
for a dull scholar. Every day I display a more
astounding ignorance. The whole world is a mill-
stone to me. The experiment of the philosopher
is but a separation to bring within his optics the
comprehension of a fact which is done masterly
and in harmony in God's laboratory of the world.
Wednesday, January 9. W. long. 28° 58.
Still we sail well, and feed full, and hope to-
morrow to make St. Mary's, the southernmost
of the Azores. When the abbey grew rich the
fat monk cut up all his quills for toothpicks.
So do we.
Thursday eve at 9 o'clock passed St. Mary's,
a dim, black hummock of land. Our dead reck-
oning agreed with its longitude in the bearings
to a mile.
January 13.
We have but fourteen degrees of longitude
to make to reach the rock of Gibraltar, but the
fickle wind may make those fourteen longer mea-


14
(Age 29
JOURNAL
sure than all we have meted. A gale, day before
yesterday; yesterday a heavy sea, and a cold head-
wind to-day. Yet still we hope and drift along.
In the ocean the vessel gains a large commission
on every mile sailed, even with a wind dead ahead.
In a narrow sea much less. A sea voyage at the
best is yet such a bundle of perils and incon-
veniences that no person as much a lover of the
present moment as I am would be swift to pay
that price for any commodity which anything else
would buy. Yet if our horses are somewhat wild,
and the road uneven and lonely and without inns,
yet experience shows us that the coward eye
magnifies the dangers.
SS
Sunday. W. long. 17° 2.
* Let us insist on having our say. We but half
express ourselves, but ever draw diagonals be-
tween our own thought and the supposed thought
of our companion, and so fail to satisfy either.
Now God made the model and meant we should
live out our idea. It may be safely trusted as pro-
portionate and of good issues, so that it be faith-
fully expressed, but God will not have his work
made manifest by cowards. And so it takes a
divine man to exhibit anything divine, Socrates,
Alfred, Columbus, Wordsworth, or any other


1833)
MEMORY
15
brave preferrer of the still voice within to the
roar of the populace— a thing very easy to speak
and very hard to do for twenty-four hours. The
rest are men potentially, not actually, now only
pupas or tadpoles, - say rather quarries of souls,
heroes that shall be, seeds of gods.
Sunday, January 13.
In the wonderful store of the memory carry
we power and peace. It is the monument of how
high antiquity. The sides of the pyramids can-
not contain the story of half so much time, nor
be inscribed with anything like the magic of its
method. Its method is myriad-fold. Its order
comprehends a thousand lines, right, left, ob-
lique, curved, and waving. Every point lives, and
is centre or extreme in turn. As the lightning
shineth out of one part of heaven even unto the
other part, so one thought in this firmament
flashes its light over all the sphere.
A man looks upon himself as a mere circum-
stance and not as the solid, adamant, mundane
ground-plan of a universal man. He thinks his
internals are evanescent opal shades, and won't
bear criticism and description. Let him turn the
telescope on them. Let him compare them with
durable things. He will find they outshine the


16
[AGE 29
JOURNAL
sun, and will grind to powder the iron and the
stone of outward permanence.
OUS
January 14. W. long. 14° 14.
Well, blithe traveller, whatcheer? What have
the sea and the stars and the moaning winds and
the discontented thoughts sung in your atten-
tive ears? Peeps up old Europe yet out of his
eastern main hospitably, ho? Nay, the slumber-
ous old giant cannot bestir himself in these his
chair days to loom up for the pastime of his up-
start grandchildren, as now they come, shoal after
shoal, to salute their old progenitor, the old Adam
of all. Sleep on, old sire, there is muscle and nerve
and enterprise enow in us, your poor spawn, who
have sucked the air and ripened in the sunshine
of the cold west, to steer our ships to your very
ports and thrust our inquisitive, American eyes
into your towns and towers and keeping-rooms.
Here we come, and mean to be welcome. So be
good now, clever old gentleman.
I comfort the mate by assuring him that the
sea life is excellent preparation for life ashore.
No man well knows how many fingers he has
got, nor what are the faculties of a knife and a
needle, or the capabilities of a pine board, until
he has seen the expedients and the ambidexter-


1833]
SEA-LEARNING
17
ous invincibility of Jack Tar. Then he may buy
an orchard, or retreat to his paternal acres, with
a stock of thrifty science that will make him
independent of all the village carpenters, masons,
and wheelwrights, and add withal an enchanting
beauty to the waving of his yellow corn and
sweetness to his shagbarks in his chimney corner.
No squally Twelve o'clock ! Call the Watch!
shall break his dreams.
Tuesday, January 15.
W. long. 13° 27.
Calm, clear, warm, idle day; holiday to the
senses, rest to the sailor, vexation to the cap-
tain, dubiously borne by the passenger.
Yesterday, or day before, saw three sail, one
Englishman. To-day, one French brig, and sa-
luted them both by exchanging the sight of our
colours. John Bull, they say, is very sulky at
sea, or assuredly sometimes very rude. But how
comes my speculative pencil down to so near
a level with the horizon of life, which commonly
proses above?
I learn in the sunshine to get an altitude and
the latitude, but am a dull scholar as ever in
real figures. Seldom, I suppose, was a more in-
apt learner of arithmetic, astronomy, geography,


18
(Age 29
JOURNAL
political economy, than I am, as I daily find to
my cost. It were to brag much if I should there
end the catalogue of my defects. My memory
of history-put me to the pinch of a precise
question-is as bad; my comprehension of a
question in technical metaphysics very slow, and
in all arts practick, in driving a bargain, or hid-
ing emotion, or carrying myself in company as
Ja man for an hour, I have no skill. What under
the sun canst thou do then, pale face? Truly
not much, but I can hope. “In a good hope,”
said Bias, “the wise differ from the unwise.” I
am content to belong to the great all, and look
on and see what better men can do, and by my
admiration realize a property in their worth. I
did not put me here; yet God forbid I should
therefore decline the responsibility into which I
am born. Space and Time and venerable Nature
and beautiful stars and all the various fellow
beings, I greet ye well, and will not despond,
but even out of my acre God shall yet rear him-
self some tardy fruit. If not, still is it not sub-
lime unprofitably to pray and praise?
am
Wednesday, January 16.
I rose betimes and saw every fold of the ban-
ner of the morning unrolled from starlight to


1833) CAPTAIN AND SCHOLAR 19
full day. We are as poor as we are rich. We
brag of our memory, but in the lonely night-
watch it will not always befriend us, but leaves
the scholar's brain as barren as the steward's.
But that I sat in the confessional last night, I
should parade my rags again. The good Cap-?
tain rejoices much in my ignorance. He con-
founded me the other day about the book in the
Bible where God was not mentioned, and last,
night upon St. Paul's shipwreck. Yet I com-
forted myself at midnight with Lycidas. What
marble beauty in that classic pastoral. I should
like well to see an analysis of the pleasure it
gives. That were criticism for the gods.
The inconvenience of living in a cabin is that
people become all eye. 'Tis a great part of
well-being to ignorize a good deal of your fel-
low man's history and not count his warts nor
expect the hour when he shall wash his teeth.
January 17.
Lat. 36° 29 N.; long. 9° 48 W.
Another day as beautiful as ever shines on the
monotonous sea, but a wind so soft will not fill
our sails, and we lie like a log, so near our haven
too. 'Atpuynty Oálaooa; the sea is a blank, and
all the minstrelsy of nature rings but a few changes


20
[AGE 29
JOURNAL
on the instrument. The more it should send us
to the inner music; but that is a capricious shell
which sometimes vibrates wildly with multitu-
dinous impulses, and sometimes is mute as wood.
The inner shell is like its marine archetype, which
murmurs only where there is already noise.
Friday, January 18.
Lat. 36° 36 N.; long. 8° 20 W.
Well, thou navigating muse of mine; 't is now
the hour of Chinese inspiration, the post-tea-cup-
time, the epical creative moment to all thinking
heads of the modern world; and what print have
the ethereal footsteps of Night and Morn left
upon your tablets ? Another day, profusion of
the divine munificence, yet taken and spent by
us as by the oysters. The boar feeds under the
tree, and never looks up to see who shakes down
the mast, and I glide in leisure and safety and
health and fulness over this liquid Sahara, and the
Invisible Leader, so venerable, is seldom wor-
shipped and much a stranger in the bosom of
his child. We feel sometimes as if the sweet and
awful melodies we have once heard would never
return; as if we were deaf?7 and fear we shall
not again aspire to the glory of a moral life, of
a will as punctual as the little needle in the bin-


1833] STRAITS OF GIBRALTAR 21
nacle over my head. The sea tosses on the horns
of its waves the framework of habits so slight and
epicurean as mine, and I make the voyage one
long holiday, which, like all holidays, is dull.
Saturday, January 19.
Mem. No trust to be put in a seaman's eye.
He can see land wherever he wishes to see it, and
always has a cloud, and “ the stuff” ready to
cover up a mistake. No word suits the sea but
I bope. Every sign fails.
Straits of Gibraltar,
January 20.
Last evening they saw land from the masthead,
and this morn broke over the bold and pictur-
esque mountains of Africa behind Cape Spartel
and Tangiers. On the left was Cape Trafalgar
and Spain. The passengers greeted each other
and mused, each in his own way, on this animat-
ing vision. But now, as Tarifa light opened upon
us, we have encountered an adverse current, a
thing unknown in the books, or to the sailors in
these waters, where they say the current always
sets from the ocean into the Mediterranean.
Meantime all the other craft, great and small,
are flying by us and we seem anchored in the
middle of the stream. What is this to me beyond


22
[Age 29
JOURNAL
my fellow-feeling for the master? Shall not I be
content to look at the near coast of Andalusia
and Morocco ? I have seen this morn the smokes
of Moorish fishers or mountaineers on one side
and of Spanish on the other. We could not quite
open Tangier Bay enow to see that Maureta-
nian town, but the watch towers and the cultivated
enclosures and the farm-houses of the Spaniard
are very discernible. Not many weeks ago I
should scarce have been convinced that I should
so soon look on these objects, yet what is their
poetry, or what is it not? Is not a hut in Amer-
ica a point that concentrates as much life and
sentiment as a hut in Europe or on the ragged
side of Mount Atlas ? Ah! it is all in the
anointed eye. Yet will not I refine overmuch on
the love of the remote and the renowned, nor
affirm them both to be only a mixture of colors
upon the retina of the eye, nor say of a man, He
is mammiferous, and of beauty, It is but gelatine
and oxygen.
January 21.
A squall with copious rain helped us out of
our straits, and last evening I saw the lights of
the barracks at Gibraltar on one side and at Ceuta
on the other. The summit of the hill at Gib-
raltar is 1500 feet high.


1833] BARBARY AND SPAIN 23
This day we sail bravely five, six, and seven
knots. Sunrise was charming; the Pillars of Her-
cules astern, the Barbary coast on the lee quarter,
and the mountains of Granada covered with
snow, having white villages half-way up their
sides on the left hand. A grand show they make.
The Sierra Nevada is the name of the range, and
the easternmost summit which we saw is the
highest in Spain and, except the Alps, in Europe;
to wit, 11,690. We glided by Malaga, the coun-
try of the finest grape, but were too far seaward
to spy the town. Twenty-one sail were in sight
at sunrise.
These cold Alpine hilltops remind us of New
England, though far higher than any of our
snowbanks. Noble Sierra Nevada ! All the after-
noon we have watched the sublime peak of Cum-
bre de Mulahacen, and, fast as we go, we scarce
change our bearings from it.
January 22.
Off the snowy mountains blew not so cold
breath yesterday as this day from the north-
east. “Fire,” well said the ancient, “is the sauce
of life.” If you diminish the temperature, it in-
fuses ague into my inner as well as outer self.
Yet since the first ten days of the voyage I have
ICT a.


24
[AGE 29
JOURNAL
scarce worn my great-coat except at evening, or
to sit still in the shade.
January 25.
Lat. 37° 31 N.; long. 1° 20 E.
Head-winds are sore vexations, and the more
passengers, the sorer. Yesterday the Captain
killed a porpoise and I witnessed the cutting up
of my mammiferous fellow creature.
When men and women sit mum by the hour
and week, shall I doubt the doctrine that every
natural character is interesting? By no means;
there is always sweet music in the pipe, but it
needs a skilful player to draw it out, else month
by month we may be packed in the same closet,
and shall be all only so much ash and ebony.
If the sea teaches any lesson, it thunders this
through the throat of all its winds, “That there
is no knowledge that is not valuable.” How I
envied my fellow passenger who yesterday had
knowledge and nerve enough to prescribe for
the sailor's sore throat, and this morning to bleed
him. In this little balloon of ours, so far from
the human family and their sages and colleges
and manufactories, every accomplishment, every
natural or acquired talent, every piece of infor-
mation is some time in request. And a short


18331 THE ABLE CAPTAIN 25
voyage will show the difference between the man
and the apprentice as surely as it will show the
superior value of beef and bread to lemons and
sugar-plums. Honour evermore aboard ship to
the man of action, — to the brain in the hand. *
Here is our stout master, worth a thousand
philosophers, -a man who can strike a porpoise,
and make oil out of his blubber, and steak out
of his meat, who can thump a mutineer into
obedience in two minutes; who can bleed his
sick sailor, and mend the box of his pump; who
can ride out the roughest storm on the American
coast, and, more than all, with the sun and a
three-cornered bit of wood, and a chart, can find
his way from Boston across three thousand miles
of stormy water into a little gut of inland sea,
nine miles wide, with as much precision as if led
by a clue.
MALTA
February 2.
Made St. Elmo's light at 1 o'clock this morn-
ing; lay to in a gale till daylight, and then sailed
into St. Paul's bay. The pilot-boat was quickly
followed by a procession of boats who, after a
short, loud wrangling with the unflinching cap-
tain, came into his terms and took the rope and
brought us in. So here we are in Malta, in the


26
JOURNAL [Age 29
renowned harbor of Marsa Muscette, the quar-
antine roads for a fortnight, imprisoned for poor
dear Europe's health, lest it should suffer preju-
dice from the unclean sands and mountains of
America. The truth is, it is all pro forma on the
part of the English government, this quarantine
being enforced in accordance with the rules of
Naples and Trieste, merely that vessels quaran-
tined here may be admitted to full pratique in
those ports.
We were presently visited by the Harbor-
master, then by the boats of the grocer and ship-
chandler presenting their cards at the end of a
pole to us leprous men, then the clamorous spen-
ditori to offer their services, then by the mer-
chant, Signor Paul Eynaud.
This afternoon I visited the Parlatorio, where
those in quarantine converse with those out,
across barriers. It looked to me like the wildest
masquerade. There jabbered Turks, Moors,
Sicilians, Germans, Greeks, English, Maltese,
with friars and guards and maimed and beggars.
And such grotesque faces ! It resembled more
some brave antique picture than a congregation
of flesh and blood. The human family can sel-
dom see their own differences of color and form
so sharply contrasted as in this house. I noticed,


1833]
QUARANTINE
27
however, that all the curiosity manifested was on
our part. Our cousins of Asia and Europe did
not pay us the compliment of a second glance.
In quarantine, our acquaintance has been con-
fined chiefly to the Maltese boatmen, a great mul-
titude of poor, swarthy, good-natured people,
who speak their own tongue, not much differing
from the Arabic, and most of them know very
few words of Italian and less of English.
(From Q)
HARBOR OF MALTA,
Marsa MUSCETTE, February 3.
Here in the precincts of St. John, the isle of
old fame under the high battlements, once of the
Knights and now of England, I spend my Sun-
day, which shines with but little Sabbath light.
“Tout commence,” as Père Bossuet says. It is hardly
truer of me at this point of time, when I am set-
ting foot on the Old World and learning two
languages, than it is of every day of mine, so rude
and unready am I sent into this world. Glad, very
glad, to find the company of a person quite the
reverse of myself in all these particulars in which
I fail most, who has all his knowledge, and it is
much and various, at his sudden command. I


28
(Age 29
JOURNAL
seem, on all trivial emergencies, to be oppressed
with an universal ignorance. If I rightly consider
that for this point of time which we call a Life,
tout commence, I shall rejoice in the omen of a
boundless future and not be chagrined. Oh
heavens! no. It is, however, a substantial satis-
faction to benefit your companions with your
knowledge, - a pleasure denied me.“ Time,”
said friend Carlyle, “ brings roses ”; a capital
mot, putting a little rouge on the old skeleton's
cheek.
February 10.
Perhaps it is a pernicious mistake, yet, rightly
seen, I believe it is sound philosophy, that wher-
ever we go, whatever we do, self is the sole
subject we study and learn. Montaigne said, him-
self was all he knew, Myself is much more than
I know, and yet I know nothing else. The chem-
ist experiments upon his new salt' by trying its
affinity to all the various substances he can com-
mand, arbitrarily selected, and thereby discloses
the most wonderful properties in his subject. And
I bring myself to sea, to Malta, to Italy, to find
new affinities between me and my fellow men, to
observe narrowly the affections, weaknesses, sur-
prises, hopes, doubts, which new sides of the pan-
orama shall call forth in me. Mean, sneakingly


1833)
MALTA
29
mean, would be this philosophy, a reptile un-
worthy of the name, if self be used in the low
sense, but as self means Devil, so it means God.
I speak of the universal man to whose colossal di-
mensions each particular bubble can by its birth-
right expand.Is it the hard condition upon which
the love of highest truth is given, such extreme
incapacity foraction and common conversation as
to provoke the contempt of the bystander, even
of kindred and debtors. Or is it that we will put
off upon our nature the bad consequence of our
faults ? Hang out your temperance, my friend,
as your amulet, your benevolence as your shield,
your industry as your advocate, and perhaps you
will not have so much reason as you think to
complain of your reception among men. I am
a full believer in the doctrine that we always
make our own welcome.
MALTA, February.
I am now pleased abundantly with St. John's
church in Valetta. Welcome these new joys. Let
my American eye be a child's again to these glo-
rious picture-books. The chaunting friars, the
1 This passage should be borne in mind in reading the Essay
Self-Reliance, of which The Oversoul is the explanation and
correction.


30
JOURNAL [AGE 29
carved ceilings, the madonnas and saints, they
are living oracles, quotidiana et perpetua. Silver
gates. Louis de Beaujolais.
You have one inner rule. You leave that and
measure your actions by a laxer rule of others.
In vain. They won't judge you by theirs, but
will hold you to your own. Spite of themselves,
they will find out and use that secret inner rule
of yours, cobwebbed up in thickest darkness of
nature as you thought. Everything intercepts
us from ourselves.
LRT
mo
LA VALETTA, February 16.
Yesterday we took pratique, and found lodg-
ings once more on dry ground with great joy
All day with my fellow travellers I perambulated
this little town of stone. It is from end to end
a box of curiosities, and though it is very green
and juvenile to express wonder, I could not hin-
der my eyes from rolling continually in their
sockets, nor my tongue from uttering my plea-
sure and surprise. It is an advantage to enter
Europe at the little end, so we shall admire by
just degrees from the Maltese architecture up
to St. Peter's. I went to St. John's church, and
a noble house it is to worship God in, full of


1833) MALTA. SAINT JOHN'S 31
marble and mosaic and pictures and gilding; the
walls are eloquent with texts and the floor cov-
ered with epitaphs. The Verger led me down
into a dim vault full of solemn sculpture and
showed me the tomb of L’Isle Adam, the Grand
Master of the Knights of St. John, to whom
Charles V gave the island of Malta when he and
his knights had been driven by the Turks from
Rhodes. Next to him rests the body of La
Valette, who so bravely defended the island
against the Sultan.
But I shall have more to say about this
fine temple when I have paid another visit.
Everywhere as I went, the wretched beggars
would steal up beside me, with, “Grazia, Signore,
sono miserabile. Uno grano per carità.” “Look
hard at a Maltese,” said my friend, Mr. H.,'
“and he instinctively holds out his hand.” I
went to the churches of St. Popilius and St.
Thomas. The first is no other than “ Publius,
the chief man of the island,” in Acts xxviii, and
much honour hath he in Malta, at least on the
walls of his church.
In all these churches there were many wor-
shippers continually coming in, saying their
prayers, and going their way. I yielded me joy-
I A Mr. S. P. Holbrook.


32
(AGE 29
JOURNAL
fully to the religious impression of holy texts
and fine paintings and this soothfast faith, though
of women and children. How beautiful to have
the church always open, so that every tired way-
faring man may come in and be soothed by all
that art can suggest of a better world when he
is weary with this. I hope they will carve and
paint and inscribe the walls of our churches in
New England before this century, which will
probably see many grand granite piles erected
there, is closed. To be sure there is plenty of
superstition. Everywhere indulgence is offered,
and on one convent on our way home I read
this inscription over the gate, “Indulgentia ple-
naria, quotidiana, perpetua, pro vivis et defunc-
tis.” This is almost too frank, may it please
your holiness.
February 17.
Visited St. John's again and attended mass.
The bishop, a venerable old man, was present,
but did not officiate. This noble temple was
built by the Grand Master La Cassiera, and
chiefly adorned with painting by Preti, who lies
buried here. (Vide Abela.) Mrs. Davy told me
it was built about 1560. The lordly heads of
the Grand Masters still command the eye in
marble or on canvas around the walls, and their


1833] ENGLISH CHAPEL 33
notched cross surmounts or underlies every
ornament. The music of the organ and chaunt-
ing friars very impressive, especially when we
left the kneeling congregation in the nave, and
heard it at a distance, as we examined the pic-
tures in a side oratory. I went into several
churches, which were all well attended. How
could anybody who had been in a Catholic
church devise such a deformity as a pew?
Went at 11 o'clock to Mr. Temple's plain
chapel on the third storey of his dwelling-house,
and heard with greedy ears the English Bible
read, and Watts's psalms sung, and a good ser-
mon. A small congregation of English ; one
Armenian, who is translating the Bible into his
tongue. Mr. Temple and Mr. Halleck conduct
the missionary press here and print in modern
Greek, in Italian, in Armenian, and Turkish.
The Malteseis Arabicwith a mixture of Italian.
They have translated Adams's Arithmetic and
Peter Parley's Geography (IIét pov'Oulantov) and
the best tracts into Greek. The names look odd
enough. ‘H Súvapis rñs å delas, and ‘H Ovy-
árnp tôu yalaktonólov, are droll masks for
Scott's Force of Truth and The Dairyman's Daugh-
ter. I brought away Scougal's Life of God in the
Soul of Man, in Italian.


34
[AGE 29
JOURNAL
The missionary press for the Mediterranean
is established here for the sake of the protection
of this government. There is only protection, no
countenance. It was a stipulation of the Maltese
in their capitulation to the English in —
that the scriptures should not be printed in the
Maltese (?). [sic]
February 20.
I went to the terrace on the top of Mr. Tem-
ple's house. All the roofs are flat, and afford this
valuable accommodation. I saw many persons
walking on the tops. Last Friday, Mr. Temple
said he saw Mt. Etna very distinctly from hence,
and it is very frequently seen. It is one hundred
and fifty miles distant. He is sure the atmos-
phere is much more transparent than with us;
that Venus and Jupiter give more light.
Mr. Temple rents his lofty house for one
hundred and forty dollars, containing his Chapel
and Press. It rented once for 1000 scudi=$400.
Noble houses everywhere, thanks to the beau-
tiful material for building which constitutes the
soil of the island. The Maltese stone is very soft
and easily wrought, and when well selected, the
house will last a thousand years. The architec-
ture is in fine taste, the apartments twenty or
thirty feet high,— floors, walls, stairs, all of this


1833) BALL AT THE PALACE 35
cold, clean, sightly stone; the balconies sup-
ported with sculptured work, and the openings
adorned with vases. Instead of paper, the walls
and ceilings are covered with ordinary frescoes,
wherein Æsop and the Old Testament furnish
the subjects. Visited the Armoury in the Palace,
and saw the arms of the old knights, of every form
and size, much the same show, I suppose, as
is in the Tower of London. The hall might be
two hundred feet long.
The library of the knights contains 40,000
volumes, and a venerable Ptolemaic bookstall
it is. I sat down and read in Abela's old folios,
Melita Illustrata.
Through the politeness of Mr. Eynaud, the
American consul, I received a card of invita-
tion from Sir Frederick Ponsonby, the governor,
to attend a fancy dress ball at the Palace. A very
gay and novel scene, but hardly equal to the
place and expectation. As the consul did not
appear very early, my friends and I presented
each other to Sir Frederick, who conversed a few
moments very pleasantly. We thought he re-
sembled George IV. A few beautiful faces in the
dancing crowd; and a beautiful face is worth going
far to see. That which is finest in beauty is moral.
The most piquant attraction of a long-descended


36
[AGE 29
JOURNAL
maiden is the imputation of an immaculate inno-
cence, a sort of wild virtue (if I may so term it),
wild and fragrant as the violets. And the imagina-
tion is surprised and gratified with the strong con-
trast, meeting the Divinity amidst flowers and
trifles.
The days pass over me
And I am still the same;
The aroma of my life is gone
Like the flower with which it came.'
Called upon Mrs. Davy, a very agreeable
woman. Dr. Davy (brother to Sir Humphry)
is given to chemical pursuits. Much younger
than I expected, and of simple manners. I was
sorry I could not accept of their invitation to
dine, as they were well named, well educated,
well mannered, and well acquainted with Malta.
Visited the workshop of Sigismundo Dimeck,
a sculptor in Maltese stone: beautiful work. If
I had a great house in America, I would send
to the Signor for a pair of vases which I saw,
four feet high, two feet diameter, richly carved
with ornaments à la Raffaelle ; price, eight dol-
1 These lines are found in Journal « (1831), but in a
book in which Mr. Emerson copied his verses he gives the
date as 1833, so it is here introduced.


rna-
1833) VOYAGE TO SYRACUSE 37
lars apiece. Another pair of the same size and
as good to my eye, though with less costly orna-
ment, price, five dollars. Venetian oil is put in
them to make them hold water. A Bocale one
foot high and beautiful, seventy-five cents. Vaso
Etrusco, one dollar.
Convicts in chains sweep the streets in Malta.
The Maltese milkman drives his goats through
the street, and milks you a pint at your door.
Asses and mules passim.
February 21.
At 8 o'clock P. M. we embarked for Syra-
cuse in a Sicilian brigantine, Il Santissimo Ecce
Homo, and a most ridiculous scene our ship's
company offered, they to us and we to them.
The little brig was manned with fourteen men,
who were all on a perfect level with each other.
The steersman sat down at the helm, and when
they brought him his supper, the captain affec-
tionately took his post whilst he ate. The boy
was employed in sitting down by the steersman
and watching the hour-glass so that he might
turn it when it ran out. But the whole interest
of master and men was concentrated on us, his
five passengers. We had hired for thirty dollars
the whole cabin, so they put all their heads into
the scuttle and companion-way to behold all
"SY


38
(AGE 29
JOURNAL
that we did, the which seemed to amuse them
mightily. When anything was to be done to
sails or spars, they did it who had a mind to it,
and the captain got such obedience as he could.
In the morning the mate brought up his gazet-
teer to find Boston, the account of which he
read aloud, and all the crew gathered round him
whilst he read. They laughed heartily at the
captain and passed jokes upon him, and when
the little boy did something amiss everybody
gave him a knock. A cask of blood-red wine
was on tap, from which everybody drank when
it pleased him, in a quart measure. Their food
was a boiled fish called purpo (which looks like
an eel and tastes like lobster), with bread and
green onions eaten raw. Their little vessel sailed
fast, and in sixteen hours we saw the ancient
city of Syracuse. Abundance of fuss and vexa-
tion did the Sanità and the Dogana give us be-
fore we were suffered to land our baggage, but
our captain and mate helped us all they could,
and our money opened all the gates at last.
SICILY
SYRACUSE, February 23.
Shall I count it, like the Berber at Rome, the
greatest wonder of all to find myself here? I


39
1833]
SYRACUSE
have this day drank the waters of the fountain
Arethusa and washed my hands in it. I ate the
very fragrant Hyblæan honey with my break-
fast. I have been into the old Temple of Mi-
nerva, praised for its beauty by Cicero, and now
preserved and concealed by having its pillars
half buried in the walls of the cathedral. A
modern façade conceals the front, but the severe
beauty of a Parthenon peeps from the sides in
projecting flutes and triglyphs. It was seven in
the morning, and I found the priests saying
mass in the oratories of the church. The Amer-
ican consul called upon our party in the fore-
noon, and we rode with him into the country.
We stopped at a crumbled arch, reputed as the
spot where Cicero found the globe and cylin-
der, the tomb of Archimedes. Did I hold my
breath for awe? Then went we to the catacombs,
old enough, nothing else, mere excavations in
the living rock for cemeteries, but the air was
soft and the trees in bloom, and the fields cov-
ered with beautiful wild flowers to me unknown,
and amidst ruins of ruins Nature still was fair.
Close by, we found the aqueduct, which once
supplied the magnificent city of Hiero, now
turning a small grist-mill. Then we went to
Dionysius' Ear; a huge excavation into the
V-


40
JOURNAL (Age 29
hard rock which I am not going to describe.
Poor people were making twine in it, and my
ear was caught on approaching it by the loud
noise made by their petty wheels in the vault.
A little beyond the entrance the floor was cov-
ered with a pool of water. We found a twine-
maker who very readily took us, one after
another, on his shoulders into the recess 250
feet, and planted us on dry land at the bottom
of the cave. We shouted and shouted and the
cave bellowed and bellowed; the twine-maker
tore a bit of paper in the middle of the cave,
and very loud it sounded; then they fired a
pistol at the entrance and we had our fill of
thunder.
I inquired for the tyrant's chamber in the
wall, the focus of sound where he was wont to
hear the whispers of his prisoners, - but in this
unvisited country it is inaccessible. High up the
rock, seventy or eighty feet, they pointed to a
little inlet to which once there was a stair, but
not now. If we had time and spirit would we not
go up thither in baskets, as sundry English have
done? I affirm not. A little way off, along the
same quarry of rock, we found another great ex-
cavation in which they were making saltpetre.
It was the place from which the great pillars of
un


41
arrow
18331 GIFTS TO MINERVA
the Temple of Minerva, it is said, were taken.
Then we visited the Theatre, or rather the rows
of stone benches which are all of it that remains.
From this spot we looked down upon the city
and its noble harbour, and a beautiful, sad sight
it was. The town stands now wholly within the
little peninsula, the ancient Ortygia, (not a third
of the size of the peninsula of Boston, I judge)
and the three great suburbs, or parts, Neapoli,
Tycha and Acradina, have almost no house or
church where they stood. And Syracuse is very
old and shabby, with narrow streets and few
people and many, many beggars. Once 800,000
people dwelt together in this town. Its walls were,
according to historical measurements, twenty-
two English miles in circuit. Of its two ports, the
northern was called the Marmoricus, because
surrounded with marble edifices. The southern
is five miles round, and is the best harbour in
the Mediterranean Sea.
In the old time every Sicilian carried honey
and wheat and flowers out of the port, and threw
them into the sea as soon as he lost sight of the
statue of Minerva aloft on her temple. Once
Dion, once Timoleon, once Archimedes dwelt
here, and Cicero dutifully visited their graves.
I lodge in the Strada Amalfitana.
ca as SOO


42
JOURNAL
[AGE 29
In a Caffè in our street, they have had the
good taste to paint the walls in very tolerable
frescoes, with Archimedes drawing the famous
galley by means of a windlass, and a sign over
our Locanda contains this sentence of Cicero's
4th oration in Verrem, “ Urbem Syracusas elege-
rat.”
Was it grand or mournful that I should hear
mass in this Temple of Minerva this morn?
Though in different forms, is it not venerable
that the same walls should be devoted to divine
worship for more than 2500 years ? Is it not
good witness to the ineradicableness of the re-
ligious principle? With the strange practice that
in these regions everywhere confounds pagan
and Christian antiquity, and half preserves both,
they call this cathedral the church of “ Our Lady
of the Pillar."
Abundance of examples here of great things
turned to vile uses. The fountain Arethusa,
to be sure, gives name to the street, Via Are-
tusa, in which it is found; but an obscure dark
nook it is, and we walked up and down and
looked in this and that courtyard in vain for
some time. Then we asked a soldier on guard
where it was. He only knew that “ Questa è la
batteria,” nothing more. At last an old woman


as
1833] ARETHUSA'S FOUNTAIN 43
guided us to the spot, and I grieve, I abhor to
tell, the fountain was bubbling up its world-re-
nowned waters within four black walls, serving
as one great washing-tub to fifty or sixty women,
who were polluting it with the filthy clothes of
the city.
It is remarkable now, as of old, for its quantity
of water springing up out of the earth at once,
as large as a river. Its waters are sweet and pure
and of the colour of Lake George.
All day from the balcony, Mount Etna is in
sight, covered with snow. From the parlour win-
dow I look down on the broad marshes where
the Carthaginian army, that came to rescue
Syracuse from the Romans, perished.
They say in this country you have but to
scratch the soil and you shall find medals, cameos,
statues, temples.
February 24.
Visited the Latomie of the gardens of the
Capuchins, a strange place. It is a large and
beautiful garden, full of oranges and lemons and
pomegranates, in a deep pit, say 1 20 feet below
the surrounding grounds. All this is a vast ex-
cavation in the solid rock, and we first came upon
it from above and peeped down the precipice


44
JOURNAL
(AGE 29
into this fragrant cellar far below us. “Opus est
ingens magnificum regum ac tyrannorum. Totum
ex saxo in mirandam altitudinem depresso,” etc.
Cicero. "All this excavation is manifestly the
work of art, — Cyclopean all. After circumam-
bulating the brink above, we went to the Con-
vent and got admission to the garden below.
A handsome and courteous monk conducted us,
and showed us one huge arch wherein he said
the Athenian prisoners recited the verses of
Euripides for their ransom; wild and grand
effect. All Syracuse must have been built out
of this enormous quarry, traces of works on a
vast scale in oldest time.
Went into the Convent, and the Fathers set
before us bread, olives, and wine. Our conductor
then showed us the dormitories (over each of
which was a Latin inscription from the Bible or
the Fathers), the Chapel, etc., of the House.
There is no better spot in the neighborhood of
Syracuse than the one they have chosen. The
air, the view, the long gallery of the chambers,
the peace of the place, quite took me, and I told
the Padre that I would stay there always if he
would give me a chamber. He said, “I should
have his,” which he opened, a little neat room
with a few books, Theologia Thomæ ex Charmes,


1833) SUNKEN GARDENS 45
and some others. My friend's whip-cords hung
by the bedside.
There are only twenty-two or twenty-three
persons in this fine old house. We saw but four
or five. I am half resolved to spend a week or
fortnight there. They will give me board, I.
am informed, on easy terms. How good and
pleasant to stop and recollect myself in this worn-
out nook of the human race, to turn over its
history and my own.
But, ah me!
Hence we went to the Campo Santo where
several Americans have been buried; and thence
to other Latomie, the gardens of the Marquis
di Casal. Similar to those we had left, but the
rich soil is now filled with flowers in wildest
profusion of scent and colour. The bergamot
lemon, the orange, the citron, we plucked and
ate; and lavender and rosemary and roses and
hyacinths and jasmine and thyme, which were
running wild all over the grounds, we filled our
hands and hats with.
Here we found the Marchesino, or son of the
Marchese, who was very polite to us, and Mr.
Baker, the English consul, and his family, whom
we greeted warmly for the love of the father-
land and language. Well pleased, we came back


46
[Age 29
JOURNAL
to the Locanda, where we received the American
consul, Signor Nicosia, and his friend Signor
Giuseppe Ricciardi to dine.
February 25.
• Still, melancholy old metropolis ! under the
moon, last eve, how wan and grey it looked.
Took a boat this morning and crossed the Porto
Maggiore and sailed up the mouth of the river
Anapus; full of canes and bulrushes and snails,
and a very little, narrow, mean puddle to be
famed in song. We did not go up so far as the
fountain Cyane, but disembarked about three
miles lower, where the stream was an oar's
length wide. It was a pretty fable of Pluto's
metamorphosis of Cyane, and if we had more
time should have stamped on the very ground
where “gloomy Dis ” stamped, and the rather
that our “plan” afterwards showed us this was
the spot of the Athenian encampment. No
wonder Proserpine gathered flowers; they grow
everywhere of prettiest forms and liveliest col-
ours now in February, and I stopped ever and
anon to pick them. On the banks of the Anapus
grows the papyrus, the immortal plant. It is a
sightly clean, green triangular stem, 20 feet high,
surmounted by a bunch of threads which the


1833) TEMPLE OF JOVE 47
people call parroca (periwig). We cut down a
good many, and then crossed the fields to the
columns of the Temple of Olympian Jove.
Here stand the broken shafts, the sole remains
of the temple which Gelo enriched with the spoils
of the Carthaginians 2500 years ago. The site
is a commanding one, facing the centre of the
mouth of the Great Harbor. Seven of these
fluted columns were standing in the last century,
but earthquakes are added to Time here in the
work of destruction.
We crossed the bridge of the Anapus and
went home by way of the catacombs. We sat
down on the benches of the Theatre, which was
entire in the days of Nero. We asked a goatherd
who smoked his pipe on the same bench what
they were for?“ Per il mulino, mulino ; ” we could
not easily get him by our questions beyond the
mill; at last he said, “antichità.” On the low-
est circuit of benches we read the inscriptions
ΒΑΣΙΛΙΣΣΑΣ ΦΙΛΙΣΤΙΔΟΣ and BΑΣΙΛΙΣΣΑΣ
NEPHIAOE. There are medals with the first
inscription, supposed to denote the daughter
of Philistas, wife of the elder Dionysius.
In the afternoon, I went to the Museum and
saw the Venus Kallipyge, dug up here in 1810,
a headless beauty.


48
(AGE 29
JOURNAL
February 27.
At dinner, a Frate dei Padri Capuccini was
announced, who brought olives and lemons in
his hand, and would accompany us to the Lato-
mie of the church of St. John. Thither we went,
and descended into subterranean caverns cut
regularly in the living rock. Two Fathers and
two boys attended with torches. On each side of
the main passages were catacombs, some larger,
some less. Occasionally the ceiling was vaulted
up to admit light and air. I asked how far these
long passages extended; the friar said, he knew
not how far, but the air was bad, and no one
went further than we. Cicero visited them be-
fore us.
Then went to the church, very old, small and
poor, but by stone stairs descended into one far
older, which they say is St. John's church, and
coeval with the planting of Christianity in Sicily.
The bold carving of the granite all around made
me think it of Greek age and afterward converted
to this use.
Signor Ricciardi, a friend of the consul Nico-
lini's, was very civil to us and spoke good Eng-
lish. At parting he gave each of us a handful
of sugar plums.


1833) RIDE TO CATANIA 49
Catania, March 1.
Fine strange ride and walk yesterday coming
by mules from Syracuse hither, 42 miles, thir-
teen hours. Our party (three gentlemen, two
ladies) were accommodated with seven beasts,-
two for the lettiga containing the ladies, two for
the baggage, one for each saddle. The morning
road led us by catacombs without number. What
are they butevidences of an immense ancient pop-
ulation that every rock should be cut into sep-
ulchres. The road, a mere mule-path through
very stony soil, was yet not so rough but that
I preferred walking to riding, and for an hour
or two kept up easily with the caravan. Fine
air, clear sun. Mount Ætna right before us,
green fields, laborers ploughing in them, many
flowers, all the houses of stone. Passed the trophy
of Marcellus, a pile of broken masonry, and yet
it answers its purpose as well as Marcellus could
have hoped. Did he think that Mr. Emerson
would be reminded of his existence and victory
this fine spring day 2047 years to come?
Saw the town of Melilli. Dined from our own
knapsack at the strangest tavern; hills of olive
trees all around, an oil-mill or press adjoining,
and a dozen big Morgiana jars thereby; what
seemed the remains of some most ancient church


50
JOURNAL
[ACE 29
or temple, with the stumps of pillars still stand-
ing, in the rear, and the hostelry itself a most
filthy house, the common dwelling of men, wo-
men, beasts and vermin. “Siamo pronti, Signore,”
then said the muleteer, which he of our party to
whom it was said, misapprehending to be a call
for brandy, we waited yet a little. The afternoon
ride was pleasanter much,- flowers abounding,
the road smooth, and Ætna glorious to behold
with his cap of smoke, and the mountainettes
like warts all over his huge sides. Then wound
the road down by the seaside, and for many
miles we traversed a beach like that of Lynn
paved with pretty shells. We crossed the Simæ-
thus in a ferry, and going a little inland, we
tramped through miles of prickly pears gigantic,
but, though Catania had been in sight much of
the time since twelve o'clock, nothing could be
ruder than this mule-path from Syracuse to a
city of 70,000 souls. Had I opened my eyes
from sleep, here, almost under the shadows
of the town, I might have thought myself near
Timbuctoo. Yet has nature done all it could
for this drowsy nation. I suppose the bay of
Naples cannot be so beautiful as the spacious
bay, round the shore of which we straggled and
stumbled with tinkling mules, and sighing and
ca


51
Id
&
OI
ses
1833)
CATANIA
shouting drivers. Tzar, tzar, gia, bm, and many
an odd, nondescript, despairing sound they utter
to that deliberate animal. As the day went down
the mules began to tire, and one slipt into the
mud, and was with difficulty got out. Another
fell down with the lettiga. Thesun set, the moon
rose, and still we did not reach the town, so
near at noon, till eight o'clock.
Town of lava of earthquakes; the mountain
is at once a monument and a warning. Houses
are built, streets paved with lava; it is polished
in the altars of the churches. Huge black rocks
of it line the shore, and the white surf breaks
over them. A great town full of fine old build-
ings; long regular streets thronged with people,
a striking contrast to the sad solitude of Syra-
cuse. Cathedral church of St. Agatha. What ex-
hilaration does the mere height of these prodi-
gious churches produce! We feel so little and
so elated upon the floor. All the interior and
exterior of this edifice is costly, and the cost
of ages. The ancient Roman amphitheatre was
robbed for the columns and bas-reliefs of its
porch and much of its walls. Its niches and altars
shine with many colored marbles, and round
the whole ample square whereon the church
stands runs a large marble fence.


52
[Age 29
JOURNAL
But what is even this church to that of the
Benedictines? Indeed, my holy Fathers, your
vows of poverty and humility have cost you
little. Signor Ricciardi of Syracuse gave me a
letter to Padre Anselmo Adorno, the Cellerájo
of this monastery, and this morn I waited upon
his reverence in his cell, and the kings of France
and England, I think, do not live in a better
house. The Padre with great courtesy showed
us the church and its paintings, and its organ,
here reputed the finest in Europe. It imitates
sack but, harp, psaltery and all kinds of music.
The monk Donatus who built it, begged that
he might be buried under it, and there he lies.
To my ignorance, however, the organ neither
appeared very large nor very richly toned. But
the church shall be St. Peter's to me till I behold
a fairer shrine. Have the men of America never
entered these European churches, that they
build such mean edifices at home? Contini was
the architect, but Father Anselm only knew
that it was more than a hundred years old. But
oh the marbles ! and oh, the pictures, and oh the
noble proportions of the pile! A less interesting
exhibition was the Treasury of the Convent,
some silver richly wrought, seats and stools em-
broidered and gilt, and a wardrobe, — drawers


1833) CONVENT. OPERA 53
full of copes and things of cloth-of-gold and
silver. Then the long lofty cloisters, galleries
of chambers, then gardens, too artificially laid
out. About 50 monks are laid up in clover and
magnificence here. They give bread twice in a
week, one roll to every comer. I saw hundreds
of women and children in the yard, each receiv-
ing her loaf and passing on into a court, that
none should come twice to the basket.
Visited the Museum of the Prince of Biscari,
one of the best collections of the remains of an-
cient art. Bronzes, marbles, mosaics, coins, uten-
sils dug up all over Sicily, of Greek and Roman
manufacture, are disposed with taste and science.
A head of Scipio took my fancy, and some more
heads. The Prince of Biscari is a venerable name
here. He was the Roscoe, the Petrarch of the
town. Everywhere his beneficent hand is shown
in restoring the old and saving the new.
I have been under the cathedral into the an-
cient baths; and into the subterranean ruins of
the ancient theatre ; and now I will leave this
primeval city, said to have been built by the
Siculi 80 years before the destruction of Troy!
and engage with the Vetturo for a visit to Mes-
sina.
I have been to the Opera, and thought three


54
(AGE 29
JOURNAL
taris, the price of a ticket, rather too much for
the whistle. It is doubtless a vice to turn one's
eyes inward too much, but I am my own comedy
and tragedy. Did ye ever hear of a magnet who
thought he had lost his virtue because he had
fallen into a heap of shavings ? Our manners are
sometimes so mean, our blunders and impropri-
eties so many and mulish, that it becomes a com-
fort to think that people are too much occupied
with themselves to remember even their neigh-
bor's defects very long.
SO
S SO
Messina, March.
From Catania my ride to this city was charm-
ing. The distance is but 60 miles, but that is two
days' journey here. Mount Etna was the grand
spectacle of the first day, and a fine sight it is.
This monarch of mountains, they say, supports
a population of 115,000 souls, and is 180 miles in
circuit. And its ample sides are belted with vil-
lages and towers up almost to the snow. As the
wind blew fresh, I smelt the snowbanks. Village
of Giarre; old country ; Catholic all over, scarce
a house or a fence but hath a shrine or cross or
inscription. “Basta a chi non ba. Basta a chi
morra.” Another,“ Viva la Divina Providenza,”
and a thousand more. It is a poor philosophy
OW


1833] FRIENDLY SICILIANS 55
that dislikes these sermons in stones. But what
green fields, and trees in bloom, and thick vil-
lages the turns of the road showed; and my Sici-
lian companions would break out, “ O che bella
veduta!” These companions were four, the priest
of the church of St. Iago in Messina, named Itel-
lario, his two nephews Lorenzo and Gaetano, and
Francesco Nicolozi, a tailor.
I name them all because they were very kind
to me; they speedily found I was a stranger and
took great pleasure in hearing my bad Italian and
in giving me the names of things and places.
They brought their vivers with them, and at
Giardini, where we spent the night, they made
me dine with them and paid all reckonings in the
morning. It was amusing enough, first, to see
how a Sicilian dines. Then their intercourse with
me was all a comedy (their pronunciation and
dialect are very different from Tuscan). When
I could not understand, they would raise their
voices, and then all say something, and then the
worthy priest after a consultation among them
inquired if I could understand Latin, and I de-
claring that I could, he essayed to communicate
in that tongue, but his Sicilian accent made his
Latin equally unintelligible to me. All the house- ;
hold collected gradually around us. At last I hit


56
JOURNAL [Age 29
upon the sense of what they would say, and much
acclamation and mutual congratulation there was.
Coachey came in too, and he told them I was a
sacerdote, a prete in my own country, a fact he
had picked upin Catania. This was wonders more.
Then at every sentence which I forged and ut-
tered was profound silence, followed by accla-
mations, “ che bravo signore !” so modulated as
only Italians can.
The little dark Locanda was on the beach of
Cape [Taormina or Schiso?] and the roar of the
sea lulled me to sleep. Next morning I awoke
right early and found myself in the most pictur-
esque of places. High overhead was Taormina,
so high and steep that it seemed inaccessible, and
if men could get there, not safe to live on the edge
of a rock. Presently we set forth, and every step
of the road showed new beauty and strangeness.
The ruins of the amphitheatre at Taormina, in
very good preservation, I saw, and much I doubt
if the world contains more picturesque country
in the same extent than in the thirty miles be-
twixt Giardini and Messina.
PALERMO, March 7.
Yesterday at noon I left Messina in the steam-
boat and passed betwixt Scylla and Charybdis,


57
1833)
PALERMO
which have long lost their terrors, probably fabu-
lous at first. Then saw I Stromboli, and the Li-
pari Islands, and smoke ascending from the crater
of the first, and as night grew darker, a faint light
of fire. Three very pleasant Englishmen recently
from Naples and about to travel in Greece were
on board. All the English I have yet seen, I have
found courteous, contrary to report. Palermo is
a fine sight from the sea. Bold, mountainouscoast
like all the north and east of Sicily. 160,000 in-
habitants. Arrived on shore at 9 o'clock and
passed the usual gauntlet of petty extortions.
My lessons cost me much. Visited the con-
sul.
I have visited the cathedral, built in 1158.
A rich and stately church with some fine bas-
reliefs. Saw the tombs of four sovereigns. The
first was Roger, the first king of Sicily, 1154;
Emperor Henry VI, 1197; Constantia, 1198 ;
Frederic II, 1250.
At the Viceroy's palace, I saw nothing but a
small chapel which they vaunted much. I went
to the Capuchin Convent. That pleased me
better. I like these Capuchins, who are the
most esteemed of the Catholic Clergy. Their
profession is beggary, but they distribute large
alms to the poor. You approach their houses


58
[AGE 29
JOURNAL
ce
through a regiment of beggars. The Fathers were
at dinner, so I took a turn in their sober garden.
Then came a monk, and led me down into their
cemetery. A strange spectacle enough, — long
aisles, the walls of which on either side are filled
with niches, and in every niche the standing
skeleton of a dead Capuchin; the skull and the
hands appearing, the rest of the anatomy wrapped
in cerements. Hundreds and hundreds of these
grinning mortalities were ranged along the walls,
here an abbot, there a general of the convent ;
every one had his label with his name, when in
the body, hanging at his breast. One was near
300 years old. On some the beard remained, on
some the hair. I asked the monk how many
there were? He said, since 300 years half a mil-
lion; and he himself would stand there with his
brothers in his turn.
My cicerone conducted ine next to the Spe-
dale dei Pazzi. I did not know where I was
going, or should not have visited it. I could not
help them and have seen enough of their sad
malady without coming to Sicily. Then to the
pleasant gardens of the Prince di Butera. At the
tavola rotonda of the Giacheri perhaps eight
persons dined. I believe no one but I spoke
English. So I sat mute. The same gentlemen
was


1833) MR. GARDNER. SOCIETY 59
spoke alternately French, Spanish and Italian.
A traveller should speak all the four, and his
pocket should be a well-spring of taris and
bajocchi.
Noble Flora or public garden; parterres and
fountains and statues; and the Marina fine, far
better than the good one of Messina.
Mr. Gardner tells me there are 400 churches
and convents in Palermo. I have visited sev-
eral beautiful ones. Art was born in Europe and
will not cross the ocean, I fear. In the university,
a good collection of casts and pictures; one Ru-
bens, one Vandyke, one Domenichino; and
many things from Pompeii, and Sicilian excava-
tions.
Mr. Gardner, the American consul, lives in
a fine house. Mrs. Gardner has a rich collection
of shells and fossils. She tells me, all her society
is English ; none native. If you ask a Sicilian
to your house, he will bring twenty more. They
will always accept your invitations, but never
ask you in return to visit them, but at their box
at the opera. Their pride is in an equipage to
ride on the Marina. Even shoemakers and hair-
dressers will go hungry to keep a carriage.
No learned or intelligent men, or next to none.
Abate Ferrara is. The daughters are sent to a


60
[AGE 29
JOURNAL
convent for their education, and learn to make
preserves and needlework. The English here,
and now some Sicilians, send their sons to Swit-
zerland to excellent schools.
The steamboat must stay another day, and I
must use philosophy. So I have been to the
Monte Reale on foot and I suppose the world
has not many more beautiful landscapes than
the plain and the port of Palermo as seen there-
from. Olive and orange and lemon groves wide
around. After visiting St. Simon's church and
the Benedictine Convent, I followed my viva-
cious little guide Raimondo to his house and he
set before me wine and olives and oranges and
bread.
At the tavola rotonda with eight persons we
had five languages. At the opera in the evening
I had a thought or two that must wait a more
convenient page. I do not know whether I can
recommend my domestique de place, Michele Be-
leo, to the patronage of my friends, but I promised
to remember his name. And now for Naples.
At SEA IN THE STEAMBOAT RE FERDINANDO.
March il.
I tried last night in my berth to recall what
had occurred at the opera. Toinua; what is


1833)
OPERA
61
really good is ever a new creation. I could not
help pitying the performers in their fillets and
shields and togas, and saw their strained and
unsuccessful exertions and thought on their long
toilette and personal mortification at making such
a figure. There they are, the same poor Johns
and Antonios they were this morning, for all their
gilt and pasteboard. But the moment the prima
donna utters one tone, or makes a gesture of
natural passion, it puts life into the dead scene.
I pity them no more. It is not a ghost of de-
parted things, not an old Greece and Rome, but
a Greece and Rome of this moment. It is living
merit which takes ground with all other merit
of whatever kind, — with beauty, nobility, gen-
ius and power. O trust to nature, whosoever
thou art, even though a strutting tragedy-prince.
Trust your simple self and you shall stand be-
fore genuine princes. The play was tedious, and
so are the criticisms.
Two pleasant young Englishmen, who had.
just ascended Etna, on board the boat. One
named Barclay, the other Hussey, fond of geo-
logy. Kind, domestic manners are more elegant
than too civil ones. “This is the most capital
place of all,” was better than twenty Sirs and
scrupulosities.


62
(AGE 29
JOURNAL
NAPLES
Vedi Napoli e poi muori
NAPLES, March 12.
And what if it is Naples, it is only the same
world of cake and ale, of men and truth and
folly. I won't be imposed upon by a name. It
is so easy, almost so inevitable, to be overawed
by names, that on entering this bay it is hard
to keep one's judgment upright, and be pleased
only after your own way. Baiæ and Misenum
and Vesuvius, Procida and Posilipo and Villa
Reale sound so big that we are ready to surren-
der at discretion and not stickle for our private
opinion against what seems the human race.
Who cares? Here's for the plain old Adam,
the simple, genuine self against the whole world.
Need is, that you assert yourself, or you will
find yourself overborne by the most paltry
things. A young man is dazzled by the stately
arrangements of the hotel, and jostled out of his
course of thought and study of men by such
trumpery considerations. The immense regard
paid to clean shoes and a smooth hat impedes
him, and the staring of a few dozens of idlers
in the street hinders him from looking about
him with his own eyes; and the attention which


1833) NAPLES. SAFEGUARDS 63
he came so far to give to foreign wonders is con-
centrated instead on these contemptible particu-
lars. Therefore it behoves the traveller to insist
first of all upon his simple human rights of see-
ing and of judging here in Italy, as he would in
his own farm or sitting-room at home.
Naples, March 13.
Howbeit, Naples is a fine city, though it rains
very fast to-day, - a beautiful city beyond dis-
pute, but merely from its wonderful situation
and its Chiaja, and not from the magnificence of
streets or public buildings. I have not yet found
St. Martin's, but have straggled into several
churches nowise remarkable.
When I was at home and felt vaunty, I pes-
tered the good folks with insisting on discarding
every motive but the highest. I said you need
never act for example's sake; never give pledges,
etc. But I think now that we need all the advan-
tages we can get, that our virtue wants all the
crutches; that we must avail ourselves of our
strength, and weakness, and want of appetite, and
press of affairs, and of calculation, and of fear, as
well as of the just and sublime considerations of
the love of God and of self-respect. Not that any
others will bear comparison with these, but be-


64
(AGE 29
JOURNAL
cause the temptations are so manifold and so
subtle and assail archangels as well as coarser clay,
that it will not do to spare any strength.
The remembrance of the affectionate, anxious
expectation with which others are intent upon
your contest with temptation is a wonderful pro-
vocative of virtue. So is it when in a vast city
of corrupt men you ask, who are the elegant and
great men, to reflect that in all and by all you
may be making yourself the elegant, the great,
the good man, day by day.
AT NAPLES
We are what we are made; each following Day
Is the Creator of our human mould
Not less than was the first ; the all-wise God
Gilds a few points in every several life;
And as each flower upon the fresh hillside,
And every coloured petal of each Aower,
Is sketched and dyed each with a new design,
Its spot of purple and its streak of brown,
So each man's life shall have its proper light,
And a few joys, a few peculiar charms,
For him round in the melancholy hours
And reconcile him to the common days.
Not many men see beauty in the fogs
Of close, low pinewoods in a river town;


1833] SAINT MARTIN'S
- 65
Yet unto me not morn's magnificence,
Nor the red rainbow of a summer eve,
Nor Rome, nor joyful Paris, nor the halls
Of rich men blazing hospitable light,
Nor wit, nor eloquence, — no, nor even the song
Of any woman that is now alive, -
Hath such a soul, such divine influence,
Such resurrection of the happy past,
As is to me when I behold the morn
Ope in such low, moist roadside, and beneath
Peep the blue violets out of the black loam;
Pathetic, silent poets that sing to me
Thine elegy, sweet singer, sainted wife!
March 14.
I climbed up this morning to St. Martin's
sumptuous church and saw the fine bold paint-
ings of Spagnoletto, excepting the dead Christ,
for that chapel was shut, and the keeper gone to
the city. But what pomp of marble and sculpture
and painting! A Nativity by Guido. I staid long
alone. There is a famed view of the city from the
adjoining monastery and what a noise came up
from its 400,000!
i In the Journal, a few lines were defective, and they are
here printed as Mr. Emerson later copied them into his Verse
book, and as given in the Appendix to the later editions of the
Poems.


66
JOURNAL
[AGE 29
March 15.
A nation of little men, I fear. No original art
remains. I have been to the Academia and seen
the works of Raffaelle, Titian, Guido, Correg-
gio. A good many artists were making indiffer-
ent copies of the best. I hear nothing of living
painters, but perhaps there are. A rich collection
of marble and bronze and frescoes, etc., from
Herculaneum, Pompeii, and the Baths of Cara-
calla. Many fine statues, Cicero, Aristides, Sen-
eca ; and Dianas, Apollos, etc., without end.
Nothing is more striking than the contrast of
the purity, the severity expressed in these fine
old heads, with the frivolity and sensuality of
the mob that exhibits and the mob that gazes at
them. These are the countenances of the first-
born, the face of man in the morning of the
world, and they surprise you with a moral ad-
monition as they speak of nothing around you,
but remind you of the fragrant thoughts and the
purest resolutions of your youth.
March 16.
Last night, stayed at home at my black lodg-
ing in the Croce di Malta and read Goethe. This
morn sallied out alone, and traversed, I believe
for the seventh time, that superb mile of the Villa


e
1833) DEGENERATE ITALY 67
Reale; then to the tomb of Virgil. But here the
effect of every antiquity is spoiled by the con-
trast of ridiculous or pitiful circumstances. The
boy who guided me was assailed by men, women
and children with all manner of opprobrium. A
gang of boys and girls followed me, crying, “Sig-
nore, C'è un mariolo!”. Yea, the venerable silence
of the poet's sepulchre must be disturbed with
the altercation of these Lilliputians. The tomb
is well enough for so great a name, but its rich
ashes are long ago scattered. It has an aperture
which looks down into the entrance of the Grotto
of Posilipo. Then descending, I passed through
this Cyclopean excavation to the bright and beau-
tiful country of vineyards and olive groves be-
yond with the fine ridges of Camaldoli.
Presently I met a company of muleteers who
set up a shout“ladre” and “mariolo” when they
saw my cicerone; so I hasted to get rid of my
suspicious companion, and engaged another to
conduct me to the Grotto del Cane. Through
lanes of plenty he led me to the beautiful Lake
of Agnano and the Grotto where they expose
a dog to the sulphurous vapor, and the animal
in a short time loses all signs of life, but is re-
stored by being brought out. They offered the
1 “He's a cheat!”


68
JOURNAL (Age 29
poor dog for the experiment if I would pay six
carlines; I told them I would not; so the dog
was saved his fainting. A pleasant place is this
little lake.
Thence I followed my guide for two or three
miles to the Solfatura of Pozzuoli and saw these
volcanic springs of ever-boiling sulphur. The soil
was hot under my feet and the mountain smoked
above at different openings. We always look at
volcanoes with great respect. Thence to Pozzu-
oli and the well-preserved remains of the Coli-
seum or amphitheatre. Here, underground, I
could have a lively recollection of that great
nation for whose amusement these fabrics were
reared, but above ground in Pozzuoli, it is im-
possible to connect the little dirty suburb full of
beggars, and beggar-boatmen, and beggar-coach-
eys with the most ancient city which the Cu-
mæans founded, the old Dicæarchia, and, long
after, the Puteoli of Cicero, his “ little Rome,”
as he affectionately called this garden of palaces.
Alas! no! here by the Temple of Serapis, one
stout fellow tried to pick my pocket of my torn
handkerchief, and here, too, my guide worried
me with demanding three or four times as much
as his due, and a swarm of boys settled on me
with “antiquities” to sell, old coins and frag-
mæa


69
1833] DISILLUSIONED
ments of brass and copper, and beggars, as usual
a regiment. Ah, sirs of Naples ! you pay a high
price for your delicious country and famed neigh-
borhood in this swarming, faithless, robber pop-
ulation that surrounds and fills your city to-day.
I was very glad to see no more antiquities, but
to get home as fast as I could. I dined with
Mr. Rogers, and found some pleasant gentle-
men at his hospitable house.
One must be thoroughly reinforced with the
spirit of antiquity to preserve his enthusiasm
through all the annoyances that await the vis-
itor of these ruins. Long ago when I dreamed
at home of these things, I thought I should
come suddenly in the midst of an open country
upon broken columns and fallen friezes, and
their solitude would be solemn and eloquent.
Instead of this, they are carefully fenced round
like orchards, and the moment the unhappy
traveller approaches one of them this vermin of
ciceroni and padroni fasten upon him ; a class
of people whose looks and manners are more
like those of MacGuffog and the Duke of Al-
satia than the vain and flippant character I had
imagined as the exhibitor con amore. What with
these truculent fellows, and the boys, and the


70
[Age 29
JOURNAL
beggars and the coachmen, all sentiment is killed
in the bud, and most men clap both hands on
their pockets and run.
March 17.
This morning under the kind guidance of
Mr. Durante I have visited six or seven churches,
the finest in the city. They are truly splendid
and compare with the best I have seen. The
Cathedral is a suite of churches, and there the
blood of St. Januarius is annually liquefied. Its
wealth must be immense. They showed me thirty
busts of saints, large as life, composed of solid
silver, and lamps, and angels, and candelabra,
many more. Huge gates of brass richly carved
admitted us to this chapel. It was thronged with
worshippers ; so was the nave of the Cathedral.
Then the private chapel of the family of the
Severini, in the Strada St. Severino, contains
the famous veiled statues, which are wonders in
their way.
Then Santa Clara, Santo Geronimo, St. Lau-
rentio, Gesù Nuovo, St. Gaetano; all which I
trust I shall find again, for they were superb
structures and of their ornaments was there no
end. Such churches can only be finished in ages.
They were all well attended this Sabbath morn.
Who can imagine the effect of a true and worthy


1833) STREET SIGHTS 71
form of worship in these godly piles ! It would
ravish us. I do not mean the common Protest-
ant service, but what it should be if all were
actual worshippers. It would have something
of this Catholic ceremony too, and yet not show
a priest trotting hither and thither, and buzzing
now on this side then on that.
These mighty dwelling-houses rise to five and
six tall stories, and every floor is occupied by a
different family. Opposite my window at the
Crocelle, on the fourth storey, a family lived with
poultry cackling around them all day, 40 feet
from the ground; and to-day I observe a turkey
in the chamber across the street, stepping about
the second storey. A goat comes up stairs every
day to be milked. But the woes of this great
city are many and conspicuous. Goethe says,
he shall never again be wholly unhappy, for
he has seen Naples; if he had said happy, there
would have been equal reason. You cannot go
five yards in any direction without seeing sad-
dest objects and hearing the most piteous wail-
ings. Instead of the gayest of cities, you seem
to walk in the wards of a hospital. Even Charity
herself is glad to take a walk in the Villa Reale,
and extricate herself from beggars for half an
hour. Whilst you eat your dinner at a trat-
OIO
caso
ca


72 . JOURNAL
[AGE 29
Cover
rises
toria, a beggar stands at the window, watching
every mouthful.
March 19.
It rains almost every day in showers, to the
great discomfiture of all the inhabitants of the
town where people live out of doors. The streets
are full of tables and stands of all sorts of small
tradesmen. When the shower comes, the mer-
chant takes out his pocket-handkerchiefs and
covers up his table-full of goods. Then rises
the cry of “ La carozza! la carozza!” from the
thousands of hackney coachmen that infest every
street and square.
It takes one "grand tour” to learn how to
travel.
March 20.
And to-day to the Lake Avernus, to the
Lucrine Lake, to Baiæ, the Arco Felice or gate
of Cuma; and at Baiæ to the Temple of Venus,
the Temple of Mercury and many, many name-
less ruins. A day of ruins. The soil of Baiæ is
crumbled marble and brick. Dig anywhere, and
they come to chambers and arches and ruins.
What a subterranean taste these Roman build-
ers had. On each side I saw structures peeping
out of the ground that must have been originally
built into the side of the hill. Here and there
anean


1833) THE BAY. AVERNUS 73
could be traced for some distance in the hillside
the remains of a floor composed of small pieces
of white marble. I broke some out. It is a most
impressive spot. Before you is this ever beauti-
ful bay, and Capri (always more like a picture
· than a real island), and Vesuvius with his smoke;
and about you are the great remains of this
pleasure-ground of the Roman Senators, their
magnificent Nahant, not only broken by time
but by earthquakes, and covered even with new
soil by the volcanic action which has raised
Monte Nuovo, a large hill within a fourth of a
mile from this spot. Then, to what base uses
turned! the Temple of Venus, which is almost
all standing, and even some delicate bas-reliefs
remain upon the ceiling, is now a cooper's shop,
and asses bray in it. They turn the chambers
of the Roman ladies into little stables for the
goats, and all Baiæ and Pozzuoli swarm with
the gang of ciceroni and beggars. I saw the lake
of Avernus, a beautiful little sheet of water, but
what gave it its evil classic name, it is not easy
to see. Nor did the Acherontian marsh at all
suggest the images of the sheeted dead and the
Judges of Hell. As to the Lucrine Lake, it is
not above three times the size of Frog Pond,
nor quite three times as pretty.


74 .
JOURNAL
(Age 29
March 21.
Well, I have been to Herculaneum and
Pompeii. Herculaneum is nothing but a speci-
men of the mode of destruction, a monument
of the terrors of the volcano. ...
March 23.
Judge of your natural character by what you
do in your dreams. If you yield to temptation
there, I am afraid you will, awake. If you are a
coward then, I jalouse of your courage by day.
Sunday.
Attended service in the English Chapel. Rev.
Mr. B. read the prayers very well, and the lit-
urgy sounded well and kindly in my ear. But
nothing could be more insipid, inane than the
sermon. It was a counterpart of the “Noodle's
Oration," or the “Song by a Person of Quality.”
I thought how always we are beginning to live,
and how perfectly practicable at all times is the
sublime part of life, the high hours, for which
all the rest are given.
March 25.
I left Naples in Angresani's coach with my
townsmen Messrs. Grant and Warren, and two
English people. We dined at Molo di Gaeta;


1833]
ROME
75
and I think I have seen nothing since I stood
on the Monte Reale at Palermo, which was
richer than the view from this pleasant Locanda.
Strange costumes upon the road at Fondi. But
we rode all night and passed in safety the Pon-
tine marshes, molested neither by malaria nor
by robbers. As we drew nigh to the imperial
city, the stately ruins of the aqueducts began
to appear, then the tomb of Cecilia Metella,
and we entered the city by the Gate of St. John.
ROME
Rome, March 27.
It is even so; my poor feet are sore with
walking all this day amongst the ruins of Rome.
Alone in Rome! why Rome is lonely too ;
Besides you need not be alone, the soul
Shall have society of its own rank,
Be great, be true, and all the Scipios,
The Catos, the wise patriots of Rome,
Shall flock to you and tarry by your side
And comfort you with their high company.
Virtue alone is sweet society;
It keeps the key to all heroic hearts,
And opens you a welcome in them all.
You must be like them, if you desire them,
Scorn trifles, and embrace a better aim
Than wine, or sleep or praise ;


76
[AGE 29
JOURNAL
Hunt knowledge as the lover woos a maid,
And ever in the strife of your own thoughts
Obey the nobler impulse. That is Rome.
That shall command a Senate to your side;
For there is no might in the universe
That can contend with love. It reigns forever.
Wait then, sad friend, wait in majestic peace
The hour of heaven. Generously trust
Thy fortune's web to the beneficent hand
That until now has put his world in fee
For thee. He watches for thee still. His love
Broods over thee; and as God lives in heaven,
However long thou walkest solitary,
The hour of heaven shall come, the man appear.'
March 28.
We came hither Tuesday, a little after noon,
but that day I saw nothing but a passing view
of the Coliseum as we entered the city, and after-
wards the yellow Tiber. Yesterday morn at
nine I set forth with a young Englishman, Mr.
Kingston, and crossed the Tiber and visited St.
Peter's. Another time I will say what I think
about this temple. From St. Peter's to the
Chambers of Raffaele and saw the pictures of
1 As in the case of the lines written at Naples, the better
form of these verses, as copied in the Verse book, is here given.
They are printed in the Appendix to the Poems.


1833)
VATICAN. CAPITOL
77
the great master. It was a poor way of using so
great a genius to set him to paint the walls of
rooms that have no beauty and, as far as I see,
no purpose. Then we threaded our way through
narrow streets to the Temple of Vesta, and the
house of Rienzi, “last of Romans," then to the
FORUM and the Coliseum. Here we spent some
hours in identifying ruins and fixing in mind
the great points of the old topography.
March 29.
I went to the Capitoline hill, then to its Mu-
seum and saw the Dying Gladiator, the Antin-
ous, the Venus, – to the gallery, then to the
Tarpeian Rock, then to the vast and splendid
museum of the Vatican, a wilderness of marble.
After traversing many a shining chamber and
gallery I came to the Apollo and soon after
to the Laocoon. 'Tis false to say that the casts
give no idea of the originals. I found I knew
these fine statues already by heart and had ad-
mired the casts long since much more than I
ever can the originals.
Here too was the Torso Hercules, as familiar
to the eyes as some old revolutionary cripple.
On we went from chamber to chamber, through
galleries of statues and vases and sarcophagi and


78
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bas-reliefs and busts and candelabra — through
all forms of beauty and richest materials— till the
eye was dazzled and glutted with this triumph
of the arts. Go and see it, whoever you are. It is
the wealth of the civilized world. It is a contribu-
tion from all ages and nations of what is most rich
and rare. He who has not seen it does not know
what beautiful stones there are in the planet, and
much less what exquisite art has accomplished
on their hard sides for Greek and Roman
luxury.
In one apartment there were three statues of
Canova, the Perseus, and two fighting gladiators.
Then lions and horses and fauns and cupids and
cars; then the sitting philosophers, and such Sci-
pios and Cæsars ! It is vain to refuse to admire;
you must in spite of yourself. It is magnificent.
Even all this unrivalled show could not satisfy
us. We knew there was more. Much will have
more. We knew that the first picture in the
world was in the same house, and we left all this
pomp to go and see the Transfiguration by
Raphael. A calm, benignant beauty shines over
all this picture and goes directly to the heart.
It seems almost to call you by name. How the
father of the poor mad boy looks at the Apos-
tles! and the sister! And the sweet and sublime


1833) THE TRANSFIGURATION 79
face of Jesus above is beyond praise, and ranks
the artist with the noble poets and heroes of his
species, - the first born of the earth. I had
thought in my young days that this picture and
one or two more were to surprise me with a blaze
of beauty, that I was to be delighted by I know not
what bright combination of colours and forms,
but this familiar, simple, home-speaking counte-
nance I did not expect.
March 30.
I have seen St. John Lateran's and the Pan-
theon, and the Baptistery of Constantine, and
the sad remnants of the palaces of the Cæsars, and
many many ruins more. Glad I was amidst all
these old stumps of the past ages to see Lewis
Stackpole, as fresh and beautiful as a young palm
tree in the desert. Rome is very pleasant to me, as
Naples was not, if only from one circumstance,
that here I have pleasant companions to eat my
bread with, and there I had none.
This morning went with young Warren and
Grant' to Thorwaldsen's studio and saw his fine
i Probably James Sullivan Warren, a friend of Dr. Holmes,
and in Europe all the time; he is mentioned more than once in
Morse's Life and Letters of Holmes. Grant may have been Pat-
rick Grant, who graduated the year before Dr. Holmes at Har-
vard; he is pleasantly mentioned by Emerson a few pages later.


80
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statue of Byron. 'Tis good as a history. I saw
three or four rooms of stone things, but nothing
else to look at. Then to the Barberini Palace and
saw the Beatrice Cenci of Guido and the Forna-
rina of Raffaelle.
Thence to the Borghese Palace and saw Raf-
faelle's portrait of Cæsar Borgia and many fine
things, but nothing that pleased me more than
a Madonna by Andrea del Sarto. Whoso loves
a beautiful face, look at this.
Then to the Colonna Palace, a proud old man-
sion of this ancient family, the finest suite of
apartments I have ever seen, and hung around
with master pictures, and many of them portraits
of the heroes and the beauties of their own line.
Two fine portraits of Luther and Calvin by Ti-
tian, and the martyrdom of St. Sebastian by
Guido. But I liked the whole show,— the hall
itself, better than any part of it. William Pratt
very kindly acted the part of cicerone and intro-
duced me to his relatives.
Then I found under the Capitoline hill the fa-
mous Mamertine Prison, the scene of the death
of Cethegus and Lentulus, and of the captivity of
St. Peter and St. Paul, and the reputed dungeon
of the “ Roman daughter."
This p. m. I went to the palace of Cardinal
erone


1833]
PALM SUNDAY
81
Wield, where Bishop England delivered a dis-
course, in explanation of the ceremonies of the
Catholic Church to-morrow (Palm Sunday), to the
English and American residents. I was led in
the evening, so easy is it to be led, to a violin con-
cert. I was glad, however, to learn the power of
a fiddle. It wailed like a bugle, and reminded me
of much better things and much happier hours.
Sunday, March 31.
I have been to the Sistine Chapel to see the
Pope bless the palms, and hear his choir chaunt
the Passion. The Cardinals came in, one after
another, each wearing a purple robe, an ermine
cape, and a small red cap to cover the tonsure.
A priest attended each one, to adjust the robes
of their eminences. As each cardinal entered the
chapel, the rest rose. One or two were fine per-
sons. Then came the Pope in scarlet robes and
bishop's mitre. After he was seated, the cardinals
went in turn to the throne and kneeled and kissed
his hand. After this ceremony the attendants di-
vested the cardinals of their robes and put on
them a gorgeous cope of cloth-of-gold. When
this was arranged, a sort of ornamental baton
made of the dried palm leaf was brought to his
Holiness and blessed, and each of the cardinals


82
[AGE 29
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re
went again to the throne and received one of
these from the hands of the Pope. They were
supplied from a large pile at the side of the papal
chair. After the cardinals, came other dignita-
ries, bishops, deans, canons,— I know them not,
but there was much etiquette, some kissing the
hand only, and some the foot also of the Pope.
Some received olive branches. Lastly several
officers performed the same ceremony.
When this long procession of respect was over,
and all the robed multitude had received their
festal palms and olives, his Holiness was attended
to a chair of state, and, being seated, was lifted
up by his bearers, and, preceded by the long
official array and by his chaunting choir, he rode
out of the chapel.
It was hard to recognize in this ceremony the
gentle Son of Man who sat upon an ass amidst
the rejoicings of his fickle countrymen. Whether
from age or from custom, I know not, but the
Pope's eyes were shut or nearly shut as he rode.
After a few minutes he reëntered the chapel in like
state, and soon after retired and left the sacred
college of cardinals to hear the Passion chaunted
by themselves. The chapel is that whose walls
Michel Angelo adorned with his Last Judgment.
But to-day I have not seen the picture well.


1833) POMP AT SAINT PETER'S 83
All this pomp is conventional. It is imposing
to those who know the customs of courts, and
of what wealth and of what rank these particular
forms are the symbols. But to the eye of an
Indian I am afraid it would be ridiculous. There
is no true majesty in all this millinery and imbe-
cility. Why not devise ceremonies that shall be
in as good and manly taste as their churches and
pictures and music?
I counted twenty-one cardinals present. Music
at St. Peter's in the afternoon, and better still at
Chiesa Nuova in the evening. Those mutilated
wretches sing so well it is painful to hear them.
Monday.
To-day at the Grotto of Egeria, whence came
the laws of Rome; then to the tomb of Cecilia
Metella, “the wealthiest Roman's wife.” A
mighty tomb; the wall is thirty feet thick. Then
to the tomb of Scipio, then to the Spada Palace,
and saw the statue of Pompey, at whose base great
Cæsar fell, then to the Palace Farnesina, to see
Raffaelle's Frescoes. Here Raffaelle painted
whilst Michel Angelo locked himself up in the
Sistine Chapel. Then to the Vatican. And at
night to an American soirée.


84
[AGE 29
84
JOURNAL
01
Tuesday, April 2.
What is more pathetic than the studio of a
young artist? Not rags and disease in the street
move you to sadness like the lonely chamber lit-
tered round with sketches and canvas and col-
our-bags. There is something so gay in the art
itself that these rough and poor commencements
contrast more painfully with it. Here another
enthusiast feeds himself with hope, and rejoices
in dreams, and smarts with mortifications. The
melancholy artist told me that, if the end of
painting was to please the eye, he would throw
away his pallet. And yet how many of them not
only fail to reach the soul with their conceptions,
but fail to please the eye.
These beggarly Italians! If you accept any
hospitality at an Italian house a servant calls
upon you the next day and receives a fee, and
in this manner, the expense of your entertain-
ment is defrayed. In like manner, if you are
presented to the Pope, it costs you five dol-
lars.
Plain good manners and sensible people-
how refreshing they are! A bashful man is
cramped among the fine people who have
polished manners but dull brains; but he is
relieved and recreated by a better influence


1833] THE MISERERE 1 85
and regains his natural shape and air and
powers.
To-day I have seen the fine church of Santa
Maria Maggiore, the third best in Rome. Then
the Doria Palace. There was Nicholas Machia-
vel by Titian and landscapes of Claude Lor-
raine.
Wednesday, April 3.
The famous Miserere was sung this afternoon
in the Sistine Chapel. The saying at Rome is,
that it cannot be imitated, not only by any other
choir, but in any other chapel in the world. The
Emperor of Austria sent Mozart to Rome on
purpose to have it sung at Vienna with like
effect, but it failed.
Surely it is sweet music, and sounds more like
the Eolian harp than anything else. The pathetic
lessons of the day relate the treachery of Judas
and apply select passages from the prophets and
psalms to the circumstances of Jesus. Then
whilst the choir chaunt the words “Traditor au-
tem dedit eis signum, dicens, Quem osculatus fuero,
ipse est, tenete eum," all the candles in the chapel
are extinguished but one. During the repetition
of this verse, the last candle is taken down and
hidden under the altar. Then out of the silence
and the darkness rises this most plaintive and


86
JOURNAL
(AGE 29
melodious strain (the whole congregation kneel-
ing), “Miserere mei, Deus,” etc. The sight and
the sound are very touching.
Everything here is in good taste. The choir
are concealed by the high fence which rises
above their heads. We were in Michel Angelo's
chapel which is full of noblest scriptural forms
and faces.
Thursday.
These forms strike me more than I ex-
pected, and yet how do they fall short of what
they should be. To-day I saw the Pope wash
the feet of thirteen pilgrims, one from each na-
tion of Christendom. One was from Kentucky.
After the ceremony, he served them at dinner;
this I did not see. But Gregory XVI is a learned
and able man; he was a monk and is reputed of
pure life. Why should he not leave one moment
this formal service of fifty generations and speak
out of his own heart— the Father of the Church
to his children, — though it were but a sin-
gle sentence or a single word? One earnest
word or act to this sympathetic audience would
overcome them. It would take all hearts by
storm.
To-night I heard the Miserere sung in St.
Peter's and with less effect than yesterday. But


1833) MOONLIGHT IN ROME 87
what a temple! When night was settling down
upon it and a long religious procession moved
through a part of the church, I got an idea of its
immensity such as I had not before. You walk
about on its ample, marble pavement as you
would on a common, so free are you of your
neighbors ; and throngs of people are lost upon
it. And what beautiful lights and shades on its
mighty gilded arches and vaults and far windows
and brave columns, and its rich-clad priests that
look as if they were the pictures come down from
the walls and walking.
Thence we came out (I was walking with two
painters, Cranch and Alexander) under the moon
and saw the planet shine upon the finest foun-
tain in the world, and upon all the stone saints
on the piazza and the great church itself. This
was a spectacle which only Rome can boast, —
how faery beautiful! An Arabian Night's tale.
Good Friday.
The Mystery of the Tre Ore is said and shewn
in all the churches, in some with scenic repre-
sentations. I have seen nothing affecting, though
it is sometimes, I am told, very much so. Many
religious processions in the streets, muffled in
black with staves surmounted with death's-heads.


88
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This night I saw with Cranch the great Coliseum
by moonlight. It is full of dread.
Saturday.
I did not go to the baptism of the Jew to-day.
Usually it is a weary farce. 'Tis said they buy
the Jews, at 150 scudes the head, to be sprin-
kled. This man was respectable. This P. M. I
heard the Greek mass. The chaunts are in Ar-
menian.
Sunday.
This morning the Pope said mass in St. Peter's.
Rich dresses, great throngs, lines of troops, but
not much to be said for the service. It is Easter,
and the curtains are withdrawn from the pictures
and statues to my great joy, and the Pope wears
his triple crown instead of a mitre.
At twelve o'clock the benediction was given.
A canopy was hung over the great window that
is above the principal door of St. Peter's, and
there sat the Pope. The troops were all under
arms and in uniform in the piazza below, and
all Rome and much of England and Germany
and France and America was gathered there also.
The great bell of the church tolled, drums beat,
and trumpets sounded over the vast congrega-
tion.


1833]
EASTER
89
Presently, at a signal, there was silence, and
a book was brought to the Pope, out of which
he read a moment and then rose and spread out
his hands and blessed the people. All knelt as
one man. He repeated his action (for no words
could be heard), stretching his arms gracefully
to the north and south and east and west, pro-
nouncing a benediction on the whole world. It
was a sublime spectacle. Then sounded drums
and trumpets, then rose the people, and every-
one went his way.
This evening I have seen the illumination of
the church. When it was dark, I took the well-
known way and on reaching the Bridge of St.
Angelo found the church already hung with lights
from turret to foundation. But this was only
partial. At the moment when the bell in the
tower tolled 8 o'clock, out flashed innumerable
torches in the air and the whole edifice blazed
with fires which cast the first lamps into shade
and lit up every face in the multitude of the
piazza as with daylight. But it is very melan-
choly to see an illumination in this declining
church and impoverished country.
I love St. Peter's church. It grieves me to
think that after a few days I shall see it no more.
It has a peculiar smell from the quantity of


90
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incense burned in it. The music that is heard in it
is always good and the eye is always charmed. It
is an ornament of the earth. It is not grand, it is
so rich and pleasing; it should rather be called
the sublime of the beautiful.
Tuesday.
To-day I went with Cranch and Wall to the
Palazzo Chigi, a good gallery; there is the Laura
of Paul Veronese; to the Farnese, a fine palace
where are Annibal Caracci's frescoes, but saw no
pictures beside. Then we crossed the Tiber in
a boat to the Corsini Palace, whose noble gardens
ascend the side of Mons Janiculum ; pleasant walk
and far prospect of the Apennines and of Mount
Soracte. Then to the Sciarra Palace, whose gal-
lery is one of the best in Rome. Quick eye had
Cranch to detect a Titian everywhere. He ad-
mires him as an original painter. Here was
Guido's Magdalen; Leonardo da Vinci's Mod-
esty and Vanity ; Titian's Mistress ; Raffaelle's
Portrait of himself; and fine pictures by Garofalo.
All the Americans are gone, and I who lately
knew them not, now feel quite alone, my country-
men and countrywomen have been so civil and
social. Miss Bridgen is a most intelligent and
excellent lady, and young Grant has made me
much a debtor by his courtesy.
I


II.
1833) GLORY OF THE VATICAN 91
April 10.
Walked alone in the spacious grounds and fine
groves of the Villa Borghese, whilst the birds
sang to me. I thought it would be good to spend
an hour there by myself every day. Ποίημα πρά-
Šews.
[April] 11.
How have all nations and ages contributed to
the magnificence of the Vatican! If we could only
know the history of each marble there, when and
by whom, and for whom it was carved ; of what
luxurious villa it formed an ornament, it would
open to us the story of the whole world. Each
has figured in splendid scenes and served the
pleasure of the lords of mankind. Then again,
most gladly would I know the place of all these
works in the history of art; how this vase and
that statue were designed, what the sculptor and
what his patron thought of them, and the marks
of the eras of progress and decline. But now they
amaze me and beget a vague curiosity which they
cannot satisfy, nor can any living man.
I went up to the top of St. Peter's and climbed
into the copper ball. It is necessary to go up into
the dome in order to estimate the prodigious di-
mensions of the edifice. It takes one's breath
away, to look down into the church from the


92 : JOURNAL [AGE 29
Giro within the cupola, and at first the tempta-
tion is terrible to throw yourself down, though
the walk is wide and the railing is high. With
some pauses and some conversation I succeeded
in getting round the dizzy promenade; but, like
many things in Rome, it is a quite unimaginable
spot. The view from the exterior of the cupola,
of the Campagna di Roma is delicious, from the
Apennines on one side to the Sea on the other,
and Tiber flowing through his marble wilder-
ness below.
April 13.
Rome fashions my dreams. All night I wan-
der amidst statues and fountains, and last night
was introduced to Lord Byron!' It is a graceful
termination to so much glory that Rome, now
in her fallen state, should be the metropolis of
the arts. Art is here a greater interest than any-
where else. The Caffès are filled with English,
French and German artists, both sculptors and
painters. The number of mosaicistas and print-
shops is surprising. Rinaldi has just finished a
mosaic picture of Pæstum, which is valued at a
thousand louis d'or.
I am indebted to my new-found countryman?
i Meaning, first rightly appreciated Childe Harold.
2 John Cranch, the portrait-painter.


93
1833] ANDREA SACCHI
for some most pleasant hours, a grateful relief
to sights of ruins. I do not yet fall in with that
class of English I had hoped to see, those best
educated gentlemen, namely, who are not bred
with a view to any profession, nor even to pol-
itics, but only to maintain the old honours of
their houses. In such a class one would hope to
find chivalry and learning and sense ; but I am
not so fortunate as to meet them, but of dandies
an abundance. A gentleman, I suppose, is as
rare as a genius. Those who usurp the name are
often masses of selfishness and littleness.
One
al
Sunday, April 14.
Attended divine service at the English Chapel.
To preach well you must speak the truth. It is
vain to say what has been said every Sunday
for a hundred years, if it is not true.
April 15.
Few pictures please me more than the Vision
of St. Romoaldo by Andrea Sacchi in the Vati-
can. What a majestic form is the last Carmelite
in the train who ascends the steps ! One is
greater for knowing that such forms can be.
What a cant of the head has this same figure !
Look at him.


94
JOURNAL
[AGE 29
I shall, I think, remember few sculptures bet-
ter when I get back into my chimney corner
than the beautiful head of the Justice who sits
with Prudence on the monument of Paulus III,
on the left of the Tribuna in St. Peter's. It was
designed by Michel Angelo, executed by Wil-
liam de la Porta ; but where in the universe is
the archetype from which the artist drew this
sweetness and grace? There is a heaven.
I have been to see the library of the Vatican.
I think they told me the hall was a quarter of
a mile long. Afterwards, the Elgin marble-casts.
What heads and forms !
In Rome all is ruinous. In the garden before
my window the flowerpots stand upon blocks
made of the capitals of old columns, turned up-
side down. Everywhere you may see in the
walls and the foundations of houses fragments
of carved and fluted stone now cemented in with
rough stones, but once the ornament of the
Luculli or Scauri, or even of Vesta or Jove.
April 17.
I have been to the church of St. Onofrio to
see the tomb of Tasso. Then, in the convent,
the courteous fathers showed us his bust in wax.
He died in the convent, and this head was taken


1833) TASSO. JOVE'S TEMPLE 95
at the time from the corpse. A noble head it is,
full of independence and genius. It resembles
strongly the prints I have seen of his head, but
is better, I should think, than any. I shall al-
ways like him the better for having seen this
face. I have never yet learned to feel any strong
interest in a poet so imitative, but since God
marked him, I will attend to him.
In the convent was also a beautiful Madonna
by Leonardo da Vinci.
I neglected on the 15th to record my visit to
the church Aracæli, once the Temple of Jupiter
Capitolinus; a dim-lighted, spacious and lofty
temple worthy of its name and fame and loca-
tion. Here, if I rightly remember, Gibbon says,
he conceived the design of writing his History.
Its Scala might be called the Giants' Staircase,
and on some of the steps were half-effaced in-
scriptions. What a memorandum is each step to
the historical eye that can see the priest of Jove,
ages back, climbing the same hill, burning in-
cense on the same spot.
What pleasant fountains all over Rome, in
every villa, garden, and piazza. An eye for
beauty is nature's gift to this people; they de-
light in bright colours and in all ornaments.
As we sat in the Caffè we agreed that it was


96
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decorated and furnished with a beauty and
good taste which could not be rivalled in
America.
No man should travel until he has learned
the language of the country he visits. Otherwise
he voluntarily makes himself a great baby,
so helpless and so ridiculous.
[In Italy, the little airs of the street-singers
took Mr. Emerson's fancy. He used to recall
this verse of the inebriate's pathetic explanation
and appeal to his wife :-
“ Son caduto quì per terra,
Sol del vin la causa fu,-
La sua virtù
E la mia rovina.
Cara Bettina,
Ajutami tu!”]
In Rome at the best trattoria you may get a
good dinner for 15 bajocchi. Thus to-day and
yesterday I have dined at the Lepri on this fash-
ion : “Macaroni a la Napolitana,” 3 ; “Mon-
gana con spinnagio,” 5; “ crema in piátta,” 5;
and two rolls of bread to eat with it, 2;=15
cents for a good dinner in the best house. Add
one or two for waiter. My breakfast at the most


1833)
TIVOLI
97
expensive caffè in Rome costs 16 cents. Coffee
in the evening 5, and my chamber at the Gran
Bretagna 50 cents.
La pianta uomo nasce più robusta in Italia che
in qualunque altra terra, e quegli stessi atroci
delitti che vi si commettono, ne sono una prova.'
Hotel di Gran Bretagna, PIAZZA DI SPAGNA.
Rome, April 20.
Yesterday I went with Cranch and Smith and
Wall' to Tivoli. I cannot describe the beauty of
the Cascade, nor the terror of the Grotto, nor the
charm of the iris that arched the torrent. The
Temple of Vesta is one of the most beautiful of
ruins and in a chosen place. The whole circuit
of about four miles which we made with the cice-
rone showed everywhere a glorious landscape.
All was bright with a warm sun. The ground
was sprinkled with gay flowers, and among
1 “The plant, Man, in Italy springs up stronger than in any
other land whatsoever, and the atrocious crimes there done are
a proof.” — Alfieri.
2 Mr. Wall, a young artist of New Bedford, Mass., in
whom Mr. Emerson found a pleasant acquaintance and trav-
elling companion. His copy of the Three Fates in the Pitti
Palace, then attributed to Michael Angelo, always hung over
the fireplace in Mr. Emerson's study.


98
JOURNAL (Age 29
others that pink thing with a spicy smell we used
to call “Rabbit's ears.” · Then there was the
great aloe with its formidable, fleshy spine grow-
ing about, and (which is a rare sight) one of
these plants was in bloom. We found the re-
mains of the villa of Catullus, then the reputed
site of the house of Horace, and hard by, the
arched ruins of the Villa of Quintus Varus. Here
too, they say, Mæcenas lived; and no wonder that
poet and patron should have come to this fair
specular mount, escaping from the dust of the
Capital. The Campagna lies far and wide below,
like a sea. Then we went to the Villa d'Este,
whose beauty in my eyes outshone the beauty
of the cascade. Such trees, such walls, such
fountains, such grottoes, such adornments, the
long, long house, — all its empty halls painted
in fresco; the piazza with its vast prospect, the
silver river, the sun that shone, and the air that
blew,— I would fain keep them in my memory
the fairest image of Italy. The Villa belongs to
the Duke of Modena, who never saw it, and it
is occupied only by a custode.
I have paid a last visit to the Capitoline
Museum and Gallery. One visit is not enough,
no, nor two, to learn the lesson. The Dying
1 Cyclamen (?).


1833] BYRON. MICHELANGELO 99
Gladiator is a most expressive statue, but it will
always be indebted to the muse of Byron for
fixing upon it forever his pathetic thought. In-
deed Italy is Byron's debtor, and I think no
one knows how fine a poet he is who has not
seen the subjects of his verse, and so learned to
appreciate the justness of his thought and at
the same time their great superiority to other
men's. I know well the great defects of Childe
Harold.
In the Gallery I coveted nothing so much as
Michel Angelo's portrait by himself.
ROME, April 21.
I went this morn to the Church of Trinità de'
Monte to see some nuns take the veil. Can any
ceremony be more pathetic than to see youth,
beauty, rank, thus self-devoted to mistaken duty.
I went this afternoon to see. Michel Angelo's
statue of Moses, at the church of San Pietro in
Vinculo, and it is grand. It seems he sought to
embody the Law in a man. Directly under the
statue, at the side where the whole face is seen,
the expression is terrible. I could wish away those
emblematic horns. “ Alzati, parla!” said the
enthusiastic sculptor.


100
[AGE 29
JOURNAL
FROM A LETTER TO MISS EMERSON
Rome, April 22.
“Here is matter for all feeling,” said Byron,
and yet how evanescent and superficial is most
of that emotion which art and magnificence can
awaken. It yields in me to the interest the most
ordinary companion inspires. I never get used to
men. They always awaken expectations in me
which they always disappoint, and I am a poor
asteroid in the great system, subject to disturb-
ances in my orbit, not only from all the planets, but
from all their moons. The wise man, the true
friend, the finished character, we seek everywhere,
and only find in fragments. Yet I cannot per-
suade myself that all the beautiful souls are fled
out of the planet, or that always I shall be ex-
cluded from good company and yoked with green,
dull, pitiful persons. After being cabined up by
sea and by land, since I left home, with various
little people, - all better to be sure and much
wiser than me, but still such persons as did not
help me, — how refreshing was it to fall in with
two or three sensible persons with whom I could
eat my bread and take my walk and feel myself
a free man once more of God's universe. Still
these last were not instructors, and I want in-


1833]
A TEACHER
IOI
structors. God's greatest gift is a Teacher, and
when will he send me one full of truth and of
boundless benevolence and of heroic sentiments?
I can describe the man. I know the idea well,
but where is its real blood-warm counterpart?
I know whilst I write thus that the creature is
never to dawn upon me like a sunburst. I know
too well how slowly we edge along sideways to
everything good and brilliant in life, and how
casually and unobservedly we make all our most
valued acquaintances. And yet I saw Ellen at
once in all her beauty, and she never disappointed
me, but in her death. And why may not the
Master whom the soul anticipates, so appear?
Our stern experience replies with the tongue of all
its days: Son of Man! it saith, allgiving and re-
ceiving is reciprocal; you entertain angels una-
wares, but they cannot impart more or higher
things than you are in a state to receive, but every
step of your progress affects the intercourse you
hold with all others ; elevates its tone, deepens its
meaning, sanctifies its spirit, and when time and
suffering and self-denial shall have transfigured
and glorified this spotted self, you shall find your
fellows also transformed, and their faces shall
shine with the light of wisdom and the beauty
of holiness. You who cling with both hands to,


102
JOURNAL
(Age 29
the literal word and to venerable traditions will,
no doubt, find in my complaints a confession and
a self-accusation. You will perhaps say I do not
receive whom Heaven gives. But you must not
say any such thing. For I am, you see, speak-
ing truly as to my Maker. Jesus, who has done
so much to raise and sweeten human life, and
who prized sincerity more than sacrifice, cannot
be to me what he was to John. My mother, my
brothers, my companions, must be much more
to me in all respects of friendship than he
can be.
“ How small, of all that human hearts endure,
The part that laws or kings can cause or cure:
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find.”
In Rome it is not the diameter nor the cir-
cumference of the columns, it is not the dimen-
sions nor the materials of the temples, which
constitute their chief charm. It is the name of
Cicero; it is the remembrance of a wise and good
man; it is the remembrance of Scipio and Cato
and Regulus; the influence of human character,
the heroes who struggled, the patriots who fell,
the wise men who thought, - the men who con-
tended worthily in their lifetime in the same trials


1833) ACTIONS INTELLIGIBLE 103
which God in this city and this year is placing
before each of us. Why are you dazzled with
the name of Cæsar? A part as important, a soul
as great, a name as dear to God as his or any
other's is your own.
It will take you long to learn another tongue
so as to make yourself fully understood by those
who speak it, but your actions are easy of trans-
lation. They understand what you do. Temper-
ance is good English and good French and good
Italian. Your courage, your kindness, your hon-
esty, are as plain to a Turk as his own alphabet. Y
In Boston they have an eye for improvement, a
thing which does not exist in Asia nor in Africa.,
And so I left, on the twenty-third of April,
the city built on seven hills, the Palatine, the
Capitoline, Cælian, Aventine, Quirinal, Viminal,
and Esquiline.
April 26.
Passignano. Here sit I this cold eve by the
fire in the Locanda of this little town on the
margin of the lake of Thrasimene, and remem-
ber Hannibal and Rome. Pleases me well the
clear pleasant air which savors more of New
England than of Italy. To-day we came from


104
JOURNAL
(AGE 29
W
Spoleto to Perugia on the top of how high a
hill with mighty walls and towers far within the
gates of the town. Old cathedral, and all around
architectural ornaments of the Middle Ages. But
were I a proprietor in Perugia, I would sell all
and go and live upon the plain. How prepos-
terous too it is to live in Trevi, where the
streets must make with the horizon an angle
of 45 degrees. Yet here in Umbria every height
shows a wide prospect of well-cultivated coun-
try.
April 27.
Passed a peaceful night close by the dreadful
field of Hannibal and Flaminius. This morning
we crossed the Sanguinetto and left the pontifi-
cal state. We passed by Cortona, the venerable
Etruscan town, then by Arezzo, the birthplace
of Petrarch, and stopped at night at Levane.
un-
Next morn (April 28) through the beautiful
Val d'Arno we came to Figline, to Incisa, and
in the afternoon to fair Florence.
[April 29.]
And how do you like Florence? Why, well.
It is pleasant to see how affectionately all the
artists who have resided here a little while speak


1833] FLORENCE DUOMO 105
of getting home to Florence. And I found at
once that we live here with much more comfort
than in Rome or Naples. Good streets, indus-
trious population, spacious, well-furnished lodg-
ings, elegant and cheap caffes. The Cathedral
and the Campanile, the splendid galleries and no
beggars, make this city the favorite of strangers.
How like an archangels tent is this great
Cathedral of many-coloured marble set down in
the midst of the city, and by its side its won-
drous Campanile! I took a hasty glance at the
gates of the Baptistery which Angelo said ought
to be the gates of Paradise, “digne chiudere il
Paradiso,”and then at his own David, and hasted
to the Tribune and to the Pitti Palace. I saw
the statue that enchants the world. And truly
the Venus deserves to be visited from far. It is
not adequately represented by the plaster casts,
as the Apollo and the Laocoön are. I must go
again and see this statue. Then I went round
this cabinet and gallery and galleries till I was
well-nigh“ dazzled and drunk with beauty." I
think no man has an idea of the powers of
painting until he has come hither. Why should
painters study at Rome? Here, here.
I have been this day to Santa Croce, which
is to Florence what Westminster Abbey is to


106
[Age 29
JOURNAL
England. I passed with consideration the tomb
of Nicholas Machiavelli, but stopped long be-
fore that of Galileus Galileo, for I love and
honor that man, except in the recantation, with
my whole heart. But when I came to Michael
Angelo Buonaroti my flesh crept as I read the
inscription. I had strange emotions. I suppose
because Italy is so full of his fame. I have lately
continually heard of his name and works and
opinions; I see his face in every shop window,
and now I stood over his dust.
Then I came to the empty tomb of Dante,
who lies buried at Ravenna. Then to that of
Alfieri.
PIAZZA SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, NO. 4599.
May 1,
Of my journey from Rome to this city I can-
not give a good account. I came in a vettura
with Messrs. Wall, Walsh, and Mayer, Mr.
O'Flanagan, an Irish priest, and Signor Draco-
poli, a Greek returning to New Smyrna after an
absence of ten years for his education in Rome.
The journey occupied five days and a half. The
first night was spent at Cività Castellana. The
second day we arrived a little after noon at Terni,
and visited the great cascade of Velino. Nature


1833] SPOLETO. FOLIGNO 107
never disappoints us. Her grand and beautiful
things always satisfy the eye, and this does. Still
I think the grotto under the cascade at Tivoli
better deserves the name of “the hill of waters,”
- has more of the terrible in it than anything
I saw here.
“Won't you go to America with me, little
fellow?” -“Non signore.” –“In America all
the little boys are taught to read and write.” —
“In Terni, anzi,” he replied.
Great abundance of the spicy, red flowers which
they call capuccini. Terni was the birthplace of
Tacitus. The next morning we came to Spoleto,
where Hannibal received a repulse after his vic-
tory at Thrasimene, and we were shown the Porta
di Fuga, named from that event. Here too was
a prodigious aqueduct 300 feet high. From Spo-
leto to Foligno, where we passed the night. All
the streets of this town have been shaken by
earthquakes; the houses lean, and are kept from
falling by timbers which cross the street from
house to house. Between Foligno and Vene we
saw the“ Temple of small and delicate propor-
tion” dedicated to Clitumnus. Strange dreams
at Foligno.
Next morn from Foligno to Assisi through
fertile fields, and up the mountain to Perugia.


108
JOURNAL [Age 29
Perugia has outgrown its walls, which are far
within the town. It commands a wide prospect
of cultivated territory. The difference of culti-
vation is very great between the fat Umbria and
the lean Sabina. On we came to the little ham-
let of Passignano on the margin of the lake of
Thrasimene.
May 2.
I revisited the Tribune this morning to see
the Venus and the Fornarina and the rest of
that attractive company. I reserve my admira-
tion as much as I can; I make a continual effort
not to be pleased except by that which ought
to please me, and I walked coolly round and
round the marble lady ; but when I planted my-
self at the iron gate which leads into the chamber
of Dutch paintings, and looked at the statue,
I saw and felt that mankind have had good
reason for their preference of this excellent
work, and I gladly gave one testimony more to
the surpassing genius of the artist.
To-day I had a singular pleasure. Mr. Ritchie's
kindness procured me the privilege of seeing the
apartments occupied by Lord Byron when he
was in Florence. They are part of the palace
of the Duke of San Clementi, who is Mr. R.'s
neighbor. The rooms were very very richly
reaso
Ice


109
were
1833)
FLORENCE
furnished and hung with tapestry. There were
five in a range, and the last opening into a large
dining-hall. Below was a large hall which Byron
fitted up as a theatre. The palace is in the Via
San Sebastiano.
How bare and poor are these Florentine
churches after the sumptuous temples of Naples
and Rome! Ah! ah ! for St. Peter's, which I can
never more behold. Close by my door is the
church of Santa Maria Novella which Michel
Angelo called his bride, - my eye has not yet
learned why; it still looks naked and unfinished
to me. The church of St. John's in Malta, he
might well have distinguished by such a name.
Evening. Beautiful days, beautiful nights. It
is to-day one of the hundred festas of this holi-
day people; so was yesterday, so is to-morrow.
The charming Cascina and the banks of the Arno
are thronged, but moonshine or sunshine are
indispensable to a festa ; as they say in France,
“There will be no revolution to-day, for it
rains.”
(From Q)
FLORENCE, Tuesday, May 7.
“Ah! l'aurora della vita
• E l'aurora del dolor.”
0


110
JOURNAL
[AGE 29
May 8.
To-day I heard, by Charles's letter, of the death
of Ellen's mother. Fast, fast the bonds dissolve
that I was so glad to wear. She has been a most
kind and exemplary mother, and how painfully
disappointed! Happy now. And oh, what events
and thoughts in which I should have deepest
sympathy does this thin partition of flesh entirely
hide! Does the heart in that world forget the heart
that did beat with it in this? Do jealousies, do
fears, does the observation of faults, intervene?
Dearest friends, I would be loved by all of you :
dearest friend ! we shall meet again.
(From Note-book)
FLORENCE, May 9.
I rode out this evening with Mr. Miles in the
beautiful Cascina. Its walks and groves extend
from the Prato Gate of the city out for miles
along the right bank of the Arno. It is full of
sweet singing birds, the robin and the nightin-
gale, and of quails, partridges and rabbits kept
for game by the Grand Duke.
I saw Jerome Buonaparte on horseback. He
resembles the pictures of his brother Napoleon,
though utterly devoid of his energy of expres-
sion. His brother Louis also lives in Florence.


1833] PICTURES. AMICI 11
The Emperor of Austria is responsible for the
good behaviour of the family.
I went last night to a theatre and heard a
whole opera very respectably performed, with
all scenic pomp and music and numbers, and
paid one paul, 10 cents, for my seat. A seat in
the pit costs 2 crazies.
I have visited the palace and gallery of the
Principe Corsini, where are Carlo Dolcis and
Salvator Rosas in plenty ; the original sketch by
Michel Angelo of his Last Judgment; a fine
portrait by Rembrandt of himself, and some
other good pictures in many fine rooms. The
Prince himself is gone to Naples as proxy for
the Grand Duke, to marry the sister of the King
All night the street echoes with the songs of
this musical people. They have fine voices and
repeat the airs of the operas. But the boys !
May 1o.
Visited Professor Amici and saw his optical
instruments. He is reputed the maker of the
best microscopes in Europe. He has also made
a telescope for Herschel in London. He has
a microscope whose magnifying power is 6000
diameters, or 36,000,000 superficies. To instru-
ments of this enormous power he applies the


II2
JOURNAL
[AGE 29
camera lucida and then draws the outline of the
object with pencil. His experiments upon po-
larized light are beautiful. The price of his best
instruments is 800 francs. He has just made one
for Dr. Jarvis for $45.
Speak out, my boy, speak plain, non capisco.
“ Ed io anche non intendo lei,” said the beggar.
May 11.
Last night I went to the Pergola, and to my
eyes, unused to theatres, it was a glorious show.
The prima donna, Signora Delsere, is a noble
Greek beauty, full of dignity, and energy of ac-
tion, and when she sung the despair of Agnes,
she was all voice. She had moreover so striking
a resemblance to a valued friend in America that
I longed to know who and what Signora Del-
sere was, much more than the issue of the play.
But nobody knew. The whole scenery and the
dresses of the performers were in admirable taste,
everything good but the strutting of the actors.
Is it penal for an actor to walk? Before the play
was done, my eyes were so dazzled with the splen-
dor of light and colors that I was obliged to
rest them and look at my shoes for half an hour,
that I might keep them for the last act.


1833] . BALLET. OPERA 113
For my seat in the pit, where the ladies sit
also, I paid three pauls, 30 cents.
I ought not to forget the ballet between the
acts. Goethe laughs at those who force every work
of art into the narrow circle of their own preju-
dices and cannot admire a picture as a picture,
and a tune as a tune. So I was willing to look
at this as a ballet, and to see that it was admir-
able, but I could not help feeling the while that
it were better for mankind if there were no such
dancers. I have since learned God's decision on
the same, in the fact that all the ballerine are
nearly idiotic.
(From Q)
May 11.
How little is expressed or can be! In the least
action what an infinity is understood! I heard La
Straniera performed last night. Moreover can-
not a lesson of wisdom and glory be got even
from the hapless prima donna of an Italian opera?
At least one is informed of the extent of fe-
male powers and warned not to be too easily satis-
fied with the accomplishments of vulgar pretty
women.
I have heard that the old king George was so
impatient of his state that he delighted to dress
himself plainly and escape in a morning from


114
JOURNAL
(AGE 29
Windsor to the market, or the lanes, and mix in
a crowd. Well, I have seen a man, the lord of quite
another sortofprincipality, forced to pay the same
price for all his knowledge and to unking him-
self and take knocks from such “parmaceti'
gentlemen in order to have a peep at men.
(From Note-book)
May 12.
I dined to-day with Mr. Askew at his villa,
seven miles out of Florence, and all the road was
through a garden. We rode on our return through
a shower of fies, all the way.
I gladly hear much good of the Order of Mis-
ericordia. I see these philanthropists now with
quite new feeling, when they carry by the dead
with their hasty chaunt. This order is composed
of men of all professions and ages and ranks, who,
for a penance, or for love, enter into it for a longer
or shorter period. They devote themselves to all
works of mercy, especially to the care of the sick.
They watch and tend them, but never speak, and
their faces are never seen, being always covered
with a silken hood. They are not known to each
other. Cardinals and Princes sometimes take the
dress of this order for a time. The last Grand
Duke was once a member. Miss Anna Bridgen


1833] DANTE. GIOTTO. LANDOR 115
tells me that she saw in Rome a coachman driving
a splendid coach with chasseurs attendant, who
attempted to pass directly through a funeral pro-
cession, when one of the Misericordes ran for-
ward and laid a powerful arm upon the rein of
the horse and lifted his veil to the coachman,
who instantly drew up his horses and waited with
the utmost respect for the train to pass.
They have taken down the old marble bench
on which Dante used to sit and look at the beau-
tiful Campanella [sic], and set it into the pave-
ment with the inscription, “ Sasso di Dante."
Well he mightsit and admire thatcharming tower,
which is a sort of poem in architecture. One might
dream of such a thing, but it seems strange that
it should have been executed in lasting stone.
Giotto built it, that old Gothic painter.
e.
May 15.
To-day I dined with Mr. Landor at his villa
at San Domenica di Fiesole. He lives in a beau-
tiful spot in a fine house full of pictures and with
a family most engaging : he has a wife and four
children. He said good and pleasant things, and
preferred Washington to all modern great men.
He is very decided, as I might have expected, in
all his opinions, and very much a connoisseur,


116
(Age 29
JOURNAL
in paintings. He was not very well to-day, and
I go to breakfast with him next Friday. Mr. Hare
was present, the author of Guesses at Truth, and
Mr. Worsley.'...
May 16.
This day is the festival of the Ascension, which
is a great annual holiday of the Florentines, and
pours them all out under the trees and along the
lawns of the beautiful Cascina. There they keep
a sort of rural Saturnalia. The Grand Dukecame
up towards evening and took a turn round the
square in his coach and bowed gracefully to the
bowing multitude. His little children were with
him in the coach.
In the evening, the grounds were light as day
with countless lamps hung in the trees, and in
the centre of all an obelisk of flambeaux. Then
played the band, and all the people danced. I
believe this rude ball was continued all night.
I left them in full activity about ten o'clock.
• The rest of the account of this visit to Landor, and most
of that of May 17, are here omitted because printed in the first
chapter of English Traits. In the notes to the Centenary Edi-
tion of that volume some of Landor's spicy but good-tempered
comments on Mr. Emerson's account of his views are given,
which Mr. Landor published in “ An Open Letter” to him
soon after the publication of English Traits.


1833) VISIT TO LANDOR 117
May 18.
Visited Mr. Landor again yesterday. He lives
in the Villa Ghirardesca.
Mr. Landor has a fine cabinet of pictures, and
as Greenough remarked, he, in common with all
collectors, imagines that his are the only master-
pieces. — “Ne sutor,” etc. And I remembered
the story of Voltaire and Congreve. Mr. Hare
told me that Mr. Landor has not more than
twelve books in his library.'
X
(From Q)
I told Landor I thought it an argument of
weak understanding in Lord Chesterfield, his
slippery morality. It is inexcusable in any man
who pretends to greatness to confound moral
distinctions. True genius, whatever faults of ac-
tion it may have, never does. Shakspeare never ,
does, though a loose liver. But such fry as
Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, do con-
tinually. And Chesterfield did. Well for him
if he had often thought and spoken as when
he said, “I judge by every man's truth of his
degree of understanding."
I think it was of Socrates that Landor dared
i I. c., at a time. He gave away his books (see English
Traits).


118
(Age 29
JOURNAL
to say, -so far can a humorsome man indulge a
whim,-“He was a vulgar sophist and he [Lan-
dor] could not forgive vulgarity in anybody;
if he saw it in a wise man, he regretted it the
· more.”
Wax
(From Note-book)
Noon. I went to the Museum of Natural
History, and to the representation in wax of
the Plague of Florence, and saw how man is
made, and how he is destroyed. This museum
contains an accurate copy in wax from nature
of every organ and process in the human frame,
and is beautiful and terrible. For in life Nature
never intends that these things should be uncov-
ered.
I have looked into Santa Croce this after-
noon, and if I spoke ill of it before, I will unsay
it all. It is a grand building, and its windows of
stained glass charm me. It is lined and floored
with tombs, and there are two or three richly
finished chapels. In one is a fine painting
of the Last Supper by Vasari. While we were
walking up and down the church, the organ was
played, and I have never heard a more pleasing
one. I saw the bust of Michel Angelo and his
eight wrinkles.
When I walk up the piazza of Santa Croce I


1833] THE FLOWER-GIRL 119
feel as if it were not a Florentine, no, nor an
European church, but a church built by and for
the human race. I feel equally at home within
its walls as the Grand Duke, so hospitably sound
to me the names of its mighty dead. Buonaroti
and Galileo lived for us all; as Don Ferranto
says of Aristotle, “Non è nè antico nè moderno; è
il filosofo senza più.”
I met the fair Erminia to-day. These meetings
always cost me a crazie, and it is fit that she
should not be slighted in the journal. Erminia
is a flower-girl who comes to the caffè every
morning, and if you will not buy her flowers
she gives them to you and with such a superb
air. She has a fine expression of face and never
lets her customers pass her in the street without
a greeting. Every coach too in Florence that
ventures to stop near the Piazza di Trinità is a
tributary of Erminia's. I defy them to escape
from her nosegays. She has a rich pearl neck-
lace, worth I know not how much, which she
wears on festas. Mr. Wall wishes to paint her
portrait, but she says she is not handsome
enough, “E brutto il mio ritratto.”
Went again to the opera to see a piece called
Ivanboe. What a miserable abuse, to put a
woman of dignity and talent into man's clothes


120
JOURNAL
[AGE 29
to play the part of Wilfrid. The Signora Delsere
who delighted me so much the other night was
strutting about ineffectually with sword and hel-
met. They had spoiled a fine woman to make
a bad knight. I came home disgusted.
The Italians use the superlative too much.
Mr. Landor calls them the nation of issimi. A
man, to tell me that this was the same thing I
had before, said, “È l'istessissima cosa”; and at
the trattoria, when I asked if the cream was
good, the waiter answered, “Stupendo.” They
use three negatives; it is good Italian to say,
“Non dite nulla a nessuno.'
May 19.
Hot weather steadily for three weeks past, and
Florence is a degree of latitude farther north
than Boston. Six or seven blazing hours every
day, when, as the Florentines say, “there's no-
body but dogs and Englishmen in the streets.”
Then the pleasant evening walk from 6 to 7 or
8 o'clock upon the Cascina, or the banks of the
little sylvan Mugnone, or in the Boboli gardens.
And wherever I go, I am surrounded by beau-
tiful objects: the fine old towers of the city; the
elegant curve of the Ponte Trinità; the rich
purple line of the Apennines, broken by the
bolder summit of the marble mountains of Car-


1833) MORNING WALK 121
rara. And all, all is Italian; not a house, not a
shed, not a field, that the eye can for a moment
imagine to be American.
Miss Anna Bridgen said very wittily, that so
inveterate were her Dutch instincts, that she
sees almost no work of art in Italy, but she wants
to give it a good scrubbing; the Duomo, the
Campanella, [sic] and the statues.
"May 21.
Rose early this morning and went to the Bello
Sguardo out of the Roman gate. It was a fine
picture, this Tuscan morning, and all the towers
of Florence rose richly out of the smoky light
on the broad green plain. I passed the Michel-
ozzi villa, where Guicciardini wrote his history.
Returning, I saw the famous fresco painting on
the wall within the city, directly opposite the
Roman gate, the work of Giovanni da San Gio-
vanni; executed, they say, to show the skill of
Tuscan art. A story is told that, some Roman
painter having been sent for to execute a public
work in Florence, the Florentine artists painted
this wall that he might see it on his entrance
into the city. When he came and saw this paint-
ing, he inquired whose work it was; and being
informed it was done by Florentines, he returned


122
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
immediately to Rome, saying that they had no
occasion for foreign artists.
(From Q)
I like the sayers of No better than the sayers
of Yes.
On bravely through the sunshine or the showers
Time hath his work to do and we have ours.
“Il tempo il suo mestiere, ed io il mio.”
(From Note-book)
I have finished the Promessi Sposi, and I re-
joice that a man exists in Italy who can write
such a book. I hear from day to day such hide-
ous anecdotes of the depravity of manners, that
it is an unexpected delight to meet this elevated
and eloquent moralist. Renzo, and Lucia, Fra
Cristoforo, and Federigo Borromeo, - all are
excellent, and, which is the highest praise, all
excite the reader to virtue.
May 25.
It is the festa of San Zenobio, once bishop
of Florence, and at the churches the priests bless
the roses and other flowers which the people
bring them, and they are then esteemed good
for the cure of headache and are laid by for that
purpose. Last night in the Duomo I saw a priest


1833)
SANTA CROCE
123
carrying a silver bust of San Zenobio, which he
put upon the head of each person in turn who
came up to the barrier. This ceremony also pro-
tects him from the headache for a year. But,
asked I of my landlady, do you believe that the
bust or the roses do really cure the headache of
any person? “Secondo alla fede di ciascuno," she
replied.
It is my festa also.'
(From )
Is not Santa Croce a grand church? Nobody
knows how grand who only sees it once. Its
tombs! Its tombs! And then the mighty win-
dows of stained glass which a man sees at noon
and thinks he knows what they are worth, and
comes back after sunset and finds to his delight
(I did) a wholly novel and far more beautiful
effect. They should be seen just about the hour
of candle-light. We came out to Europe to learn
what man can,- what is the uttermost which
social man has yet done. And perhaps the most
satisfactory and most valuable impressions are
those which come to each individual casually
and in moments when he is not on the hunt for
wonders. To make any sincere good use, I mean
1 His birthday.


124
(AGE 30
JOURNAL
what I say, of what he sees, he needs to put a
double and treble guard upon the independency
of his judgment. The veriest Luther might
well suspect his opinion upon the Venus or the
Apollo.
(From Note-book)
I wrote to G. A. S.' yesterday, what I have
found true, that it is necessary for the traveller,
in order to see what is worth seeing, and espe-
cially who is worth seeing in each city, to go into
society a little. Now no man can have society
upon his own terms. If he seek it, he must serve
it too. He immediately and inevitably contracts
debts to it which he must pay, at a great ex-
pense, often, of inclination, and of time, and of
duty.
“Comanda niente, Signore?” Niente. “ Felice.
notte, Signore.” Felice notte. Such is the dialogue
which passes every evening betwixt Giga and
me when the worthy woman lights my lamp,
and leaves me to Goethe and Sismondi, to plea-
sant study hours and to sound sleep.
I have been to the Academia delle Belle Arti,
and there saw an unfinished work of Michel
Angelo's. His opinion was asked concerning a
i George A. Sampson of Boston, a near friend who died
not long after.


1833)
AGRICULTURE. TAX
block of marble, whether it were large enough
to make a statue of? “Yes,” he said, “a colos-
sus.” And the inquirers doubting, he went to
work, and cutting a little here and a little there,
rudely sketched a figure of gigantic dimensions
and left it so, a sort of sculptor's puzzle.
Tuesday morn, May 28.
Sad I leave Florence, the pleasant city. I
have not even seen it all, and between negli-
gence and mishap have failed to see the library.
The system of mezzaria or metayer is universal
in the agriculture of Tuscany. The introduction
of the potato into general use, and the culture
of Saracenic grain has done much to alleviate
the distress of the peasantry. Labor is dog-
cheap. The hat manufacturer is almost peculiar.
Mr. Miles tells me that it takes one woman
one week to make a hat, and he usually orders
a thousand hats in a week. The taxation seems
very irregular and sometimes enormous; every
ox that enters the gates of Florence pays eleven
francesconi at the gate.
May 28.
Left Florence. Stopped at the Pratolino,
five miles out of the city, to see the colossal
statue of Father Apennine by John of Bologna.
a
seems


126
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
It is grand if only from its size. They call it
60 feet high, meaning probably that in a stand-
ing posture it would be so high. I got up into
his neck and head and looked out of his ear.
Fine mountain scenery to the frontier of the
Roman state. At last on reaching a new height
we saw the Adriatic Sea. We slept at Lacca, the
first village on the Roman territory, 36 miles
from Florence.
May 29.
At 4 A. M. we set forward, and passing through
a picturesque country, arrived at Bologna (25
miles) at 10 o'clock. Here we visited the cel-
ebrated statue of Neptune by John of Bologna
(good enough, but why so famous ?), the gallery
of the Academy and of the Palazzo Lambacari,
both rich in Guidos, Caraccis, Guercinos; the
museum and library founded by Marsilius,
100,000 volumes; the Cathedral, the Church
of San Domenico where is Guido's fresco, Para-
dise, and where lie the bones of Guido, of the
two Caraccis, and also of St. Dominick.
Here too are two leaning towers, one deviat-
ing nine feet from the perpendicular, and a
good story is told of their building. All the
streets are lined with porticoes so that the in-
habitants walk always under cover, which, in the


1833) BOLOGNA. FERRARA 127
rain, and under this dangerous sun, is a great
public convenience. From the gate of the city
a portico three miles in length, formed of 650
arcades, leads to the church of the Madonna
della Guardia. In the piazza were planted some
pieces of artillery which have stood there since
the soi-disant revolution, two years ago. There
are here 75,000 souls.
May 30.
From Bologna to Ferrara, 32 miles ; nearly
all the way the road was paved, and lined with
trees. Arrived at Ferrara at 4 P. M. Visited Tas-
so's prison, a real dungeon. There I saw Byron's
name cut with his penknife in the wall. The
guide said his father accompanied him, and that
Byron stayed an hour and a half in the prison and
there wrote. We visited the Cathedral, fine
old Gothic exterior built in 1100; then the Li-
brary, where is Ariosto's tomb, his inkstand,
medals and chair. I sat in his chair. They were
shown by an old man who entered into the spirit
of his profession as the showman. Thence to the
Campo Santo, passing through the Jews' Quarter,
of whom there are 2800, who are shut up every
night, as in Rome, like dogs. At the Campo
Santo two monuments by Canova. What a
desolate town! The streets appeared like State
name


128
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
Street on Sunday, and the grass grew. There
are 24,000 inhabitants. Under the Dukes there
were 70,000. It is the native place of Garofalo,
Guercino, Canova. A prolegate of the Pope
administers the government.
ernm
.
May 31.
From Ferrara to Rovigo across the Po in a
ferry. The stream was wide and strong, about as
wide as the Connecticutat Hartford. The road all
day was lined with poplars on each side. Fine,
bold taste displayed in all their architecture.
Every church is a new and pleasing plan. Every
chimney is built on an ornamental design. At
night we reached Monselice, after crossing the
Adige. Saw our honest countryman the Indian
corn growing well.
Monselice is the most picturesque town I have
seen in Italy. It has an old ruin of a castle upon
the hill, and thence commands a beautiful and ex-
traordinary view. It lies in the wide plain, a dead
level, whereon Ferrara, Bologna, Rovigo, Este,
Padua stand, and even Venice we could dimly
see on the horizon, rising with her tiara of proud
towers. What a walk and what a ride, delightful
picture! To Venice 38 miles.
June 1.
This morn we stopped half a mile this side


1833) PETRARCH'S TOMB. PADUA 129
of the village of Battaglia on the road to Padua,
sent the Vettura on to the market-place, and
walked over to Arqua to see the tomb of Pe-
trarch, and the house where he spent his latter
days. Both are striking and venerable objects.
The house is vacant and clean; its windows look
out upon mountains. His portrait and his inter-
views with Laura are painted in fresco on the
walls. They show his chair and the chamber
where he died. Good, good place. It does honor
to his head and heart. There grow the pomegran-
ate and fig and olive.
At noon at Padua. Three rich churches; as
usual in Italy, unlike all others, the Duomo,
and San Antonio and San Justin. Visited the
grand Hall, the ancient Sala di Giustizia, 300
feet long, 100 wide, 100 high, without other sup-
port than the walls. Stewartson,'Wall and I then
went for our breakfast to the most beautiful caffe
in Europe. Nothing can exceed the taste and
splendor of this room. Visited the University,
1600 students, 62 professors. Heard the profes-
sor Caldania lecture upon anatomy with a sub-
ject; the form of the Lecture room was an in-
i Probably young Dr. Stewartson of Philadelphia, men-
tioned with high regard in Dr. Holmes's letters from Paris
in the year 1833. See Morse's Life of Holmes.


130
JOURNAL
(Age 30
verted cone. Saw the Museum. The quadrangle
of the University is a venerable place, covered
with armorial bearings.
VENICE
From Padua to Venice, 20 miles : crossed the
Brenta and passed a profusion of fine villas, all the
grounds full of statues, not quite as thick as they
could stand. Far the most splendid of all was
the Villa Imperiale, built by Palladio. Arrived
at Mestre, the place of embarcation for Venice,
5 miles off. Here we took a boat and sailed for
the famous city. It looked for some time like
nothing but New York. We entered the Grand
Canal and passed under the Rialto, and presently
stepped out of the boat into the front entry of
the Gran Bretagna. The front entry of the Gran
Bretagna opens also upon a little bridge which
connects by a narrow alley with the Piazza of
St. Mark, so out we went under the full moon
to see the same. It was all glorious to behold.
In moonlight this Arabesque square is all en-
chantment, so rich and strange and visionary.
(From Q)
Venice, June 2.
The ancient metropolis of the merchants. In
coming into it, it seemed a great oddity but not


1833) VENICE. HUMILIATION 131
at all attractive. Under the full moon, later in
the evening, St. Mark's Piazza showed like a
world's wonder, but still I pity the people, who
are not beavers, and yet are compelled to live
here.
But what matter where and how, as long as
all of us are estranged from truth and love, from
Him who is truth and love. Sometimes I would
hide myself in the dens of the hills, in the thick-
ets of an obscure country town. I am so vexed
and chagrined with myself, — with my weakness,
with my guilt. Then I have no skill to live with
men, that is, with such men as the world is made
of; and such as I delight in I seldom find. It
seems to me, no boy makes so many blunders
or says such awkward, contrary, disagreeable
speeches as I do. In the attempt to oblige a per-
son I wound and disgust him. I pity the hapless
folks that have to do with me. But would it not
be cowardly to flee out of society and live in the
woods? I comfort myself with a reference to the
great and eternal revolution which, under God,
bears the good of us all, — thine and mine, and
that of each by the instrumentality of the other,
on the wings of these dull hours and months and
years.
I collect nothing that can be touched or tasted


132
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
or smelled, neither cameo, painting nor medal-
lion; nothing in my trunk but old clothes; but
I value much the growing picture which the ages
have painted and which I reverently survey. It
is wonderful how much we see in five months,
in how short a time we learn what it has taken
so many ages to teach.
(From Note-book)
Again I have been to St. Mark's and seen his
horses and his winged lion, the Bridge of Sighs,
the Doge's Palace, the Piazza, the canals. We
took a gondola, three of us (that is, one too many
for the perfect enjoyment of that cunning ve-
hicle) and proceeded to the churches and the
Academy. There is Titian's picture of the As-
sumption of the Madonna, so glorified by the
painters. The young men whom I converse with
prefer it to Raphael. There also is another of Ti-
tian's, the Presentation of the Virgin, yet a child,
to the High Priest; a very large picture, and I
thought I might call it the handsomest picture
I have seen, but certainly not the best. It lacks
the expression of Raffaelle. It will not do to
compare anything, in my opinion, with his Trans-
figuration. A great man will find a great subject,
or which is the same thing, make any subject
vers


1833] PICTURES, CHURCHES 133
great, and what tenderness and holiness beams
from the face of the Christ in that work, what
emotion. I have never yet seen the face copied
in all the soi-disant copies of that picture.
In the Academy is a cast of the Hercules of
Canova. The original is in the Torlonia Palace
at Rome. It is a tremendous action. Here too
are casts of his best works. The chair in which
he has seated Mme. Buonaparte is the same
beautiful form I admired in the Caffe at Padua.
Grand pictures here of Paul Veronese, Tinto-
retto and Titian.
These churches of Venice surpass all the
churches in Florence in splendor. The Chiesa
dei Carmeliti has eight chapels, built at the
expense of eight families, and they are superb.
The Chiesa dei Gesuiti is a most costly imitation
in marble of tapestry hangings throughout the
interior. Hiram and Solomon could not beat it.
In the Chiesa della Salute is a monument to
Canova, built from Canova's design of a tomb
for Titian. Canova's design, however, if that little
model I saw in the Academy be it, is more im-
pressive than this gorgeous marble execution of
the same in the Salute. These churches are all
rich with monuments, on many of which is fig-
ured the horned bonnet worn by the Doges of
SI
vorn


134
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
Venice. From these we came to the Ducal Pal-
ace up the Giant Staircase.
At the side of the door we were shown the
“ Lion's Mouth,” a hole in the wall into which
anciently were thrown the anonymous accusations
of any citizen for the eye of the Council of State.
Thence we were conducted to the Library, then
to the Hall, a grand chamber whose whole walls
and ceiling are adorned by the best pictures of
great size by Paul Veronese and his son, and
Tintoretto, and Palma Vecchio, and Palma Gio-
vane, and Bonifacio. All the paintings are his-
torical. This hall and the adjoining chambers
contain in this splendid way a chronicle of the
Republic. The portraits of one hundred and six-
teen doges hang round on high, among which is
the black board where should be the head of
Marino Faliero. On the ceiling, most of the
pieces are allegorical (which is as bad in painting
as it is in poetry), and at one extremity of the
Hall a Paradise by Tintoretto, a picture of amaz-
ing size. From this hall to the Audience Cham-
ber where the Doge and his Council received
foreign ambassadors, then to the Council Cham-
ber of the Three Hundred, with its rostrum and
other realities. After seeing these noble apart-
ments we were conducted to the prisons below


18331 AUSTRIANS. FRENCH
135
Sa
e
and all the hideous economy and arrangement
of them explained. I saw the little blackened
chamber from whose walls Lord Byron had those
sad inscriptions copied, and passed the dreaded
door opening on the Bridge of Sighs down to the
third noisome story of the subterranean dungeon.
It is a sickening place, and 't is enough to make
one dance and sing that this horrid tyranny is
broken in pieces. To be sure the Austrians are
here, but their rule is merciful to that whose
story is written here in stone and iron and mire.
The policy of the Venetian government kepteven
the existence of their state prison a secret, and
on the approach of the French in 1796, they
hastily built up the secret passages. The French
acted with good sense in opening these damna-
ble holes to the day and exposing them to the
public, in order to make their own invasion
popular.
After leaving the Ducal Palace we climbed the
stairs of the Campanile to the lookout, an es-
sential part of the traveller's duty at Venice, for,
as in the city you are always in a gutter, it needs
to get up into this tower to have any sight of
its shape and extent. The day was not very
clear, but the view was noble.
The Campanile itself is [a] beautiful tower,


136
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
but it cannot compare with Giotto's wonder at
Florence, the poem in stone. I should attempt
to describe St. Mark's Piazza, the glory of Ven-
ice, and without which the city would not be
worth visiting, but that the common prints of
it are so good. There stand the painted masts
whereon the Republic hung her banners. As it
is the only piece of ground in the city where a
thousand men could find elbow-room, its daily
importance can easily be conceived.
We took a long sail across the harbor to the
immense arsenal, a place of all manner of naval
works, three miles in circuit. The Bucentaur is
gone, but there they show a model of it, and
upon it all the places of state, and the garrulous
showman tells all the story of the annual mar-
riage of the Adriatic.
Here too is an armory where they show with-
out a blush the golden keys of Venice that were
made in 1797 to be presented to Napoleon.
Worse things are various inventions for torture
and a nameless thing for an incredible, indecent
cruelty ascribed to Francesco da Carrara.
I am speedily satisfied with Venice. It is a
great oddity, a city for beavers, but, to my
thought, a most disagreeable residence. You feel
always in prison, and solitary. Two persons may


1833) NOT WON TO VENICE 137
live months in adjoining streets and never meet,
for you go about in gondolas, and all the gon-
dolas are precisely alike, and the persons within
commonly concealed; then there are no news-
rooms; except St. Mark's Piazza, no place of
public resort. It is as if you were always at sea.
And though, for a short time, it is very luxuri-
ous to lie on the eider-down cushions of your
gondola and read or talk or smoke, drawing to,
now the cloth-lined shutter, now the Venetian
blind, now the glass window, as you please, yet
there is always a slight smell of bilgewater about
the thing, and houses in the water remind one
of a freshet and of desolation, anything but
comfort. I soon had enough of it. ...
I ought not to forget that I went to the
Manfrini Palace and saw its famous gallery of
paintings, and Giorgione's picture.
And so we left the ocean-Rome.
Tuesday, June 4.
With our trusty Vetturino who brought us
from Florence, we left Mestre this morn for
Padua, and then for Vicenza, where we pass the
night. This is the city of Palladio and embel-
lished with his architecture. The Campo Marzio
is a beautiful public walk. Went thence to the


138
JOURNAL (AGE 30
Duomo and the Basilica. Many fine palaces in
this town.
June 5.
To Verona 30 miles. The chief object of in-
terest is the amphitheatre built in Trajan's time,
a smaller coliseum, but in excellent preservation
and still used as a theatre. A play was getting
up in the arena when we came away. Then to
what is called Juliet's tomb, a very apocryphal
sepulchre; then to the Duomo to see an As-
sumption of the Madonna, by Titian ; to San
Giorgio to see pictures of Paul Veronese. This
is his own town, and of Maffei also. Saw the Ro-
man bridge built by Vitruvius over the Adige.
There are 12,000 soldiers now in this town. A
large part of them are employed in rebuilding the
ancient walls. The population from 50,000 to
60,000. This place suffered much in the French
invasion in 174 And I saw many walls honey-
combed with musket-shot.
We do not make many miles in a day, but
our journey has many alleviations, and we are
very companionable travellers, and some of our
Tuscan conversations with the vetturino ludi-
crous enough. “Vetturino!” shouted my friend
Stewartson from within the coach; “ Vetturino!
Perchè non arrangiate questo window?” Then


18331
VERONA TO BRESCIA
Ona
we find a hospitable caffè every evening where
we find an ice, and the oriental narcotic, and
Wall and Stewartson their cigar.
June 6.
To-day from Verona to Brescia, 40 miles.
From Verona in the morning to Lago di Guarda,
and crossed the smooth sliding Mincio and spent
our three hours of nooning at Defenzano. 'Tis
Corpus Christi day, and for a week past wher-
ever we have been we have seen preparations
for celebrating this festa with what pomp each
city could. A splendid procession is everywhere
made under awnings, and in many places I be-
lieve over carpets laid along the streets. Even
in this little village every house has hung out
its quilts and damask and brocade, and the walls
are lined. At the altar in the church, officiate
little girls dressed out in white and gold with
wings for angels.
We passed to-day many beautiful villas, and,
what was new and pleasant, we saw no beggars.
The women in this country universally wear in
their hair silver pins with heads as large as eggs;
they remind one of an electrical machine. All
the way they were stripping the mulberry trees
of leaves for the food of the silkworms which
are in every house. I went into a house and
2
10
VON


140
(AGE 30
JOURNAL
begged to see the animals; the padrona led me
upstairs and showed me the creatures in every
age and state. She had given up the whole of
the primo piano, or what we call the second storey,
to them.
Then to Brescia. All the Italian towns are
different and all picturesque. The well-paved
Brescia, the Church of the Madonna dei Mira-
coli, - how daintily it is carved without to the
very nerves of the strawberry and vine leaf!
Italy is the country of beauty, but I think spe-
cially in the northern part. Everything is orna-
mented. A peasant wears a scarlet cloak. If
he has no other ornament, he ties on a red gar-
ter or knee-band. They wear flowers in the hat
or the buttonhole. A very shabby boy will have
the eye of a peacock's feather in his hat. In gen-
eral the great-coats and jackets of the common
people are embroidered, and the other day I saw
a cripple leaning on a crutch very finely carved.
Every fountain, every pump, every post is sculp-
tured, and not the commonest tavern room but
its ceiling is painted. Red is a favorite color,
and on a rainy morning at Messina the streets
blazed with red umbrellas.
In Brescia they have lately made some ex-
cavations of their antiquities, and laid open the
mon


zza was a
es in
1833) BRESCIA. LOMBARDY 141
floor and shafts of the pillars of a Roman temple
of Hercules. They have found a fine bronze Vic-
tory there. At a fountain in the piazza was a
statue of Canova's. I thought a clever mason
might make as good a one.
In Brescia 4000 soldiers. Porticoes in all
these towns in North of Italy.
The roads seem the best and costliest I have
ever seen, but there are no bad roads in Italy.
Buonaparte, with whatever intent, was a great
benefactor to this whole peninsula from Naples
northward.
I notice that the new buildings erected or
erecting are in as bold and as beautiful a style
as old ones. Every church, every villa is origi-
nal; and what gates they can make to a villa
or a palace !
June 7.
To-day crossed the Mela. In all this Lom-
bard region they write on a signpost the name
of each town thus:-
COMUNE DI OSPEDALETTO
CAPO LUOGO DEL SECONDO DISTRETTO
PROVINCIA DI BRESCIA,
and a similar threefold inscription in every vil-
lage. We begin to see goitres on both men and


142
JOURNAL
(Age 30
women. The Vettura stopped at noon at Calcio.
Wall and I have walked on towards Triviglio,
and now, whilst he sketches, I sit upon an arch
that crosses a brook and listen to a bird's song;
’t is surely the nightingale.
June 8.
This morn at 10 o'clock entered Milan by a
broad and splendid street. Saw the top of the
cathedral from far upon the road, and got a nearer
view of its glories before arriving at the hotel.
June 9.
This cathedral is the only church in Italy that
can pretend to compare with St. Peter's. It is a
most impressive and glorious place, without and
within. And its exterior altogether as remarkable
and deserving minute attention as its interior.
It was begun by Andrea Commodia in 1386 and
is not yet finished, though always being built.
When completed, it will have 7000 statues, great
and small, upon the outside ; there are now
5000. It is all built, to the minutest part, of
white marble, and, as the showman asserted,
would have cost a mountain of gold, but that
the founder had left to it a quarry of marble.
Forty-two artists are perpetually employed upon
it. The walk upon the top of the church is


1833) MILAN CATHEDRAL -143
delightful from the novelty and richness of the
scene. Neighbored by this army of marble saints
and martyrs, with scores of exquisitely sculp-
tured pinnacles rising and flowering all around
you, the noble city of Milan beneath, and all
the Alps in the horizon,- it is one of the grand-
est views on earth. Then, inside the church, the
grand Gothic perspective of the aisles, the col-
our of the light which all enters through stained
glass, the richness and magnitude of all the
objects, — truly it is good to be there.
An immense surface in this cathedral is glass
window. Thus behind the great altar are three
huge windows only separated by sashes, each of
which is wide by twelve panes (each pane one
foot) and high by twelve panes (each pane two
feet), and over all a great arch in which the glass
is of irregular shape. These huge windows con-
tain the whole history of mankind from Adam
and Eve down, each pane being a separate pic-
ture.
Underneath the church is the sumptuous tomb
of St. Charles Borromeo, whose history is the
glory of Milan and has furnished Manzoni with
a hero in I Promessi Sposi.
The kindness of the Conte del Verme has
shown me and my friends all the curiosities of


144
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
Milan. In his coach we have made the circuit
of the city and, as travellers say, “killed it thor-
oughly.” We visited not less than eight churches
beside the cathedral, some of them very rich.
At one they showed me tapestry between two
and three centuries old, which was as delicately
pictured as if done by a camel’s-hair pencil. We
went to the Ospitale Grande, which is the most
considerable institution of the sort in Europe.
A magnificent charity. There are 2500 beds
and almost all are full. Its aid is gratuitous.
Everybody is received who applies, and we
walked through corridor after corridor of beds
whereon lay the sick of all manner of diseases.
Great and good and sad, this hospital is a little
city in itself.
A very different spectacle was the Palazzo di
Brera which has a rich gallery of paintings, a
great public Library, and an astronomical ob-
servatory, which were all shown us. Then we
visited the Triumphal Arch, l'Arco del Sem-
pione, designed and begun by Napoleon as the
termination of the road of the Simplon from
Paris to Milan. Its finishing [is] by the Aus-
trian Government, of course with some varia-
tion in the bas-reliefs. Then to the Ambrosian
Library and Museum, where I saw Petrarch's


etc.
1833] AUSTRIAN RULE 145
copy of Virgil, all written by himself; and to
the Ospitale dei Frati, — Fate bene fratelli, - and
to the castle, and to the Arena, and to a collegio
and to a Registry office, etc., etc.
My friend the count speaks with no good
will of the Austrian Government, so jealous, so
rapacious, which holds Italy down by the pointed
cannon. There are 96,000 or 97,000 Austrian
troops in Lombardy. When he solicited a pass-
port to go to the United States of America, it
was 16 months before it was granted him.
I visited the church of San Domenico to see
the famous fresco painting of the Last Supper by
Leonardo da Vinci. It is sadly spoiled by time
and damp. The face of Christ is still very re-
markable.
Milan is a well-built town with broad streets
and a little railroad of stone for the wheels to
run upon in the middle of the street. It looks
too modern to be so conspicuous in European
history as it has been, for Lombardy was the
theatre of every war.
There is an advantage which these old cities
have over our new ones that forcibly strikes an
American, namely, that the poorest inhabitants
live in good houses. In process of time a city is
filled with palaces, the rich ever deserting old


146
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
ones for new, until beggars come to live in
what were costly and well-accommodated dwell-
ings. Thus all the trattorias, even of little pre-
tension, have their carved work and fresco
painting, as this of the Marino where I dine
with my companions.
CO
(From Q)
Milan, June 10.
Architecture — shall I speak what I think?
- seems to me ever an imitation. Accustomed
to look at our American churches as imitative,
I cannot get it out of my head that these which
I now see are only more splendid and success-
ful imitations also. I am perplexed with my
inveterate littleness; I must and will see the
things in detail and analyse all, every noble
sentiment to the contrary notwithstanding. It
seems to me nothing is truly great, nothing
impresses us, nothing overawes, nothing crowds
upon us, and kills calculation. We always call
in the effect of imagination, coax the imagina-
tion to hide this and enlarge that, and even St.
Peter's, nor this frost-work cathedral at Milan,
with its 5000 marble people all over its towers,
can charm down the little Imp.
It is in the soul that architecture exists, and
seer


18331 JOURNEY TO SIMPLON 147
Santa Croce and this Duomo are poor far-behind
imitations. I would rather know the metaphysics
of architecture, as of shells and flowers, than any-
thing else in the matter. But one act of bene-
volence is better than a cathedral, so do your
duty, yours. Architecture, said the lady'is frozen
music. And Iarno says in Wilhelm that he who
does the best in each one thing he does, does
all, for he sees the connexion between all good
things.
(From Note-book)
Tuesday, June 11.
Left Milan in the diligence, with Wall and
Stewartson and the Misses Bridgen. Before sun-
set we arrived on the beautiful banks of the
Lago Maggiore, and crossed the Adda, which
is there an arm of the lake, at Sesto Calendo,
and stopped at Arona to dine. Though we
passed directly below the famous colossal statue
of San Carlo Borromeo, after leaving Arona, it
was so dark that I could not see it, which I re-
gretted much. We rode all night and reached
Domo d'Ossola next morn to breakfast [in] the
town at the foot of the Alps. The maître d'hôtel
here spoke English, and we were much cheated,
two facts which are said to be concomitant. The
i Madame de Staël.


148
(AGE 30
JOURNAL
whole of the day, 12 June, was spent in crossing
the mountain by the celebrated road of the Sim-
plon, cut and built by Buonaparte. Let it be a
glory to his name, him the great Hand of our
age. Truly it is a stupendous work, passing
through every variation of ragged mountain
scenery, now through the earth or solid rock in
the form of a tunnel, now in successive easy in-
clined planes called galleries climbing the sides
of a precipice, now crossing some rift in the
mountain on a firm bridge, and so working its
way up from the hot plain of Lombardy to cold
waterfalls and huge snowbanks, and up and up-
ward to the bleak hamlet of Sempione which
almost crowns the top. Here we see our own
breath, and are very glad to get into the house
and avoid the cold air. Over a wild mountain
cascade and within a gallery cut through the
rock Buonaparte has had the honesty to write,
“ Italo Aere. Nap. Imp. MDCCCV.” Céard was
his principal engineer.
And these, I thought, are the mountains
of freedom. This queer ridge of matter is of
such proved moral efficiency. Let their Spartan
hymn ascend. I saw a good many of the Swiss
peasantry on the hillsides : how different from
the Italians on one side, or the French on
a


1833)
THE PASS
149
the other, but exactly resembling the faces and
dresses of their countrymen who emigrate to the
United States. It is marvellous to see their
houses on such narrow lodgments, half way up
a mural precipice, as was said of Cortona,“like
a picture hanging on a wall.” What can they
do with their children?
We dined at Sempione and soon began the
descent of the mountain; the wheel of the dili-
gence is chained and shod with a heavy log of
green wood; yet the descent at some points looks
perilous enough. The mountain views are very
fine. No extensive prospect is commanded in
the ascent or from the top, but we see many
noble summits of the chain as we come down
toward Briga.
We arrived safely at Briga at the foot of the
mountain after sunset. We have left the Italian
speech behind us, and though in Switzerland, all
is French. After supper we set forward again,
and unluckily, having taken my place outside
by day, I was compelled to ride the whole cold
night sub Jove frigido, and was very thankful
to one of my fair friends within, who loaned me
a shawl for the occasion. At dawn we reached
Sion, and in the forenoon Martigny. We had
taken our places for Martigny, intending to visit


150
JOURNAL
(AGB 30
Mont Blanc from thence. But the sky was over-
cast and it rained a little, and we were afraid of
a storm, so we relinquished our purpose, or at
least postponed it for consideration at Geneva.
June 13
On we came, passing the fine cascade of Pisse-
vache, and stopped an hour at St. Maurice.
Thence in more convenient vehicles through
a country of grandest scenery passing through
Clarens and along the banks of Lake Leman, by
the castle of Chillon, then through Vevay, and
we reached Lausanne before nightfall.
The repose and refreshment of a good hotel
were very welcome to us after riding two nights;
but the next morning (14th) was fine, and Mr.
Wall and I walked out to the public promenade,
a high and ornamented grove which overlooks
the lake and commands the view of a great am-
phitheatre of mountains.
We are getting toward France. In the café
where we breakfasted we found a printed circular
inviting those whom it concerned to a rifle-match,
to the intent, as the paper stated, “ of increasing
their skill in that valuable accomplishment, and
of drawing more closely the bonds of that regard
with which we are,” etc.


1833) GIBBON. VOLTAIRE 151
After breakfast I inquired my way to Gibbon's
house and was easily admitted to the garden.
The summer-house is removed, but the floor
of it is still there, where the History was written
and finished. I stood upon it and looked forth
upon the noble landscape of which he speaks so
proudly. I plucked a leaf of the lime tree he
planted, and of the acacia, - successors of those
under which he walked. I have seen however
many landscapes as pleasant and more striking.
At 10 o'clock we took the steamboat for
Geneva and sailed up Lake Leman. The passage
was very long, seven hours, for the wind was
ahead, and the engine not very powerful. We
touched at Coppet. The lake is most beautiful
near Geneva. It was not clear enough to see Mont
Blanc, or else it was not visible. Mount Varens
and Monte Rosa were seen.
Geneva, June 16.
Here am I in the stern old town, the resort
of such various minds, of Calvin, of Rousseau,
of Gibbon, of Voltaire, of De Staël, of Byron,
on the blue Rhone by the placid Lake Leman.
Mont Blanc towers above the Alps on the east
sublimely with his three summits; Jura on
the west is marking the line of France; and


152
(Age 30
JOURNAL
the lake lies in beauty before me. Everybody
is polite.
1 Yesterday, to oblige my companions, and pro-
testing all the way upon the unworthiness of his
memory, I went to Ferney to the château, the
salon, the bedchamber, the gardens of Voltaire,
the king of the scorners. His rooms were modest
and pleasing, and hung with portraits of his
friends. Franklin and Washington were there.
The view of the lake and mountains commanded
by the lawn behind the château is superior to that
of Gibbon's garden at Lausanne. The old porter
showed us some pictures belonging to his old
master, and told a story that did full justice to
his bad name. Yet it would be a sin against faith
and philosophy to exclude Voltaire from tolera-
tion. He did his work as the bustard' and taran-
tula do theirs.
We had a fine ride home, so royally towers
up Mont Blanc with his white, triple top. On
the way we passed the stone which marks the
boundary of France, which made Dr. Stewartson
crow like chanticleer, and the grass he thought
greener. Visited the music-box manufactory, and
the watchmaker's. The music man offered to
1 Thus in the Journal, but probably buzzard was what
was really intended. — Ed.
an


1833) GENEVA MINISTERS 153
make a box with two airs of Beethoven for
50 francs, to be received by me in Paris.
Prices of the best watches that they can make
are 500 francs. Of the second class, without a
compensation, but esteemed as good for all or-
dinary purposes, 300 francs. S. bought one for
275, the difference of value being in the weight
of the case. They speak of smuggling with per-
fect simplicity, and offer to send you the watch
to Paris (via smuggler, that is) for a few francs.
Through the Misses Bridgen's acquaintance
in Mr. Wolf's family, I was carried away to hear
M. Gissot, a very worthy Calvinist who has
been ejected from the National Church. His
exercise was a catechism and exhortation of a
large class of children; then I was introduced to
Mr. Cordis and others of their brethren ; very
worthy men they seemed. I spent the day at
the house of Mr. Wolf. The daughter told me
that “if I was, as I said, a seeker, she thought
I ought to make it a point of duty to stop longer
at Geneva,” and so offered in very pretty broken
English “to intrude me to the minister who
begun the exercise.” She had learned English
because her house was destined to receive board-
ers, etc., etc. I owed them all much kindness,
but if I had known anything I should have


154
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
made acquaintance with M. Chenevière first.
After all this kindness it would have been great
violence to have gone away to him. The estab-
lished church of Geneva is now Unitarian, and
the three Calvinistic clergymen of the city are
ejected.
FRANCE
Left Geneva in the diligence for Paris Mon-
day morning at 4 o'clock, and presently crossed
the line of France and began the ascent of
Mount Jura. As we rose toward the top, what
noble pictures appeared on the Swiss side! The
Alps, the Alps and Mont Blanc in all his
breadth, towering up so cold and white and dim
towards heaven, all uninhabitable and almost
inaccessible. Yet more than Saussure have
reached the top.
France, France. It is not only a change of
name: the cities, the language, the faces, the
manners have undergone a wonderful change in
three or four days. The running fight we have
kept up so long with the fierté of postillions
and padroni in Italy is over, and all men are
complaisant. The face of the country is remark-
able; not quite a plain, but a vast undulating
champaign without a hill, and all planted like
the Connecticutt intervales. No fences, the fields


1833) ARRIVAL IN PARIS 155
full of working women. We rode in the coupé
of a Diligence by night and by day, for three
days and a half, and arrived in Paris at noon
Thursday.
dav.
oon
PARIS
I arrived in Paris at noon on Thursday, 20
June. My companions, who have been in the
belle ville before, and wished it to strike me as
it ought, are scarce content with my qualified ad-
miration. Certainly the eye is satisfied on enter-
ing the city with the unquestionable tokens of a
vast, rich, old capital. We crossed the Seine by
the Pont Neuf, and I was glad to see my old ac-
quaintance Henry IV very respectably mounted
in bronze on his own bridge ; but the saucy
faction of the day has thrust a tricolor into his
bronze hand, as into a doll's, and in spite of
decency the stout old monarch is thus obliged
to take his part in the whirligig politics of his
city. Fie! Louis Philippe. We were presently
lodged in the Hotel Montmorenci on the Bou-
levard Mont Martre. I have wandered round
the city, but I am not well pleased. I have seen
so much in five months that the magnificence of
Paris will not take my eye to-day. The gardens
of the Louvre looked pinched and the wind blew
dust in my eyes, and before I got into the


156
JOURNAL [AGE 30
Champs Élysées I turned about and fatly re-
fused to go farther. I was sorry to find that in
leaving Italy I had left forever that air of an-
tiquity and history which her towns possess, and
in coming hither had come to a loud, modern
New York of a place.
I am very glad to find here my cousin Ralph
Emerson, who received me most cordially and
has aided me much in making my temporary
establishment. It were very ungrateful in a
stranger to be discontented with Paris, for it is
the most hospitable of cities. The foreigner has
only to present his passport at any public insti-
tution and the doors are thrown wide to him.
I have been to the Sorbonne, where the first
scientific men in France lecture at stated hours
every day, and the doors are open to all. I have
heard Jouffroy, Thenard [and Gay Lussac].
Then the Collège Royale de France is a similar
institution on the same liberal foundation. So
with the Collège du Droit, and the Amphitheatre
of the Garden of Plants.
I have been to the Louvre, where are certainly
some first-rate pictures. Leonardo da Vinci has
more pictures here than in any other gallery, and
I like them well, despite of the identity of the
features which peep out of men and women.


1833)
STREET SCENES
157
I have seen the same face in his pictures I think
six or seven times. Murillo I see almost for the
first time with great pleasure.
July.
It is a pleasant thing to walk along the Boule-
vards and see how men live in Paris. One man
has live snakes crawling about him, and sells
soap and essences. Another sells books which
lie upon the ground. Another under my window
all day offers a gold chain. Half a dozen walk
up and down with some dozen walking sticks
under the arm. A little further, one sells cane-
tassels at 5 sous. Here sits Boots brandishing
his brush at every dirty shoe. Then you pass
several tubs of gold fish. Then a man sitting at
his table cleaning gold and silver spoons with
emery and haranguing the passengers on its vir-
tues. Then a person who cuts profiles with scis-
sors —"shall be happy to take yours, sir." Then
a table of card-puppets which are made to crawl.
Then a hand-organ. Then a wooden figure called
[?] which can put an apple in its mouth when-
ever a child buys a plum. Then a flower mer-
chant. Then a bird-shop with twenty parrots,
four swans, hawks and nightingales. Then the
show of the boy with four legs, etc., etc., with-
out end. All these are the mere boutiques on the


158
JOURNAL
(Age 30
sidewalk, moved about from place to place as
the sun or rain or the crowd may lead them.
(From Q)
Paris.
It shall be writ in my memoirs (as Aunt Mary
would say), as it was writ of St. Pachomius,“ Pes
ejus ad saltandum non est commotus omni vita
sua.” The worse for me in the gay city. Pray
what brought you here, grave sir ? the moving
Boulevard seems to say.
“Aimer, pleurer, mourir, - c'est la vie de la
femme"; title of a novel just published.
Paris, July 4.
The two gifts of the Old World to the New,
- Columbus and Lafayette.
(From Note-book)
Dined to-day at Lointier's with General La-
fayette and nearly one hundred Americans. I
sought an opportunity of paying my respects to
the hero, and inquiring after his health. His
speech was as happy as usual. A certain Lieu-
tenant Levi did what he could to mar the day.'
1 Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes in a letter to his family de-
scribes the incident here referred to. (See Morse's Life and
Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes, vol. i, p. 105.)


1833]
USE OF LIFE
159
(From Q)
July 9.
How does everybody live on the outside of
the world! All young persons thirst for a real
existence for an object, for something great
and good which they shall do with all their
heart. Meantime they all pack gloves, or keep
books, or travel, or draw indentures, or cajole
old women.
July 11.
Does any man render written account to him-
self of himself? I think not. Those who have
anything worth repeating, - ah! the sad confes-
sion! Those who are innocent have been em-
ployed in tape and pins. When will good work
be found for great spirits? When shall we be
able without a blush and without harm to utter
to the world our inmost thought?
Thus, shall I write memoirs ? A man who
was no courtier, but loved men, went to Rome,
—and there lived with boys. He came to France,
and in Paris lives alone, and in Paris seldom
speaks. If he do not see Carlyle in Edinburgh,
he may go to America without saying anything
in earnest, except to Cranch and to Landor.
The errors of traditional Christianity as it
now exists, the popular faith of many millions,


160
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
need to be removed to let men see the divine
beauty of moral truth. I feel myself pledged, if
health and opportunity be granted me, to de-
monstrate that all necessary truth is its own
evidence; that no doctrine of God need appeal
to a book; that Christianity is wrongly received
by all such as take it for a system of doctrines,
- its stress being upon moral truth; it is a rule
of life, not a rule of faith.
And how men can toil and scratch so hard for
things so dry, lifeless, unsightly, as these famous
dogmas, when the divine beauty of the truths
to which they are related lies behind them; how
they can make such a fuss about the case, and
never open it to see the jewel, is strange, piti-
ful.
Paris, July 12.
Is it not true that in every season of excited
thought, when a man has a strong conception
of God, it is wholly new to him; he perceives
that he has never penetrated so far before into
the Holy of Holies? and yet every time -
St. Charles Borromeo, what a man was he!
what a priest!
You cannot answer at the hour the argument
of little men, which insists on the unavoidable-
ness of sensual pleasure to such constitutions


1833) JARDIN DES PLANTES 161
as ours; but St. Charles Borromeo is answer
enough, any great and noble man is answer
enough, any one who will not be little, who will
bestir himself, who will use his faculties and do
his duty.
Be cheerful. What an insane habit is this of
groping always into the past months, and scrap-
ing together every little pitiful instance of awk-
wardness and misfortune, and keeping my nerv-
ous system ever on the rack. It is the disease
of a man who is at the same time too idle, and
respectful to the opinion of others.
Il tient son affaire.
(From Note-book)
July 13.
I carried my ticket from Mr. Warden to the
Cabinet of Natural History in the Garden of
Plants. How much finer things are in composi- ✓
tion than alone. 'Tis wise in man to make cabi-
nets. When I was come into the Ornithological
Chambers I wished I had come only there. The
fancy-coloured vests of these elegant beings
make me as pensive as the hues and forms of a
cabinet of shells, formerly. It is a beautiful col-
lection and makes the visitor as calm and genial
as a bridegroom. The limits of the possible are


162
JOURNAL (Age 30
enlarged, and the real is stranger than the im-
aginary. Some of the birds have a fabulous
beauty. One parrot of a fellow called Psittacus
erythropterụs from New Holland deserves as
special mention as a picture of Raphael in a
gallery. He is the beau of all birds. Then
the humming birds, little and gay. Least of
all is the Trochilus Niger. I have seen beetles
larger. The Trochilus pella hath such a neck of
gold and silver and fire! Trochilus Delalandi from
Brazil is a glorious little tot, la mouche magni-
fique. Among the birds of Paradise I remarked
the Manucode or Paradisea regia from New Gui-
nea, the Paradisea Apoda, and Paradisea rubra.
Forget not the Veuve à epaulettes, or Emberiza
longicauda, black with fine shoulder-knots; nor
the Ampelis cotinga ; nor the Phasianus Argus, a
peacock-looking pheasant; nor the Trogon pa-
voninus, called also Couroncou pavonin.
I saw black swans and white peacocks; the
ibis, the sacred and the rosy ; the flamingo, with
a neck like a snake; the toucan rightly called
rhinoceros; and a vulture whom to meet in the
wilderness would make your flesh quiver, so
like an executioner he looked.
In the other rooms I saw amber containing
perfect musquitoes, grand blocks of quartz, na-
less
V


1833] “STRIVING TO BE MAN” 163
tive gold in all its forms of crystallization,
threads, plates, crystals, dust; and silver, black
as from fire. Ah! said I, this is philanthropy,
wisdom, taste, - to form a cabinet of natural
history. Many students were there with gram-
mar and note-book, and a class of boys with
their tutor from some school.
Here we are impressed with the inexhausti-
ble riches of nature. The universe is a more
amazing puzzle than ever, as you glance along
this bewildering series of animated forms, — the
hazy butterflies, the carved shells, the birds,
beasts, fishes, insects, snakes, and the upheaving
principle of life everywhere incipient, in the very
rock aping organized forms. Not a form so
grotesque, so savage, nor so beautiful but is an
expression of some property inherent in man
the observer, an occult relation between the
very scorpions and man. I feel the centipede
in me, - cayman, carp, eagle, and fox. I am
moved by strange sympathies; I say continu-
ally “ I will be a naturalist.”
There's a good collection of skulls in the
Comparative Anatomy Chambers. The best
skull seemed to be English. The skeleton of
the Balena looks like the frame of a schooner
turned upside down.
n
.


164
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
The Garden itself is admirably arranged.
· They have attempted to classify all the plants
in the ground, to put together, that is, as nearly
as may be, the conspicuous plants of each class
on Jussieu's system.
Walk down the alleys of this flower-garden,
and you come to the enclosures of the animals
where almost all that Adam named or Noah
preserved are represented. Here are several
lions, two great elephants walking out in the
open day, a camelopard seventeen feet high,
the bison, the rhinoceros, and so forth, — all
manner of four-footed things in air and sun-
shine, in the shades of a pleasant garden, where
all people, French and English, may come and
see without money. By the way, there is a cari-
cature in the print-shops respecting the arrival
of the giraffe in Paris, exclaiming to the mob,
“Messieurs, il n'y a qu'un bête de plus.” It is very
pleasant to walk in this garden.
As I went out, I noticed a placard posted on
the gate giving notice that M. Jussieu would
next Sunday give a public herborisation, that is,
make a botanical excursion into the country,
and inviting all and sundry to accompany
him.


1833]
PÈRE LE CHAISE
165
July 15.
I have just returned from Père le Chaise. It
well deserves a visit and does honour to the
French. But they are a vain nation. The tomb-
stones have a beseeching, importunate vanity
and remind you of advertisements. But many
are affecting. One which was of dark slate stone
had only this inscription, “Mon Père.” I prefer
the “ Ci gît” to the “ Ici repose” as the begin-
ning of the inscriptions, but, take the cemetery
through, I thought the Classics rather carried
the day. One epitaph was so singular to be read
by me, that I wrote it off;
Ici repose Auguste Charles Collignon, mort plein
de confiance dans la bonté de Dieu, à l'âge de 68
ans et 4 mois, le 15 Avril, 1830. Il aima et cher-
cba à faire du bien, et mena une vie douce et beu-
reuse en suivant autant qu'il put la morale et les
leçons des essais de Montaigne et des Fables de la
Fontaine. I notice that, universally, the French
write, as, in the above, “Here lies Augustus,” etc.,
and we write,“ Here lies the body of,” etc. —amore
important distinction than roi de France and roi
des Français.
I live at pension with Professor Heari at the
corner of Rue Neuve Vivienne directly over the
entrance of the Passage aux Panorames. If I had


166
[Age 30
JOURNAL
companions in the City, it would be something
better to live in the Café and Restaurant. These
public rooms are splendidly prepared for travel-
lers and full of company and of newspapers.
This Passage aux Panorames was the first ar-
cade built in Paris and was built by an Ameri-
can, Mr. Thayer. There are now probably fifty
of these passages in the city. And few things
give more the character of magnificence to the
city than the suite of these passages about the
Palais Royal.
Notre Dame is a fine church outside, but the
interior quite naked and beggarly. In general,
the churches are very mean inside.
Young men are very fond of Paris, partly, no
doubt, because of the perfect freedom, free-
dom from observation as well as interference,
in which each one walks after the sight of his
own eyes; and partly because the extent and
variety of objects offers an unceasing entertain-
ment. So long as a man has francs in his pocket
he needs consult neither time, nor place, nor
other men's convenience; wherever in the vast
city he is, he is within a stone's throw of a patis-
sier, a café, a restaurant, a public garden, a the-
atre, and may enter when he will. If he wish to
go to the Thuileries perhaps two miles off, let


eve
1833]
EVENINGS
167
him stop a few minutes at the window of a print-
shop or a book-stall, of which there are hundreds
and thousands, and an omnibus is sure to pass
in the direction in which he would go, and for
six sous he rides two or three miles. Then the
streets swarm with Cabinets de Lecture where you
find all the journals and all the new books. I
spend many hours at Galignani's and lately at
the English Reading Room in the Rue Neuve
Augustine, where they advertise that they receive
400 journals in all languages, and have more-
over a very large library.
Lastly, the evening need never hang heavy
on the stranger's hands, such ample provision
is made here for what the newspapers call “nos
besoins recreatifs.” More than twenty theatres
are blazing with light and echoing with fine music
every night, from the Académie Royale de la Mu-
sique, which is the French Opera, down to the
Children's Drama; not to mention concerts, gar-
dens and shows innumerable. The theatre is the
passion of the French, and the taste and splen-
dour of their dramatic exhibitions can hardly be
exceeded. The Journal, in speaking of the Opera
last night, declares that “Mme. D. was received
by the dilettanti of Paris with not less joy than
the lost soul by the angels in heaven.” I saw


168
[AGE 30
JOURNAL
IS
a
the opera Gustave performed the other night,
and have seen nothing anywhere that could
compare with the brilliancy of their scenic deco-
ration. The moonlight scene resembled nothing
but Nature's; and as for the masked ball, I
think there never was a real fancy-ball that
equalled the effect of this.
At the Théâtre Français, where Talma played
and Madame Mars plays, I heard Delavigne's
new piece, Enfans d'Edouard, excellently per-
formed; for although Madame Mars speaks
French beautifully and has the manners of a prin-
cess, yet she scarcely excels the acting of the less
famous performers who support her. Each was
perfect in his part.
Paris is an expensive place. Rents are very
high. All Frenchmen, in all quarters of their dis-
persion, never lose the hope of coming hither to
spend their earnings, and all the men of pleasure
in all the nations come hither, which fact explains
the existence of so many dazzling shops full of
most costly articles of luxury. Indeed, it is very
hard for a stranger to walk with eyes forward ten
yards in any part of the city.
I have been to the Faubourg St. Martin to
hear the Abbé Chatel, the founder of the Eglise
Catholique Française. It is a singular institution


1833] ABBÉ CHATEL
169
which he calls his church, with newly invented
dresses for the priests and martial music per-
formed by a large orchestra, relieved by interludes
of a piano with vocal music. His discourse was
far better than I could expect from these pre-
liminaries. Sometimes he is eloquent. He is a
Unitarian, but more radical than anybody in
America who takes that name.
I was interested in his enterprise, for there is
always something pathetic in a new church strug-
gling for sympathy and support. He takes upon
himself the whole pecuniary responsibilities of
the undertaking, and for his chapel in the Rue
St. Honoré pays an annual rent of 40,000 francs.
He gave notice of a grand funeral fête which is
to be solemnized on the anniversary of the Three
Days at that chapel.
In the print-shops they have a figure of the
Abbé Chatel on the same picture with Père
Enfant, Le Templier.
I went this evening into Frascati's, long the
most noted of the gambling houses or hells of
Paris, and which a gentleman had promised to
show me. This establishment is in a very hand-
some house on the Rue Richelieu. Several serv-
antsin livery were waitingin the hall, who took our
hats on entering, and we passed at once into the
niversa


170
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
WI
suite of rooms in all of which play was going on.
The most perfect decorum and civility prevailed,
the table was covered with little piles of napo-
leons which seemed to change masters very rap-
idly, but scarce a word was spoken. Servants
carry about lemonade, etc., but no heating liquor.
The house, I was told, is always one party in the
game. Several women were present, but many of
the company seemed to be mere spectators like
ourselves. After walking round the tables, we re-
turned to the hall, gave the servant a franc for
our hats, and departed. Frascati has grown very
rich.
Go to the Champs Élysées after sunset and see
the manifold show. An orchestra, a roundabout,
a tumbler, sugar-plum-gambling-tables, harpers,
dancers, and an army of loungers.
· I went to the Mazarin Library, and Mr.
Warden kindly introduced me to the séance of
the Class of Science in the Institute, and pointed
out to me the conspicuous men. I saw Biot, Arago,
Gay Lussac, Jouffroy, and others. Several mem-
oirs were read, and some debate ensued thereon.
Visited St. Cloud.
July 18.
Left Paris in the Diligence for Boulogne. Rode
all night through St. Denis, Moisselles, Beau-


1833)
ENGLAND
171
vais, breakfasted at Abbeville, passed through
Montreuil, Samur, and reached Boulogne about
sunset. At Abbeville we picked up Signore Ales-
sandro, an Italian emigrant.
At Boulogne, on Saturday morn, 19th, took
the steamboat for London. After a rough pas-
sage of 20 hours we arrived at London and landed
at the Tower Stairs.
ENGLAND
July 20.
Weknow London so well in books and pictures
and maps and traditions that I saw nothing sur-
prising in this passage up the Thames. A noble
navigable stream, lined on each side by a highly
cultivated country, full of all manner of good
buildings. Then Greenwich and Deptford, hos-
pital, docks, arsenals, fleets of shipping, and then
the mighty metropolis itself, old, vast, and still.
Scarce anybody was in the streets. It was about
7 o'clock Sunday morning, and we met few per-
sons until we reached St. Paul's. A porter carried
our baggage, and we walked through Cheapside,
Newgate Street, High Holborn, and found lodg-
ings (according to the direction of my friend in
Paris) at Mrs. Fowler's, No. 63 Russell Square.
It was an extreme pleasure to hear English


172
JOURNAL [AGE 30
spoken in the streets; to understand all the
words of children at play, and to find that we
must not any longer express aloud our opinion
of every person we met, as in France and Italy
we had been wont to do.
Went into St. Paul's, where service was say-
ing. Poor church.
London, July 24.
Here in the great capital it needs to say some-
thing of the creature immortal that swarms on
this spot. Coming to Boulogne, I thought of the
singular position of the American traveller in
Italy. It is like that of a being of another planet
who invisibly visits the earth. He is a protected
witness. He sees what is that boasted liberty of
manners, free of all puritan starch, and sees what
it is worth, how surely it pays its tax. He comes
a freeman among slaves. He learns that old saws
are true, which is a great thing. He is not now to
be answered any longer in his earnest assertions
of moral truth, by the condescending explanation
that these are his prejudices of country and edu-
cation. He has seen how they hold true through
all the most violent contrasts of condition and
character.
ma


173
1833)
LONDON
July 28.
Attended divine service at Westminster Ab-
bey. The Bishop of Gloucester preached. It is
better than any church I have seen except St.
Peter's.
Happy the man who never puts on a face, but
receives every visitor with that countenance he
has on.
[There are no further notes on London ex-
cept the following list:] Westminster Abbey; St.
Stephen's; Haymarket; Mr. Irving's Chapel ;
Gallery of Practical Science; London Univer-
sity; Zoological Gardens; Regent Street ; Athe-
næum; St. James ; Mr. Fox's Chapel; Wilber-
force's funeral; Regent's Park; Immense city,
very dull city.
July 31.
At Dr. Bowring's, Milton's house; inscription
on the wall, “ Sacred to Milton, the Prince of
Poets.”
[Here follows the account of the visit to
Wordsworth at Ambleside, which is printed
in full in English Traits, with but slight altera-
tions.]


174
JOURNAL [AGE 30
Almost nobody in Highgate knew his [Cole-
ridge's] name. I asked several persons in vain;
at last a porter wished to know if I meant an eld-
erly gentleman with white hair? Yes, the same.
“Why, he lives with Mr. Gillman.” Ah yes,
that is he. So he showed me the way.
Mr. Bowring says that Wilson and Hogg went
to see Wordsworth, and the morning was fine,
and then there was a rainbow, and altogether it
was genial. So Hogg said to Wordsworth, this is
a fit spot for poets to meet in. Wordsworth drew
himself up with ineffable disdain saying, “Poets
indeed!”
[Leaving London, August 9, Mr. Emerson
visited Oxford, then Birmingham, but made no
records in the Journal.]
Matlock, Tuesday evening, 9 o'clock.
August 13.
Beautiful valley! Esteemed the most roman-
tic dell in England. Here sit I close by the Der-
went, and under the eaves of the caverns of the
Peak of Derbyshire. But it will not do, to visit
even these fine things alone. I think I must
not stay to visit even Haddon Hall and Chats-
worth.


1833] KENILWORTH. FLOWERS 175'
Pleasant it was to me to spend yesterday with
Mr. Dewey in such a visit. How reared himself
old Kenilworth into the English morning sky.
The ruin is as lordly as was the perfect state.
I thought, if I had a boy to educate, I would
carry him by moonlight into the inner floor of
the Lancaster building. It would doom him a
poet. The smell of the fresh ground, the cellar
smell in a hall so princely as Lancaster's, was
tragical.
“ The hall of Cyndyllan is gloomy this night,
Wanting fire, wanting candle.
I will weep awhile and then be silent.”
The visit to Warwick Castle is a proper ap-
pendix to the visit to Kenilworth, for Warwick
is what Kenilworth was. It overhangs the Avon.
In the interim betwixt these two visits we
went to St. Mary's Church and saw “ Our
Lady's Chapel.”
In this day's ride I marked that the botany
of England and America is alike. The clematis,
the mints, the goldenrods, the gerardias, the wild
geranium, the wild parsley, and twenty more
better known to my eye than to my ear, I saw
and recognized them all. I passed through Tam-
worth and saw the tower and the town, and


176
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
thought up the old jingle of my school
days:-
“ Largesse, Largesse, Lord Marmion!
They hailed him Lord of Fontenaye
Of Lutterworth and Scrivelbaye,
Of Tamworth tower and town.”
We passed through Ashby-de-la-Zouche, and
I saw the ruin of the old castle. We crossed the
Trent, we came to Derby. IWe see throughout
Wri Europe the counterparts of the Americans
I passed Sir Robert Peel's place, then Sir
Richard Arkwright's.
[Mr. Emerson then passed Northward, visit-
ing Haddon Hall, through Bakewell, Sheffield,
spending a day in York, thence by Newcastle
and Berwick to Edinburgh. There are no notes
of this part of the journey, nor of his visit to
Edinburgh, where he spent four days. The
narrative then begins again on some loose sheets,
apparently a copy of a letter.]
GLASGOW, August 23.
May I send you an account of my romancing
from Edinburgh to the Highlands? I was told it
was so easy, at an expense of two days, to see


1833) STIRLING. TROSACHS 177
that famous country of Ben Lomond, Loch
Katrine and the rest. So up the Forth sailed I,
in the steamboat for Stirling, cold, rainy wind
in our teeth, all the way. We passed Alloa and
Falkirk, yes, close by Bannockburn, I quietly
reading my book in the cabin. At Stirling, I
saw the ruin of the Abbey of Cambus Kenneth
and the view from Stirling Castle.
At night, in a car, being too late for the coach,
I rode through the rain ten miles to Doune and
Callander. Of the scenery I saw little more than
my horse's head. At Callandar I slept hard from
10 till 5, and was then waked to hasten to the
Trosachs Inn. This passage was made in an un-
covered car again, and the rain wet me through
my own coat and my landlord's over that, and
though we passed Loch Vennachar, and then
Loch Achray, yet the scenery of a shower-bath
must be always much the same, and perpendic-
ular rather than horizontal. Once when the flood
intermitted, I peeped out from under the um-
brella, and it was a pretty place. We dried and
breakfasted at the Trosachs Inn. I walked with
a party a mile and a half to the head of Loch
Katrine. It had cleared up, though the wind blew
stoutly, and I had the satisfaction of the Tro-
sachs. The ornament of Scottish scenery is the


178
JOURNAL , (Age 30
heather, which colours the country to the hue
of a rose. In two boats with four oars each we
pushed into the lake, and got as far as Ellen's
Island, the Isle of the Lady of the Lake. Ben
Venue and Ben An rise on either side. The
lake was rough, the wind was strong, and our
party were spattered, and the rowers made such
little way that it seemed impracticable to attempt
to go through the lake, which is nine miles long.
They put into the first cove the shore afforded;
part of the company returned to the Trosachs,
and a part who were bent on reaching that night
Glasgow, had nothing for it but to walk to the
end of the lake, which, following the windings
of the shore, is fourteen miles. There was no
better road than a sheep-track through every
variety of soil, now sand, now morass, now fern
and brake, now stones. But the day was fine and
on we fared, one of the boatmen acting as guide.
We embarked in the boat at 9 o'clock. Five
out of fifteen reached the little hut at the end of
the lake at 12 12. Here we dried our shoes and
drank (I drank) whiskey, and eat oat-cake. It
was five miles to Inversnaid, where we must
take the steamboat on Loch Lomond. There
was no conveyance but our legs, which served
us again ; a country as bare almost as a paved


1833) LOCH LOMOND. GLASGOW 179
street; mountains, mountains, but I don't re-
member that I saw a sheep. At Inversnaid, a
hut full of Highlandmen and women talking
Gaelic, no chimney, and the peat smoke escaped
as it could. Behind the house was a roaring cat-
aract. The steamboat came (and through much
fear and tribulation on the rough waves) we were
transported in a little boat and embarked there-
in. And so on we fared through this lake about
15 miles to Balloch. The wind blew my cap off,
which had travelled with me from Malta where
it was made, and it fell into Loch Lomond. My
hat was with the baggage all at Glasgow, and
the loss not to be repaired, so I shivered, and
sweltered when need was, in the rain and wind
with a handkerchief on my head. We landed
at Balloch, and took coach 5 miles farther to
Dumbarton. At Dumbarton we were carried to
the steamboat on the Clyde, and went up to
Glasgow, where we arrived about ten o'clock at
night. My own appearance was no doubt reso-
lute, arriving at an inn (where my baggage had
not) in an old surtout, without a hat and with-
out a rag of baggage.
They put me in a little room aloft. I was in no
condition to dictate, and crept to bed. This morn
came the trunk, and armed with razors and
SO-


180
JOURNAL [AGE 30
clean shirt I recovered my courage. I visited the
cathedral of 1123, spared by Knox, and now a
Presbyterian church. In the vaulted cellar of
the same is laid the scene of part of Rob Roy.
Then to the Salt Market, and to the Hunterian
Museum, and to the walks behind the College.
A little girl named Jeanie was my guide to the
tower of the church. Broad Scotch she spake,
but she said her name was not Deans.
[A large part of Mr. Emerson's account of
his visit to Carlyle was printed by him in Eng-
lisb Traits and is therefore omitted here.]
CARLISLE IN CUMBERLAND, August 26.
I am just arrived in merry Carlisle from
Dumfries. A white day in my years. I found
the youth I sought in Scotland, and good and
wise and pleasant he seems to me. Thomas
Carlyle lives in the parish of Dunscore, 16
miles from Dumfries, amid wild and desolate
heathery hills, and without a single companion
in this region out of his own house. There
he has his wife, a most accomplished and agree-
able woman. Truth and peace and faith dwell
with them and beautify them. I never saw
more amiableness than is in his countenance.


se
1833]
CARLYLE'S TALK 181
He speaks broad Scotch with evident relish;
“ in London yonder,” “I liked well,” “aboot
it,” “ay, ay,” etc., etc. Nothing can be better
than his stories, the philosophic phrase: “The
Duchess of Queensberry was appointed to pos-
sess this estate,” -“by God Almighty,” added
the lady ; Wordsworth; the Earl of Lonsdale ;
the town of Whitehaven; the Liverpool duel-
list; Coleridge ; Allan Cunningham; Hazlitt;
Walter Scott, Sheriff of Selkirk. ... “Mud
magazine,” “ Sand magazine.”: Coronation of
King William. ...
T. C. was born in Annandale. His reading
multifarious, Tristram Shandy, Robinson Crusoe,
Robertson's America. Rousseau's Confessions dis-
covered to him that he was not such an ass as
he had imagined. Ten years ago he learned
German. London; heart of the world, wonder-
ful only for the mass of human beings. ...
Splendid bridge from the new world to the old,
built by Gibbon. ...
T. C. had made up his mind to pay his taxes
to William and Adelaide Guelph with great
cheerfulness as long as William is able to com-
pel the payment, and he shall cease to do so the
moment he ceases to compel them. Landor's
i Carlyle's names for Fraser's Magazine, and Blackwood's.


182
(AGE 30
JOURNAL
principle is mere rebellion, and he fears that is
the American principle also. Himself worships
the man that will manifest any truth to him.
Mrs. Carlyle told of the disappointment
when they had determined to go to Weimar,
and the letter arrived from the bookseller to say
the book did not sell, and they could not go.
The first thing Goethe sent was the chain she
wore round her neck, and how she capered when
it came! but since that time he had sent many
things. Mrs. C. said, when I mentioned the
Burns piece, that it always had happened to him
upon those papers to hear of each two or three
years after. T. C. prefers London to any other
place to live in. John S. Mill the best mind he
knows, more purity, more force, has worked
himself clear of Benthamism. The best thing
T. C. thought in Stuart's book was the story of
the bootblack that a man can have meat for his
е
і
labor.
AMBLESIDE, August 28.
This morning I went to Rydal Mount and
called upon Mr. Wordsworth.
[Here follows the story of this visit, which is
printed in English Traits almost exactly as in the
note-book.


1833] VISIT TO WORDSWORTH 183
Wordsworth surprised his visitor by offering
to repeat some of his verses as they walked in
the garden. This amused Mr. Emerson at first,
but on reflection he thought it kind, and fitting
for a poet to do.]
The poet is always young, and this old man
took the same attitudes that he probably had at
seventeen, whilst he recollected the sonnet he
would recite.
His egotism was not at all displeasing, obtru-
sive, as I had heard. To be sure it met no rock.
I spoke as I felt, with great respect of his genius.
He spoke very kindly of Dr. Channing, who,
he said, “sat a long time in this very chair,” lay-
ing his hand upon an armchair.
He mentioned Burns's sons.
On my return to the inn, he walked near a
mile with me, talking, and ever and anon stop-
ping short to impress the word or the verse, and
finally parted from me with great kindness and
returned across the fields.
His hair is white, but there is nothing very
striking about his appearance.
August 29.
From Kendall this morning to Lancaster;
thence to Manchester, and there was deposited
er
on
e
W


184
(AGE 30
JOURNAL
with my luggage in the coach on the railway to
Liverpool. We parted at 11 minutes after six,
and came to the 21st milestone at 11 minutes
after seven. Strange it was to meet the return
cars; to see a load of timber, six or seven masts,
dart by you like a trout. Everybody shrinks
back when the engine hisses by him like a squib.
The fire that was dropped on the road under
us all along by our engine looked, as we rushed
over it, as a coal swung by the hand in circles,
not distinct, but a continuous glare. Strange
proof how men become accustomed to oddest
things ! the laborers did not lift their umbrellas
to look as we flew by them on their return at
the side of the track. It took about one and
one-half hours to make the journey, 32 miles.
It has been performed in less than the hour.
Liverpool, August 30.
I talked commonplaces to-day with a man at
this hotel, who told me he had lived in Boston,
until I found out it was Jacob Perkins. He says
it is not true that he has failed for want of ma-
terial strong enough to hold his force. He says
he has succeeded in everything he has under-
taken, but in making money.


1833) REVIEW OF JOURNEY
185
(From Q)
LIVERPOOL, September 1.
I thank the Great God who has led me through
this European scene, this last schoolroom in
which he has pleased to instruct me, from Malta's
isle, through Sicily, through Italy, through
Switzerland, through France, through England,
through Scotland, in safety and pleasure, and has
now brought me to the shore and the ship that
steers westward. He has shown me the men I
wished to see, - Landor, Coleridge, Carlyle,
Wordsworth; he has thereby comforted and
confirmed me in my convictions. Many things
I owe to the sight of these men. I shall judge
more justly, less timidly, of wise men forever-
more. To be sure not one of these is a mind
of the very first class, but what the intercourse
with each of these suggests is true of intercourse
with better men, that they never fill the ear -
fill the mind — no, it is an idealized portrait
which always we draw of them. Upon an in
telligent man, wholly a stranger to their names,
they would make in conversation no deep im-
pression, none of a world-filling fame, — they
would be remembered as sensible, well-read,
earnest men, not more. Especially are they all
mo
W
neve


186
(AGE 30
JOURNAL
deficient, all these four,– in different degrees,
but all deficient,-in insight into religious truth.
They have no idea of that species of moral truth
which I call the first philosophy. (Peter Hunt'
is as wise a talker as either of these men. Don't
laugh.)
The comfort of meeting men of genius such
as these is that they talk sincerely, they feel
themselves to be so rich that they are above the
meanness of pretending to knowledge which
they have not, and they frankly tell you what
puzzles them. But Carlyle — Carlyle is so ami-
able that I love him.
But I am very glad my travelling is done. A
man not old feels himself too old to be a vaga-
bond, The people at their work, the people
whose avocations I interrupt by my letters of
introduction, accuse me by their looks for leav-
ing my business to hinder theirs.”
i Benjamin Peter Hunt has been already alluded to. He
had been one of Mr. Emerson's scholars in the village of
Chelmsford, and later, when Mr. Hunt lived in Philadelphia,
they sometimes wrote to one another.
2 Mr. Emerson seldom presented a letter of introduction.
It was his practice to go to the town where the person he
would see lived and write a note to him from the ind. The
recipient could judge from the note whether the writer was
one whom he cared to see.


CC-
1833) LIMITS OF THE GREAT 187
These men make you feel that fame is a con-
ventional thing, and that man is a sadly “limi-
tary” spirit. You speak to them as to children,
or persons of inferior capacity whom it is neces-
sary to humour; adapting our tone and remarks
to their known prejudices and not to our know-
ledge of the truth.
I believe in my heart it is better to admire
too rashly, as I do, than to be admired too rashly,
as the great men of this day are. They miss by
their premature canonization a great deal of nec-
essary knowledge, and one of these days must
begin the world again (as to their surprise they
will find needful) poor. I speak now in general,
and not of these individuals. God save a great
man from a little circle of flatterers. I know it
is sweet, very sweet, ratsbane.
To-day I heard Mr. Hinckes, Mr. Marti-
neau, and Mr. Yates, preach : Yates who wrote
against Wardlaw. He preached the best sermon
I have heard in England,-a great deal the
best.
Here at my Hotel, the Star and Garter,
Paradise Street, I have found Jacob Perkins the
inventor of so many improvements in steam-
engines. He has been illuminating me upon the
science of heat.
ermon


188
JOURNAL
(Age 30
Could not Wordsworth have kept to himself
his intimations that his new edition was at the
bookseller's and contained some improvements?
John Milton was a poet, not a bookmaker,
although
The Muse made Shakspear, Milton made his Muse.
True elevation which nothing can bring down
is that of moral sentiment. All Carlyle's intel-
lect did not hinder an unpleasant emotion at
hearing about his occupation. But Johnson's
school or Peter Hunt's are above contempt,
and an act of heroism, “A Roman recovery,”
would have enshrined C. a saint for me. I love
his love of truth. The spot is the preference of
such a scrub as Mirabeau to Socrates.
LIVERPOOL, September 2.
No sailing to-day, so you may know what I
have seen and heard in the four days I have been
here. Really nothing external, so I must spin
my thread from my own bowels. It must be said
this is the least agreeable city to the traveller in
all England, the old, the rich, the strong nation,
full of arts and men and memories; nor can I
feel any regret in the presence of the best of its
sons that I was not born here.


189
(1833)
AMERICA
I am thankful that I am an American as I am
thankful that I am a man. It is its best merit to
my eye that it is the most resembling country
to America which the world contains.
The famous burden of English taxation is
bearable. Men live and multiply under it, though
I have heard a father in the higher rank of life
speak with regret of the increase of his family.
That is all I can say ; I am at a dead stand. I
can neither write nor read more. If the vessel
do sail, they say we shall be drowned on the lee
shore; if she do not sail, I perish waiting. What's
the odds? I have plainly said my last word; it is
the prodigality of ink, the wanton destruction of
paper to add another syllable, and withal a sin-
gular exhibition of what fatuity a man is capable
who reckons himself sometimes an educated and
thinking man. Yet must I write still. Why?
these lines are the expectants of the dinner; and
it is cold and I cannot go out. Why should I?
I have bid good-bye to all the people. Shall I make
them repeal their tears and benedictions ? There
are no books in the house, I have digested the
newspaper. I have no companion. Even · Mr.
Perkins, when at home, has finished his commu-
nications, and we have got to theology at last.
If it won't rain after the soles and cutlets, I will


190
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
brave one family whom I have parted from. Ah
me! Mr. Thomas Carlyle, I would give a gold
pound for your wise company this gloomy eve.
Ah, we would speed the hour. Ah, I would rise
above myself - what self-complacent glances
casts the soul about in the moment of fine con-
versation, esteeming itself the author of all the
fine things it utters, and the master of the riches
the memory produces, and how scornfully looks
it back upon the plain person it was yesterday
without a thought.
It occurs forcibly, yea, somewhat pathetically,
that he who visits a man of genius out of ad-
miration for his parts should treat him tenderly.
'Tis odds but he will be disappointed. That is
not the man of genius's fault. He was honest
and human, but the fault of his own ignorance
of the units of human excellence. Let him feel
that his visit was unwelcome, and that he is in-
debted to the tolerance and good nature of his
idol, and so spare him the abuse of his own re-
acting feelings, the back-stroke.
SU
Ic
September 3.
No sailing still, but sitting still. I went to the
railroad and saw Rocket and Goliath and Pluto
and Firefly and the rest of that vulcanian genera-


1833] JACOB PERKINS 191
tion. Mr. Perkins says they should not go faster
than fifteen miles the hour. It racks the engines
to go faster. There are thirty locomotives upon
the road. These only have the circulators. There
is no such thing as latent heat. The thermometer
indicates all the heat that is present. Only when
the particles of the water expand in vapor the
particles of the heat expand also. High pressure
steam-engines are safer than low.
He says that he confidently expects the time
when the ocean will be navigated by merchant-
men by steam as the most economical means,
but there is a great deal to be done first; that
now very little advantage is taken of the expansion
of steam, its most important property.
Mr. Perkins recited with glee his victory over
one of the directors of the Manchester road. Mr.
Perkins showed that his engine had beat the Sun
(Stephenson's) all last week, doing more work
with less coke. Director said that was because Sun
had been out of order. Mr. P.reminded him of the
quantity of coke which the Director had alleged
was needful always, to the ton and the hour, for
said engine ; to which Director assented. Well,
said Mr. P., I have here certificates of your serv-
ants to show that the Sun performed the same
work all last week with a fraction less coke. The
now


192 JOURNAL (Age 30
Director acknowledged it could not be much out
of order.
(From separate notes)
[The notes which follow were very likely
made while waiting in Liverpool, Mr. Emerson
perhaps then having in view the writing the lec-
ture which he found opportunity to deliver in
November as the introductory discourse before
the Boston Society of Natural History. It should
be borne in mind that he had turned his back on
tradition and turned to Nature as his teacher,
and he had already begun his book, Nature.]
NATURAL HISTORY
I don't think that we are yet master of all the
reasons why we should cultivate it. Natural
Magic - Good for society, a diffused taste in
natural science ; good in a higher degree to the
cultivators, –
1. In the knowledge it communicates; pump,
natural steam engine, ship, boundaries.
2. In the explanation it gives of moral truth;
shells [are] symbols.
3. In the effect upon the character. It makes y
in the intellect exact. It makes the manners sim-
ple; makes all boys. It generates enthusiasm.
. 4. Salutary to the body. Antæus. Higher


193
1833) NATURAL P
NATURAL HISTORY
questions. Beauty. How old is the pebble? “Is
it true? ”
Natural history of water ; of coal.
It makes every natural event a scientific ex-
periment, — as a snowstorm.
Compare an orrery with the solar system to
see how beautiful is nature. Her ropes never
entangle, nor crack, nor wear, nor weigh. They
are invisible.
So the magnet.
Simplicity of the means. Bees fanning them-
selves.
Good for the body.
Good for the knowledge it communicates.
Good in its effect upon the mind and char-
acter.
1. Explains moral truth.
Elementary forms of bodies revealed by po-
larization of light.
Elective affinities.
Polarity of matter. Light. Electricity. Gal-
vanism. Magnetism.
Wednesday, September 4.
At 2 o'clock left Liverpool in the New York
of N. Y., 14 cabin passengers, 16 steerage. Ship
516 tons.


JOURNAL
(AGE 30
Thursday (September] 5.
Calm fine day. This morn I saw the last lump
of England receding without the least regret. I
saw too for the first time a piece of Ireland. It was
the Wicklow Mountains. As I came down to the
waterside in Liverpool, I noticed the announce-
ment of the wind at Holyhead," At Holyhead, :
N. E. wind blowing fresh.” This communication
was telegraphed from Holyhead 60 miles from
Liverpool. Noble docks. Heard Mr. Yates
preach on Sunday the best sermon I heard in
England. “ Be clothed with humility.” After
service I stood waiting for him to come out,
when he spoke to me at my side. “Oh,” said I
surprised, “how do you do, Mr. Wardlaw,-
I mean Mr. Yates."
Is it not strange that every book begins with
“ No science deserves more attention than,”
whether astronomy, geology, civil history, ge-
ometry, algebra, commerce, or what not. Even
wise Herschel, after a saving flourish, begins
with a “no science.”
We were towed out of Liverpool Harbor by
steamboat. Admirable contrivance for ports in
deep bays like this, or Philadelphia, or Balti-
more, for they might lie weeks waiting to get
out with the wind fair for the voyage all the time.


1833] THE NARROW LINE 195
At one moment the boat and the ship had nearly
struck. Every ship, every man, has all butstruck,
been within an inch of destruction a thousand
times. It is such a narrow line that divides an
awkward act from the finish of gracefulness.
Every man eats well alone. Let a stranger come
in, and he misses his mouth, and spills his but-
terboat, and fails of finding the joint in carving,
and that by so little.
I wrote above something concerning the
golden mean wherein grace and safety lies. In
peaceful pursuits, in cities, we do not consider
how great is the distance between danger and
death. A man in his parlor thinks that to meet
a lion in the desart, or to stumble over an alli-
gator in wading through a watered savannah, is
certain destruction. They who are familiar with
these rencontres think no such thing, and in that
discrimination their safety lies. See the story of
the Indian girl who put out the Cayman's eyes;
and, in the accurate Dampier, the account of the
Irishman whose knee was seized by an alligator,
- he quietly waited till the animal loosened his
teeth to take a new and surer hold, and when
it did so, snatched away his knee, interposing
the butt end of his gun in its stead, which the
animal seized so firmly that it was jerked out


196
JOURNAL (Age 30
of the man's hand and carried off. See also the
marvellous expedient of righting the ship when
lying in the trough of the sea by going up
the fore-shrouds and spreading out their coats.
(Early English Navigation Cabinet Library.)
When the French fleet under Count d'Es-
trées was wrecked, those of the ordinary seamen
who got ashore died of fatigue and famine, while
those who had been Buccaneers were wrecked
here, being used to such accidents, lived mer-
rily; for they kept a gang by themselves and
watched when the ships broke up to get the
goods that came out of them, and though much
was staved against the rocks, yet abundance of
wine and brandy floated over the reef where they
waited to take it up. . . . In the selecting un-
known wild fruits they were guided by birds,
freely eating whatever kind had been pecked.
СО
Friday, 6.
Fair ; fine wind; still in the Channel, off the
coast of Ireland, but not in sight of land. This
morning 37 sail in sight.
1 I like my book about Nature, and wish I knew
I where and how I ought to live. God will show
me. I am glad to be on my way home, yet not
so glad as others, and my way to the bottom I


1833) SMALLS. ASTRONOMY 197
could find perchance with less regret, for I think
it would not hurt me, – that is, the ducking
or drowning
Saturday, 7.
Gentle airs. Wind still, and, what is perhaps
good, no events. At 12 o'clock, south of Cape
Clear.
Sunday, 8.
The solitary keeper of the lighthouse of the
Smalls in the English Channel, which stands on
three pillars of cast iron, the waves washing
through them : there were two, one sickened
and died, the other kept his body, lest they
should say he murdered him, until somebody
came to the spot; and the body was quite
rotten.
Bread must be well mixed to keep sweet; man
well tempered to keep his spirit clear.
“A rum place,” says an Englishman.
It is pleasant to know that our ship is re-
nowned for fast sailing. Captain Hoxie tells me
that in three successive days he sailed in this ship
275, 273 and 276 miles=824.
Astronomy, I thank Herschel, promises
everything. It refers me to a higher state than
I now occupy. I please myself rather with con-
templating the penumbra of the thing than the


198
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
thing itself. But no moralities now, the good,
the holy day.
(From Q)
AT SEA. Sunday, September 8.
I wrote above my conviction that the great
men of England are singularly ignorant of reli-
·gion. They should read Norton's preface to his
new book,' who has stated that fact well. Carlyle
almost grudges the poor peasant his Calvinism.
Must I not admit in the same moment that I
have practical difficulties myself. I see or believe
in the wholesomeness of Calvinism for thou-
sands and thousands. I would encourage, or
rather I would not discourage, their scrupulous
religious observances. I dare not speak lightly
of usages which I omit. And so with this hollow
obeisance to things I do not myself value. I go
on not pestering others with what I do believe,
and so I am open to the name of a very loose
speculator, a faint, heartless supporter of a frigid
and empty theism, a man of no rigor of man-
ners, of no vigor of benevolence. Ah me! what
hope of reform, what hope of communicating
religious light to benighted Europe, if they who
have what they call the light are so selfish and
timid and cold, and their faith so unpractical and,
1 Prof. Andrews Norton's attack on Trinitarian doctrines.


vere
1833) NARROW RELIGION 199
in their judgment, so unsuitable for the middling
classes. I know not, I have no call to expound,
but this is my charge plain and clear, to act faith-
fully upon my own faith, to live by it myself, and
see what a hearty obedience to it will do.
(Carlyle deprecated the state of a man living
in rebellion, as he termed it, with no worship, no
reverence for anybody. Himself, he said, would
worship anyone who showed him more truth.
And Unitarians, he thought, were a tame, limi-
tary people, who were satisfied with their scio-
listic system, and never made great attainments,
- incapable of depth of sentiment.)
Back again to myself. I believe that the error
of religionists lies in this, that they do not know
the extent or the harmony or the depth of their
moral nature; that they are clinging to little,
positive, verbal, formal versions of the moral law,
and very imperfect versions too, while the infi-
nite laws, the laws of the Law, the great circling
truths whose only adequate symbol is the mate-
rial laws, the astronomy, etc., are all unobserved,
and sneered at when spoken of, as frigid and in-
sufficient. I call Calvinism such an imperfect ver-
sion of the moral law. Unitarianism is another,
and every form of Christian and of Pagan faith
in the hands of incapable teachers is such a ver-


200
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
sion. On the contrary, in the hands of a true
Teacher, the falsehoods, the pitifulnesses, the
sectarianisms of each are dropped, and the sub-
limity and the depth of the Original is pene-
trated and exhibited to men. I say also that all
that recommends each of these established sys-
tems of opinion to men is so much of this Moral
Truth as is in them, and by the instructive selec-
tion of the preacher is made to shine forth when
the system is assailed.
And because of this One Bottom it is that the
eminent men of each church, Socrates, À Kempis,
Fénelon, Butler, Penn, Swedenborg, Channing,
think and say the same thing.
! But the men of Europe will say, Expound; let
us hear what it is that is to convince the faithful
and at the same time the philosopher? Let us
hear this new thing. It is very old. It is the old
revelation, that perfect beauty is perfect good-
ness, it is the development of the wonderful con-
gruities of the moral law of human nature. Let
me enumerate a few of the remarkable properties
of that nature. A man contains all that is needful
to his government within himself. He is made a
law unto himself. All real good or evil that can
befal him must be from himself. He only can do
himself any good or any harm. Nothing can be


1833) SHIP LIFE. MAILS 201
given to him or taken from him but always there
is a compensation. There is a correspondence be-
tween the human soul and everything that exists
in the world; more properly, everything that is
known to man. Instead of studying things with-
out the principles of them, all may be penetrated
unto within him. Every act puts the agent in a
new condition. The purpose of life seems to be
to acquaint a man with himself. He is not to
live to the future as described to him, but to live
to the real future by living to the real present.
The highest revelation is that God is in every
man.
(From separate notes)
Monday, September 9.
The road from Liverpool to New York, as
they who have travelled it well know, is very
long, crooked, rough, and eminently disagree-
able. Good company even, Heaven's best gift,
will scarce make it tolerable. Four meals a day
is the usual expedient (and the wretchedness
of the expedient will show the extremity of the
case) and much wine and porter, -- these are
the amusements of wise men in this sad place.
The purest wit may have a scurvy stomach.
The letter-bag is our captain's best passen-
ger. He neither eats nor drinks, and yet pays, at


202
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
least in Liverpool, a passenger's fare. Captain
Hoxie tells me that he usually carries between
4000 and 5000 letters each way. At the New
York Post Office they count his letters and
pay him two cents for every one. At Liver-
pool two pence. The last time he received in
Liverpool £39 for them.
Fraser's Magazine states that Lord Claren-
don wrote a sketch of the life of Charles Cot-
ton, father of Charles Cotton, doubtless the
translator of Montaigne. I have never seen it.
(From Q)
LIVERPOOL, September 10.
I have heard the proverb that there is no
evil but can speak. Especially in these days
when every sentiment and every class of opin-
ions and interests has its organ and voice, is
there no evil but speaks. Also consider that
every week Europe sends this voice of all its
opinions and interests by its periodical press or
occasional works into America; it follows that
one can better know what transpires there by
reading here (with more accuracy and in a
shorter time) than by the slow and partial
method of personal observation in travelling.
It seems to argue great simplicity then for a


203
1833) ROUGH WATER
traveller to undertake to inform us upon Eu-
rope because he has seen it. So it would. You
have learned more by contenting yourself with
this abbreviated tabulated method. I will then
say what I have to say, merely in confirmation
of your results, and by no means pretending to
state new views or theories.
The whole creation groaneth until now, wait-
ing for that which shall be revealed.
Loud winds last night, but the ship swam
like a waterfowl betwixt the mountains of sea.
The wise man in the storm prays God, not for
safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.
It is the storm within which endangers him, not
the storm without. But it is a queer place to
make one's bed in, the hollows of this immense
Atlantic; Mazeppa-like we are tied to the side
of these wild horses of the Northwest. But this
rough breath of Heaven will blow me home at
last, as once it blew me to Gibraltar. The pow-
erful trumpet of the blast finds a response to all
its stops in the bottom of the heart of the men
in the cabin.
(From separate notes)
Friday, September 13.
The sea to us is but a lasting storm. How it
blows, how it rocks! My sides are sore with


204
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
rolling in my berth. The coverlet is not wide
enough that a man should wrap himself in it.
It is only strange that with such a sea and wind
and rain, such wild, distressful, noisy nights, no
harm should befal us. We have torn a sail and
lost a hencoop and its inmates, but the bul-
warks are firm, and I often hear of the sea
breaking the bulwarks of ships. Captain Fox,
who went in 14 days from Liverpool to Boston,
slept in the cable tier to keep the mate from
taking in sail. Running in for Boston Harbor
it was very misty and the passengers besought
him to lay to, in vain. Presently the man before
cried, “A sail!” “Pooh!” said Captain Fox,
“'t is the lighthouse ; starboard helm!” It was
the light, and he ran round it and came to an-
chor within the bay.
· What a machine is a ship, changing so fast
from the state of a butterfly, all wing, to the
shape of a log, all spar.
Poor Ireland! They told a story of an Irish
boy at school asking a holiday to go to the
market town. “What to go for?” “To see
Uncle hanged.”
Monday, 16.
Gale and calm, pitch and rock, merrily swim
we, the sun shines bright. The mate says they


205
e ar
1833) SUNDAY AT SEA
took up, about where we are now, a year ago, the
crew of the Leonidas, a Portland vessel loaded
with salt, which sprang a leak. The Captain
would not leave the ship, after putting quadrant
and compass and his own things in a boat, and
saw the boat leave the ship. One of this line of
packets struck an island of ice, and the whole
company with 35 passengers escaped in the
boat.
Dull stormy day yesterday. I kept Sunday
with Milton, and a Presbyterian magazine. Mil-
ton says, if ever any was ravished with moral
beauty, he is the man.
It occurred with sad force how much we are
bound to be true to ourselves (the old string)
because we are always judged by others. as our-
selves, and not as those whose example we would
plead. A. reads in a book the praise of a wise
man who could unbend and make merry, and
so he tosses off his glass whilst round him are
malicious eyes watching his guzzling and fat
eating. The truth is, you can't find any example
that will suit you, nor could, if the whole fam-
ily of Adam should pass in procession before
you, for you are a new work of God.
runs ..
“Time and the hour wear through the roughest day.”
M, I , ***


206
(Age 30
JOURNAL
[IMPROVISATIONS]
(From a Verse book)
America, my country, can the mind
Embrace in its affections realms so vast
(Unpeopled, yet the land of men to be)
As the great oceans that wash thee enclose?
'Tis an ambitious charity that makes
Its arms meet round -
And yet, the sages say, the preference
Of our own cabin to a stranger's wealth,
The insidious love and hate that curls the lip
Of the frank Yankee in the tenements
Of ducal and of royal rank abroad,
His supercilious ignorance
Of heraldry and ceremony,
And his tenacious recollection
Amid the coloured treasuries of art
That circle the Louvre or the Pitti house,–
Tuscany's unrivalled boast, —
Of the brave steamboats of New York,
The Boston Common, and the Hadley farms
Washed by Connecticut;
Yea, if the ruddy. Englishman speak true,
Of the vast Roman church, and underneath
The frescoed sky of its majestic dome,
The American will count the cost
And build the shrine with dollars in his head;
And all he asks, arrived in Italy,


1833]
DEFINE MORALS
207
Has the star-bearing squadron left Leghorn ?
Land without history, land lying all
In the plain daylight of the temperate zone,
Thy plain acts
Without exaggeration done in day;
Thy interests contested by their manifest good sense,
In their own clothes without the ornament
Of bannered army harnessed in uniform.
Land where — and it is in Europe counted a re-
proach —
Where man asks questions for which man was made.
A land without nobility, or wigs, or debt,
No castles, no cathedrals, and no kings;
Land of the forest. ...
In this world, if a man sits down to think, he
is immediately asked if he has the headache ?
m
(From Q)
AT SEA. September 17.
Yesterday I was asked what I mean by
morals. I reply that I cannot define, and care
not to define. It is man's business to ob-
serve, and the definition of moral nature must
be the slow result of years, of lives, of states,
perhaps of being. Yet in the morning watch on
my berth I thought that morals is the science
of the laws of human action as respects right


208
JOURNAL [AGE 30
and wrong. Then I shall be asked, And what
is Right? Right is a conformity to the laws of
nature as far as they are known to the human
mind. These for the occasion, but I propound
definitions with more than the reserve of the
feeling above-named, — with more, because my
own conceptions are so dim and vague. But
nevertheless nothing darkens, nothing shakes,
nothing diminishes my constant conviction of
the eternal concord of these laws which are per-
fect music, and of which every high sentiment
and every great action is only a new statement,
and therefore and insomuch speaks aloud to the
whole race of man. I conceive of them by no
types, but the apparent hollow sphere of the
whole firmament wherein this ball of the earth
swims. Not easy are they to be enumerated,
but he has some idea of them who considers
such propositions as St. Bernard's, — Nobody
can harm me but myself, — or who developes
the doctrine in his own experience that nothing
can be given or taken without an equivalent.
Milton describes himself in his letter to Dio-
i dati as enamoured of moral perfection. He did
not love it more than I. That which I cannot
yet declare has been my angel from childhood
until now. It has separated me from men. It


1833) THE SOUL OF RELIGION 209
has watered my pillow, it has driven sleep from
my bed. It has tortured me for my guilt. It has
inspired me with hope. It cannot be defeated
by my defeats. It cannot be questioned, though
all the martyrs apostatize. It is always the glory
that shall be revealed; it is the “open secret"
of the universe; and it is only the feebleness and
dust of the observer that makes it future, the
whole is now potentially in the bottom of his
heart. It is the soul of religion. Keeping my
eye on this, I understand all heroism, the his-
tory of loyalty and of martyrdom and of bigotry,
the heat of the Methodist, the nonconformity
of the Dissenter, the patience of the Quaker.
But what shall the hour say for distinctions
such as these, this hour of southwest gales and
rain-dripping cabin? As the law of light is, fits of
easy transmission and reflexion, such is also the
soul's law. She is only superior at intervals to
pain, to fear, to temptation, only in raptures
unites herself to God; and Wordsworth truly
said,
“'T is the most difficult of tasks to keep
Heights which the soul is competent to gain.”
SU
What is this they say about wanting mathe-
matical certainty for moral truths. I have always


210
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
affirmed they had it. Yet they ask me whether
I know the soul immortal. No. But do I not
know the Now to be eternal?
Is it not a sufficient reply to the red and an-
gry worldling, colouring as he affirms his unbe-
lief, to say, Think on living, I have to do no
more than you with that question of another
life? I believe in this life. I believe it continues.
As long as I am here I plainly read my duties
as writ with pencil of fire; they speak not of
death. They are woven of immortal thread.
Men seem to be constitutionally believers and
unbelievers. There is no bridge that can cross
from a mind in one state to a mind in the other.
All my opinions, affections, whimsies, are tinged
with belief,—incline to that side. All that is
generous, elegant, rich, wise, looks that way.
But I cannot give reasons to a person of a dif-
ferent persuasion that are at all adequate to the
force of my conviction. Yet when I fail to find
the reason, my faith is not less.
Unpalatable must be always the argument
based upon the text, “If ye do my Father's will,
ye shall know of the doctrines,” and almost in-
capable of being used in conversation. It is felt
as a gross personality. Yet it is a good topic for
the preacher, and a better topic for the closet.


1833] TIES OF GREAT MEN 211
I believe that virtue purges the eye, that the
abstinent, meek, benevolent, industrious man is
in a better state for the fine influences of the
great universe to act upon him than the cold,
idle, eating disputant. The rocky, dry, fallow
ground says, “I can produce nothing, nothing
will grow; yet I see the sun and feel the rain as
much as you.” “Aye,” replies the cornfield,“ but
they have plucked away my stones and turned
up my surface and let in the watercourses, and
now the sun and the air, the heat and the snow
all serve me.”
Is it not singular and not at all unpleasing,
the fact that almost all great men have been so
yoked together by the accidents of their lives,
and few or none stand alone, but all in a genial
constellation ? John Evelyn gave a pension to
Jeremy Taylor. Jeremy Taylor and John Mil-
ton both did homage to the same lady, Countess
of Carbery, one in his Dedication, the other in his
Comus. Milton and Galileo, Clarke, Butler, and
Hume, Cervantes and Shakespear. Sir Henry
Wotton was a hoop of gold to what a com-
pany! Dante died at Ravenna, 1321; fifty-one
years after, Boccaccio was made professor at
Florence to lecture upon the Divine Comedy,
and in 1351 Boccaccio was sent by the Floren-


212
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
tines to Padua to entreat Petrarch to return and
end his days in his native city. These are God's
mnemonics. Newton was born the year Galileo
died. Cuvier, Scott and Mackintosh were born
and died in the same years.
It were a good topic for a sermon, to preach
upon serenity of mind, manners, countenance;
according to the sentiment of some pretty verses
on “Consider the lilies of the field how they
grow,” verses contained in The Pious Minstrel
and which also have the fine line,
« Christ's blessing at your heart is warm”;
and, according to the sentiment of Herbert's
Verses upon Rest, “Study to be quiet."
I will not hesitate to speak the word
Committed to me. It is not of men;
It is not of myself, no vain discourse
Empty oration, tinkling, soulless talk.
My heart lies open to the universe,
I read only what there is writ. I speak
The sincere word that 's whispered in my ear.
I am an organ in the mouth of God,
My prophecy the music of his lips.
Tho' harsh in evil ears, 't is harmony
To patient, wise and faithful hearts whose love
Coöperates with his


1833)
OUR SHIP
213 :
Concord of heaven and earth. Author divine
Of what I am and what I say, vouchsafe
To cleanse me, that my folly may not hide
Thy truth, nor my infirmity disguise
The omnipotence that animates my clay.
Thou, Lord, dost clothe thy attributes with Alesh,
And named it man, a morning spectacle
Unto the universe exhibiting,
A manifold and mystic lesson.
(From separate notes)
Sunday, September 22.
Gales and headwinds producing all the vari-
ety of discomfort and ennui in the cabin. We
try in vain to keep bright faces and pleasant oc-
cupation below, heedless of the roar of the tem-
pest above. We are too nearly interested in
every rope that snaps and every spar that cracks
overhead, to hear the ruin with philosophy. We
may keep our eyes on the Cicero or Addison
in our hands, but that noise touches our life. I
would I were in the bushes at Canterbury,' for
my part. Yesterday was too fine a day to lose
at sea. Calm shining after the wild storm of two
preceding days. This time I have not drawn the
golden lot of company, and yet far better than
the last voyage. But that little one to Charleston
1 The home in Roxbury during school-keeping days.
W


214
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
from St. Augustine with Murat was worth all
the rest. Yet thanks to the good God, who leads
and protects me, for the measure of comfort and
intellectual occupation that is possible in the val-
leys of the sea by means of this wonderful chef
dæuvre of human art, the-ship. Sad for the steer-
age passengers; old women and children sitting
up all night or lying in wet berths. The poor
cow refuses to get up and be milked, and four
dogs on board shiver and totter about all day, and
bark when we ship a sea.
September 25.
It was a good jest which a passenger quoted
from a sea-song in which two sailors in a storm at
sea express their pity for the poor landsmen:-
“ My eyes ! what tiles and chimney pots
About their heads are Aying,
Whilst you and I upon the deck
Are comfortably lying."
It is like the being thankful for the board blan-
ket.' What a gale that was on the night of
the 19th! The second mate says that if an
i A story of which Mr. Emerson was fond, of a widow so
poor that she eked out the thin blanket by laying an old door
over herself and her little children.. One of these piped up,
“ Mamma, what do those poor little children do who have n't
got a door to cover them?”


1833)
VOYAGING
215
18-pounder had been fired on deck it could not
have been heard aloft, and the only way he got
the captain's orders was by putting his ear to
his mouth.
Dear Brother' would you know,
Sitting under a gold September sun,
How we plough the Atlantic wave
Under the stars and under the clouds,
With swimming deck and singing shrouds,
Climbing the steep slope of the cabin floor,
Or peeping timid into the rain
Out of the round-house door?
Shall I not tell you, to kill the time,
How we spend the day?
Dull the bard, and sad the lay.
Uneasy rolls the ship,
Uneven runs the rhyme.
Dimly the morning breaks
Upon the skylight of my berth,
Where I had dreamed myself at peace,
My feet upon my Maker's earth.
But the Muse doth refuse
To recollect these trumpery cares,
The waking bell, that tragic knell
That calls us back to recognition
Of our deplorable condition.
i This letter in verse was probably sent to Edward at Porto
Rico.


216
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
Out we come, unshaven faces,
And with what look forlorn
Pass the greetings of the morn
Each to the other in the well-known places.
We climb the gangway, walk the deck,
Survey the wide horizon round -
There's not a sail, there's not a wreck,
There's not a wreck, there's not a sail,
Nor land, nor waterspout, nor whale :
The only living thing,
Sometimes a gull with snowy wing.
A shoal of porpoises come wheeling
Across the bows thro' the grey waves,
Or Mother Carey's chickens, stealing
On wings that never rest their forlorn food.
Poor little wanderers, outcasts of nature,
Where have you been in the drowning storm?
Here is no bush to hide you from whirlwinds,
Here is no perch to rest your little footies,
Going alway
By night and by day,
Under starlight, under clouds,
With swimming deck and singing shrouds.
I have read what Shakespeare wrote
Of bloated Falstaff, royal Lear.
There is a dulness proper to great wit,
And Jonson hath his ample share of it.
It needs much skill to write so dull a piece,
Draw learned faults from Italy and Greece


1833)
BEN JONSON
217
Beautiful songs Ben Jonson can write, and his
vocabulary is so rich, and when he pleases, so
smooth, that he seems to be prosing with a de-
sign to relieve and display better the bright
parts of the piece. Then he shows himself mas-
ter of the higher, the moral taste, and enriches
himself occasionally with those unquestionable
gems which none but the sons of God possess.
Strange that among his actors, and not the first,
is Will Shakspeare. He never was dull to re-
lieve his brilliant parts. He is all light, some-
times terrestrial, sometimes celestial, but all
light.
“Take away that empty marine," said the
Duke of York. “What do you mean, sir?”
said an officer of marines. “I mean that fellow
who has done his duty and is ready to do it
again,” replied the Duke.
“O, c'est grande! magnifique! dat is, vat you
call pretty well,” said Monsieur, arrived in
London.
Thursday, September 26. Long. 49, lat. 44.
On the Banks ; found bottom at 49 fathoms,
and fished in vain with 70 fathoms of line.
Saw a fishing schooner. They fish from June to


218
(AGE 30
JOURNAL
ca
October. It may take two months to get full
and they bring home 20,000 or 25,000 fish. The
colour of the water has changed, the birds fly
about and we have fogs. Yesterday a little petrel
caught in the end of a rope and was drowned ;
web-footed, a pretty bird with a white belt upon
the tail.
September 29.
Storm, storm, storm, but only this can show
the virtues of the ship, which behaves well and
carries these tender bodies tucked up in boxes
along its side without injuring a hair through
these wild, cold, savage waters. Strange that
anybody who has hands to work should be
willing to spend two months on that Bank ex-
posed to such storms as yesterday's. “That
fellow has got a bleak place," said the Cap-
tain.
Much indebted to Mr. H.'s conversation.
Story of the Duc de Bourdeaux, infant son of
the Duc de Berri, being carried to Louis XVIII.
“Le roi pue.” “ L'enfant. a raison; Ôtez l'en-
fant."
Qui pius est, summe pbilosopbatur. I notice
that we always judge of the length of the passage
by the weather of the present moment.


CO
1833)
PRAYER
219
Friday, October 4. Long. 67, je crois.
Our month expires to-day, and therefore 't is
time to look for land. The poor Malay saith
to the wind in his petulance, “ Blow, me do tell
you blow,” but not of that mind are we, but
contrariwise, very glad of this fine weather. Cap-
tain's merry account of his capture by pirates in
South America in 1822 when they cut up his
sails for trousers and ripped off the copper
sheathing of the vessel for French horns and
appointed him fifer. He played in that capacity
the dead march of two priests, whom the worthy
lieutenant general shot for smuggling.
“ Chap from Wiggin, Manchester man, and
a gentleman from Liverpool,” said Coachey.
Sea of all colours. To-day indigo, yesterday
grass green, and day before grey.
October 8.
My God, who dost animate and uphold us
always on the sea and on land, in the fields, in
cities, and in lonely places, in our homes, and
among strangers, I thank thee that thou hast
enlightened and comforted and protected me
to this hour. Continue to me thy guard and
blessing. May I resist the evil that is without
by the good that is within. May I rejoice ever-


220
JOURNAL
(Age 30
more in the consciousness that it is by thee I
live. May I rejoice in the Divine Power, and
be humble. Oh that I might show forth thy
gift to me by purity, by love, by unshrinking
industry and unsinking hope, and by uncon-
querable courage. May I be more thine, and
so more truly myself every day I live.
[Mr. Emerson landed in New York, October
9, and went by stage to Boston, thence to New-
ton Upper Falls where his mother was living for
the time, probably on the farm of Mr. Ladd, who
had married the sister of Mr. Emerson's father.]
(From Q)
Newtowne, October 20.
A Sabbath in the country, but not so odor-
iferous as I have imagined. Mr. B., a plain
serious Calvinist, not winning, but not repelling:
one of the useful police which God makes out
of the ignorance and superstition of the youth of
the world. I dare not and wish not to speak dis-
respectfully of these good, abstemious, laborious
men, yet I could not help asking myself how
long is the society to be taught in this dramatic
or allegorical style? When is religious truth
to be distinctly uttered, what it is, not what it


1833) CONVENTIONAL SERMONS 221
resembles ? Thus every Sunday ever since they
were born this congregation have heard tell of
salvation, and of going to the door of Heaven
and knocking, and being answered from within,
“Depart, I never knew you,” and of being sent
away to eternal ruin. What hinders that, instead
of this parable, the naked fact be stated to them?
namely that as long [as] they offend against
their conscience they will seek to be happy,
but they shall not be able, they shall not come
to any true knowledge of God, they shall be
avoided by good and wise men, they shall be-
come worse and worse.
God defend me from ever looking at a man
as an animal. God defend me from the vice of
my constitution, an excessive desire of sympathy.
Let me be content with the consciousness of in-
nocency and the desire of worth, without stretch-
ing myself upon the rack whenever any man,
woman, or child passes by until he, she or it is
possessed of my intention. The nine solids.
An impulse as irresistible as is the acorn to
germinate is in the soul of the prophet to speak.
Mr. Blanchard said that labor had kept him
well eleven years at the desk.


222
JOURNAL [AGE 30
October 21.
I am sure of this, that by going much alone
a man will get more of a noble courage in thought
and word than from all the wisdom that is in
books. He will come to hear God speak as au-
dibly through his own lips as ever He did by
the mouth of Moses or Isaiah or Milton. “For
Nature never did betray the heart that loved her."
Such revelations as were made to George Fox or
Emanuel Swedenborg are only made in the woods
or in the closet. They were no common mad-
men. They wanted but little, or, if you please,
they exceeded but little, of being true prophets.
E. B. E.' quotes from St. Pierre the saying
that “when the chain is put upon a slave, the
other end is rivetted around the neck of the
master,” and sanctions warmly the observation.
When a man goes into the woods he feels like
a boy without loss of wisdom. To be sure a
dandy may go there, and Nature will never speak
to a dandy.
It seems to me that the perspective of time,
as it sets everything in the right point of view, does
His brother.


1833] REAL LOVE FOR JESUS 223
the same by Christianity. We learn to look at
it now as a part of the history of the world, to
see how it rests in the broad basis of man's moral
nature, and is not itself that basis. I cannot but
think that Jesus Christ will be better loved by
being less adored. He has had an unnatural, an
artificial place for ages in human opinions — a
place too high for love. There is a recoil of the
affections from all authority and force. To the
barbarous state of society it was thought to add
to the dignity of Christ to make him king, to
make him God. Now that the scriptures are read
with purged eyes, it is seen that he is only to be
loved for so much goodness and wisdom as was
in him, which are the only things for which a
sound human mind can love any person. As the
world waxes wiser, he will be more truly vener-
ated for the splendor of the contrast of his char-
acter to the opinions and practices of his age,
he will attract the unfeigned love of all to whom
moral nature is dear because he planted himself
in the face of the world upon that sole ground,
showing that noble confidence in the reality and
superiority of spiritual truths, that simplicity and
at the same time enthusiasm in declaring them
which is itself one of the highest merits and gives
confidence to all thinkers that come after.


224
[AGE 30
JOURNAL
But will not this come to be thought the chief
value of his teaching, that is, of Christianity, to
wit, that it was a great stand made for man's
spiritual nature against the sensualism, the forms,
and the crimes of the age in which he appeared
and those that preceded it? Like every wise and
efficient man, he spoke to the [men of] his
times in all their singular peculiarities. His in-
struction is almost as local, as personal, as would
be the teaching in one of our Sunday Schools.
He speaks as he thinks, but he is thinking for
them. Yet such is the extraordinary truth of his
mind that his sentences have a fulness of mean-
ing, a fitness to human nature, and an univer-
sality of application, that has commended them
to the whole world.
They must be looked upon as one affirma-
tion, proclamation glorious of moral truth, but
not as the last affirmation. There shall be a
thousand more. Very inconsistent would it be
with a soul so possessed of this love as his to
set bounds to that illimitable ocean. None knew
better than he that every soul occupies a new
position, and that if the stars cannot be counted,
nor the sands of the sea, neither can those moral
truths be numbered and ended of which the
material creation is only the shadow.


1833) RIGHT NOT DOGMA 225
Newton, October 24.
The teacher of the coming age must occupy
himself in the study and explanation of the
moral constitution of man more than in the elu-
cidation of difficult texts. He must work in
the conviction that the scriptures can only be
interpreted by the same spirit that uttered them.
And that as long as the heart and the mind are
illumined by a spiritual life, there is no dead let-
ter, but a perpetual scripture.
I expect everything good and auspicious from
the studies and the actings of good men in the
course this thought shall guide them. It will be
inspiration to prophet and to heroes. It will
bring the heavens near and show a calm sky
always overhead.
[October]' 31.
Sir J. Mackintosh has well said that every
picture, statue, poem is an experiment on the
human mind. And if such slight and transient
things often produce in us deepest results, if a
paragraph of a newspaper or an eloquent word
touch us so to the quick, as now they often
do, what may we not expect from a familiar and
full comprehension of the amazing discoveries
that the naturalists of this day have made, from
1 “31 November" in Journal, by mistake.
n


226
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
the wonderful application of polarized light to
the discovery of periodical colours in refrangi-
ble substances, and so to the uncovering of na-
ture's primary forms in the secret architecture
of bodies, or the great, long-expected discovery
of the identity of electricity and magnetism
lately completed by Dr. Faraday's obtaining the
spark from the magnet, and the opening almost
a door to the secret mechanism of life and sen-
sation in the relation of the pile of Volta to the
electrical fish.
November 2.
1 Bacon said man is the minister and inter-
preter of nature : he is so in more respects than
one. He is not only to explain the sense of
each passage, but the scope and argument of
the whole book. He is to explain the attractive-
ness of all.
(There is more beauty in the morning cloud
than the prism can render account of. There is
something in it that resembles the aspects of
mortal life, its epochs and its fate. There is not
' a passage in the human soul, perhaps not a
shade of thought, but has its emblem in nature.
And this does not become fainter, this under-
song, this concurrent text, with more intimate
knowledge of nature's laws, but the analogy is


1833) NATURE'S APPEAL 227
felt to be deeper and more universal for every
law that is revealed. It almost seems as if an
unknown intelligence in us expressed its recog-
nition of each new disclosure.
Let a man under the influence of strong pas-
sion go into the fields, and see how readily
every thought clothes itself with a material gar-
ment. (Is it not illustration to us of the manner
in which every spirit clothes itself with body?)
Now I say, is it not time that something was
done to explain this attractiveness which the
face of Nature has for us, -renewed this ad day
of November of the 6oooth year of the world,
as it has been every day of the 6000 years, -
to the reality of which every age has testified?
Nature is a language, and every new fact that
we learn is a new word; but rightly seen, taken
all together, it is not merely a language, but the
language put together into a most significant and
universal book. I wish to learn the language,
not that I may learn a new set of nouns and
verbs, but that I may read the great book which
is written in that tongue.
The glutton wrote for his epitaph:-
“What I have eat is mine ; in words my will
I've had, and of my lust have ta'en my fill.”


228
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
Crates, the philosopher, altered it for himself:
“ What I have learned is mine, I've had my thought,
And me the Muses noble Truths have taught.”
To an instructed eye the universe is transpar-
ent. The light of higher laws than its own
shines through it.
:
New BedFORD, November 19.
Stubler said the difference between Brother
Witherlee's preaching and his was this: Bro-
ther W. said, “ If you do not become good you
shall be whipt," and himself said, “If you will
become good, you shall not be whipt.”.
Wrote to Charles yesterday of the amount of
meaning in life: dum tacet, clamat. He would
feel it, if he should suppose Shakspear should
go with him to Mr. Peabody's or Aunt Cook's.
If a susceptible man should lay bare his heart,
it would show theories of life, thoughts of un-
utterable tenderness, and visions of beauty that
were suggested from the most seemingly in-
adequate and mean occasions, from hearing an
unwashed boy spell or cipher in his class, or
i Stubler, the Quaker, has been already mentioned in the
Journals, a serious-minded man whom Mr. Emerson met in
travelling.


1833) QUAKER ANECDOTES 229
seeing the blush upon the cheek of a school-
girl, or watching the transmission of the candle-
light through his closed fingers, or listening
long to the sound made by tinkling a glass tum-
bler or touching the key of a piano. Is it not
true that no persons meet, of what inequality
soever, but a quick apprehension can straight-
way bridge over the distance between them and
see how they may stand in most strict and ami-'
able relations?
[QUAKER CONVERSATIONS]'
“ Thomas, I know what thee is thinking of.”
“ If you do, Micah, you don't feel flattered.”
“Mary, it has been revealed to me that I
should marry thee.” “ Abner, when it is re-
vealed to me I will tell thee.”
“William, I am sent to tell thee thou hast a
divided heart.”
(From Note-book)
I much regret that in all my sauntering in
London streets, where I suppose I felt much
like an English boy on his first visit from the
i Mr. Emerson in the autumn accepted an invitation to
preach in Dr. Dewey's church in New Bedford. He made
pleasant acquaintances among the more liberal Quakers there,
from whom he heard these anecdotes.


230
JOURNAL
[Age 30
country, - the names were so familiar and the
things so new, yet tallying so well with their
pictures, - I did not chance upon Great
Cheyne Row, Chelsea, for I should gladly know
all, even to the peach-coloured doublet. The
bounds of friendship, where are they? The good
soul meekly defies all the angels to strip it of
its state and reputation, and can even make the
pure bean permeate the meanness of man's
state and behold it as a god, put gentle char-
itable hands under the faults, as separate as is
every loathed symptom of a diseased friend
from the friend. It transmutes blood to ichor
and transubstantiates flesh. ... Will God grant
me your society, fear not that I am to eat up
your time. You shall make your own laws and,
idler as I am, I have mine. I feel assured that
though I am searching in a mine not quickly ex-
hausted, — say boldly, inexhaustible, for though
talent is finite, character is not, and who has
that great spiritual force from God, which we
denominate character, is endless study, surprise,
solace and support, - I do not know seven in
the world.
“It is not permitted to a man to corrupt
himself for the sake of mankind.” ROUSSEAU.


1833) CAMBRIDGE JAIL, ELM 231
“Who is discreet is seldom betrayed.” Bul-
WER.
“Character is the only rank. Principle is a
passion for truth.” Hazlitt.
The old jail in Cambridge was immediately
back of Mrs. Kneeland's house. The inmates
of the prison were very bad neighbors and used
to take delight in pestering Mrs. Kneeland with
foul names and profane language. Professor
Hedge took great pains to get the nuisance re-
moved, and at last the old jail was pulled down.
Someone congratulated Mrs. K. upon the
happy deliverance, but found her quite sad at
the loss of her stimulus. “She kind o' missed
'em,” she said.
Wise moments are years, and light the coun-
tenance ever. They are the good moments.
They do not belong to genius, but to man.
They refuse to be recorded.
The suicide is beside himself, yet is his act no
more unreasonable than the thief's or the fop's.
Old tree in the Common, circumference
twenty-four feet at base; 17 at 6 feet from
ground.


232
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
I will not refer, defer, confer, prefer, differ.
I renounce the whole family of fero.' I embrace
absolute life.
I nor you can feel the chain that draws us
together. Perhaps continents, tongues, ages in-
tervene, a prejudice may be an age, and yet all
be nothing against that strong sympathy.
(From “A”)
Tuesday, December 10
Took possession of my chamber at Mr. Pel-
letier's.”
Boston, December 11.
The call of our callingis the loudest call. There
are so many worthless lives, apparently, that to
advance a good cause by telling one anecdote or
doing one great act, seems a worthy reason for
living. When a poor man thanked Richard Rey-
i In a lecture called “ Art and Criticism,” given by Mr.
Emerson in a course in Boston in 1859, a portion of which
is printed for the first time in the Centenary Edition of Nar-
ural History of Intellect, he bids young writers • Beware of
the whole family of Fero" (including of course its participle
latus) perhaps because “ choose," “ give way,” “gather,"
“ bring together,” and “remove,” are less pedantic than
“ prefer,” « defer,” « infer," • collate,” and “ translate.”
2 Probably in Boston.


1833] A GOOD HOPE 233
nolds for his goodness, he said, “Do you thank
the clouds for rain ?” The elder Scipio said, he
had given his enemies as much cause to speak
well of him as his friends. Fontenelle said, “I
am a Frenchman, I am sixty years old, and
I never have treated the smallest virtue with
the smallest ridicule.”
December 14.
I please myself with contemplating the felicity
of my present situation. May it last. It seems to
me singularly free, and it invites me to every
virtue and to great improvement.
“In being silent, and hoping, consisteth our
strength,” – so Luther quotes Isaiah.
For every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by hope's perpetual breath.
WORDSWORTH.
Alexander gave away the Conquered Prov-
inces,—“And what have you left for yourself?”
“ Hope,” replied the hero. “How do the wise
differ from the unwise?” was the question put
to Bias. He replied, “In a good hope.” It is the
true heroism and the true wisdom, Hope. The
wise are always cheerful. The reason is (and it
is a blessed reason), that the eye sees that the


234
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
ultimate issues of all things are good. There is
always a presumption in favor of a cheerful view.
[Here follow some notes on hints taken by
engineers and architects from Nature, printed in
“Art,” Society and Solitude.]
(From small Note-book)
My children, said my Grandfather, you will
never see anything worse than yourselves. Why
can we find a spiritual meaning in every natural
fact?
The young bee, up to the time he leaves the
hive, has never seen light. Yet he launches at
once into the air, flies far from home, wanders
to many flowers, yet comes back with unerring
certainty to the hive. Who pilots him?
(From "A")
December 19.
The moral of your piece should be cuneiform
and not polygonal. Judge of the success of the
piece by the exclusive prominence it gives to the
subject in the minds of all the audience.
i William Emerson, Minister of Concord, or his father,
Reverend Joseph of Malden, or possibly John Haskins of
Boston.


1833] THE FIRST PHILOSOPHY 235
[The following, probably written in 1833, are
from a smaller note-book.]
The first Philosophy, that of mind, is the sci-
ence of what is in distinction from what appears.
It is one mark of its laws that their enunciation
awakens the feeling of the moral sublime, and
great men are they who believe in them. They
resemble great circles in astronomy, each of
which, in what direction soever it be drawn, con-
tains the whole sphere. So each of these seems
to imply all truth. These laws are Ideas of
the Reason, and so are obeyed easier than ex-
pressed. They astonish the Understanding, and
seem to it gleams of a world in which we do not
live.
Our compound nature differences us from
God, but our Reason is not to be distinguished
from the divine Essence. We have yet de-
vised no words to designate the attributes of
God which can adequately stand for the uni-
versality and perfection of our own intuitions.
To call the Reason“ours” or “Human” seems
an impertinence, so absolute and unconfined
it is. The best we can say of God, we mean of
the mind as it is known to us. Thus when you
say,


236
(AGE 30
JOURNAL
“ The gods approve
The depth, but not the tumult of the soul
(A fervent, not ungovernable love),”
the sublime in the sentiment is, that to the soul
itself depth, not tumult, is desirable. When you
say (Socrates said it), “ Jupiter prefers integrity
to charity,” your finest meaning is the “soul
prefers,” etc. When Jesus saith, “ Who giveth
one of these little ones a cup of cold water shall
not lose his reward,” is not the best meaning the
love at which the giver has arrived? And so on
throughout the New Testament there is not a
volition attributed to God considered as an ex-
ternal cause but gains in truth and dignity by
being referred to the soul.
Reason, seeing in objects their remote effects,
affirms the effect as the permanent character. The
Understanding, listening to Reason, on the one
side, which says Itis, and to the senses on the other
side, which say It is not, takes middle ground and
declares It will be. Heaven is the projection of
the Ideas of Reason on the plane of the under-
standing.
Jesus Christ was a minister of the pure Rea-
son. The beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount
are all utterances of the mind contemning the phe-
nomenal world. “Blessed are the righteous poor,


1833] THE FIRST PHILOSOPHY 237
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are
ye when men revile you;” etc. The Understand-
ing can make nothing of it. 'Tis all nonsense. "
The Reason affirms its absolute verity.
Various terms are employed to indicate the
counteraction of the Reason and the Understand-
ing, with more or less precision, according to the
cultivation of the speaker. A clear perception of
it is the key to all theology, and a theory of human
life. St. Paul marks the distinction by the terms
natural man and spiritual man.
When Novalis says, “ It is the instinct of the
understanding to counteract the Reason,” he only
translates into a scientific formula the sentence
of St. Paul “The Carnal mind is enmity against
God.”
The mind is very wise, could it be roused into
action. But the life of most men is aptly signi-
fied by the poet's personification, “Death in
Life.” We walk about in a sleep. A few mo-
ments in the year, or in our lifetime, we truly
live; we are at the top of our being; we are per-
vaded, yea, dissolved by the Mind; but we fall
back again presently. Those who are styled Prac-
tical Men are not awake, for they do not exer-
cise the Reason; yet their sleep is restless. The
most active lives have so much routine as to pre-


238
JOURNAL (Age 30
clude progress almost equally with the most in-
active. We bow low to the noted merchants whose
influence is felt, not only in their native cities,
but in most parts of the globe; but our respect
does them and ourselves great injustice, for their
trade is without system, their affairs unfold them-
selves after no law of the mind, but are bubble
built on bubble without end; a work of arithme-
tic, not of commerce, much less of humanity.
They add voyage to voyage, and buy stocks, –
that they may buy stocks, -and no ulterior pur-
pose is thought of. When you see their dexter-
ity in particulars, you cannot overestimate the
resources of good sense; and when you find how
empty they are of all remote aims, you cannot
underestimate their philosophy.
The man of letters puts the same cheat upon
us, bestirring himself immensely to keep the
secret of his littleness. He spins his most seem-
ing surface directly before the eye, to conceal the
universe of his ignorance. To what end his lan-
guages, his correspondence, his academic dis-
courses, his printed volumes? Newton said that
if this porous world were made solid, it would
lie in a nutshell.
Allour writings are variations of one air. Books
for the most part are such expedients as his who


1833] LIFE SPELL-BOUND 239
makes an errand for the sake of exercise. And
for the sincere great men the wisest passages they
have writ, the infinite conclusions to which they
owe their fame, are only confessions. Through-
out their works, the good ear hears the under-
song of confession and amazement, the apothegm
of Socrates, the recantation of man.
Such is the inaction of men. We have an ob-
scure consciousness of our attributes. We stand
on the edge of all that is great, yet are restrained
in inactivity and unconscious of our powers, like
neuters of the hive, every one of which is cap-
able of transformation into the Queen bee. We
are always on the brink, etc.
Much preparation, little fruit. But suddenly
in any place, in the street, in the chamber, will
the heavens open and the regions of wisdom be
uncovered, as if to show how thin the veil, how
null the circumstances. As quickly, a Lethean
stream washes through us and bereaves us of
ourselves.
What a benefit if a rule could be given whereby
the mind, dreaming amid the gross fogs of matter,
could at any moment CAST ITSELF and FIND THE
SUN! But the common life is an endless suc-
cession of phantasms; and long after we have


240
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
deemed ourselves recovered and sound, light
breaks in upon us and we find we have yet had
no sane hour. Another morn rises on mid-noon.
LEGENDA
Article, “Croker's Boswell's Johnson,” in
Edinburgh Review.
Essays on Pursuit of Truth.
Hazlitt's Essays on Principles of Human Action.
Hobbes' Treatise on Human Nature,
Hume's Dissertation on the Passions ; and
Enquiry.
Shaftesbury's Enquiry.
Sir Charles Bell's Animal Mechanics.
Sir Samuel Romilly's article on “Codification.”
Hartley
Tucker's chapter on “Pleasure," and Paley's
on “Happiness.”
Cousin's [Translation of] Tennemann.
Turner's Elements of Chemistry. Affinity.
AUTHORS OR Books QUOTED OR REFERRED TO
IN JOURNAL OF 1833
Homer; Cicero;
Petrarch; Montaigne;
Sir Henry Wotton; George Herbert, Verses
upon Rest;


1833]
READING
241
Milton, Lycidas, Letter to Diodati; Jeremy
Taylor;
Dampier, Voyage round the World, apud Early
English Navigators;
Addison ; Bossuet ; Voltaire ; Johnson, apud
Boswell;
Abela, Melita Illustrata; Goldoni, Scelta di ;
Rousseau ; Gibbon;
Alfieri; Goethe, Travels in Italy, Wilbelm
Meister; Herschel; Sismondi, La Littérature du
Midi de l'Europe; Byron, Childe Harold ; Scott,
Marmion, Rob Roy, Heart of Midlothian;
Wordsworth; Hazlitt; Mackintosh ;
Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi ;
Andrews Norton; A Statement of Reasons for
not believing the Doctrines of Trinitarians concern-
ing the Nature of God and the Person of Christ.
Carlyle, Sartor Resartus and various articles
in English and Scotch Reviews.
Bulwer.





JOURNAL
NEWTON
LECTURES IN BOSTON
PREACHING AT NEW BEDFORD
AND PLYMOUTH
THE OLD MANSE, CONCORD





JOURNAL XXV
1834
(From Journal A)
Not of men, neither by man.
“May I consult the auguries of time,
And through the human heart explore my way,
And look and listen.”
“ Ch' apporta mane, e lascia sera.” ,
[So far as the headquarters of the Emerson
family could be determined by the presence of
Madam Emerson, it might have been considered
at the farm of their kinswoman Mrs. Ladd, near
Newton Upper Falls. Charles may have been
there too, but more probably at the Manse in
Concord, as then, or soon after, he was study-
ing law in the office of that fine old Roman,
Samuel Hoar. Waldo came and went, for dur-
1 It was Mr. Emerson's custom after this time to write one
or more mottoes at the beginning of each journal.


246
JOURNAL
[Age 30
ing most of the winter he was filling the pulpit
of his kinsman, the Rev. Orville Dewey, in
New Bedford, occasionally preaching in Ply-
mouth, where he made the acquaintance of Miss
Lydia' Jackson, a lady slightly older than him-
self, whose spiritual mind, refined character and
distinguished bearing caused her to be regarded
almost as a lady-abbess among her generation
and the younger people there. The next year
she became his wife. In New Bedford Mr.
Emerson made many friends among the liberal
Quakers.
In January he delivered a lecture at the Athe-
næum in Boston before the Mechanics' Institute.
The subject was “Water,” very freely treated,
after his wont. Later in the winter he gave two
lectures on Italy, in Boston, and, in May, one
called “Naturalist” at the annual meeting of
the Boston Natural History Society.]
This Book is my Savings Bank. I grow
richer because I have somewhere to deposit my
earnings; and fractions are worth more to me be-
cause corresponding fractions are waiting here
that shall be made integers by their addition.
1 After her marriage, at Mr. Emerson's request, she
changed her name to Lidian.


1834) TREASURE EVERYWHERE 247
a
January 2, 1834.
The year, the year, but I have no thought
for time. It occurs that a selection of natural
laws might be easily made from botany, hydrau-
lics, natural philosophy, etc., which should at
once express also an ethical sense. Thus, 'water
confined in pipes will always rise as high as its
source.' 'A hair line of water is a balance for
the ocean if its fount be as high.' 'Durable trees
make roots first, Charles reads. ‘A cripple in
the right road beats a racer in the wrong road.'
'Fractures well cured make us more strong.'
'Action and reaction are equal.' Concentrated
nourishment is unhealthy; there must be mix-
ture of excrement.
January 3.
To Goethe there was no trifle. Glauber picked
up what everybody else threw away. Cuvier
made much of humblest facts. The lower tone
you take, the more flexible your voice is. The
whole landscape is beautiful, though the particu-
lars are not. “You never are tired whilst you
can see far.'
There is no weakness, no exposure, for which
we cannot find consolation in the thought,-
Well, 't is a part of my constitution, part of my


248
[AGE 30
JOURNAL
relation and office to my fellow creature. I like
to see the immense resources of the creature.
January 5.
“ Newton," says Fourier,“ knew not yet the
perfections of the universe.” “What La Place
called great was really great." I read in Her-
bert a beautiful verse, a high example of what
the rhetorician calls the moral sublime:-
“ Ah, my dear God! though I am clean forgot,
Let me not love thee, if I love thee not."
January 12.
I was well pleased with Dr. Bradford's view
of judgment the other day.' Particular men are
designated as persons of good judgment. It is
merely that they are persons of experience in
such affairs as interest most men. Their opinion
on any question where they have not experience
is worthless. Men of good sense act in certain
conjunctures in a most imbecile manner. It is be-
cause it is their first trial. Others act with decision
and success. It is because they have made many
trials before, and of course got through their
failures. Then some men reserve their opinion,
and so never speak foolishly. Others publish
1 Dr. Gamaliel Bradford of Boston, brother to Mrs. Ripley
and Mr. George P. Bradford.
cau
c


1834) THE STANDARD MAN 249
every opinion they hold, and so, though the first
thoughts of all were equally ineffectual and fool-
ish, yet the abstemious have the credit of forming
sound opinions the first time, and the prompt
speakers, if of active and advancing minds, are
always uttering absurdities.
January 19.
What is it that interests us in biography? Is
there not always a silent comparison between the
intellectual and moral endowments portrayed,
and those of which we are conscious ? The reason
why the Luther, the Newton, the Bonaparte,
concerning whom we read, was made the subject
of panegyric, is, that in the writer's opinion, in
some one respect this particular man represented
the idea of Man. And as far as we accord with
his judgment, we take the picture for a Standard
Man, and so let every line accuse or approve our
own ways of thinking and living by comparison.
At least I thought thus in reading Jeffrey's fine
sketch of Playfair the other evening.
January 21.
Is not the use of society to educate the Will,
which never would acquire force in solitude?
We mean Will, when we say that a person has
a good deal of character. Women generally have


250
JOURNAL [AGE 30
weak wills, sharply expressed perhaps, but ca-
pricious, unstable. When the will is strong, we
inevitably respect it in man or woman. I have
thought that the perfection of female character
seldom existed in poverty, at least where pov-
erty was reckoned low. Is not this because the
rich are accustomed to be obeyed promptly, and
so the will acquires strength and yet is calm and
graceful? I think that involuntary respect which
the rich inspire in very independent and virtuous
minds, arises from the same circumstance, the
irresistible empire of a strong will. There is not
nor ever can be any competition between a [will]
of words and a real will. Webster, Adams, Clay,
Calhoun, Chatham, and every statesman who
was ever formidable are wilful men. But Everett
and Stanley and the Ciceros are not; want this
backbone. Meantime a great many men in so-
ciety speak strong, but have no oak, are all
willow. And only a virtuous will is omnipotent.
; (January 31. I add that in a former age the
x men of might were men of will, now the men
of wealth.)
January 22.
Luther and Napoleon are better treatises on
the Will than Edwards’s. Will does not know
if it be cold or hot or dangerous, he only goes


1834] CHASTE TO THE CHASTE 251
on to his mark, and leaves to mathematicians to
calculate whether a body can come to its place
without passing through all the intermediates,
“Men have more heart than mind.”
Different faces things wear to different per-
sons. Whole process of human generation how
bifronted! To one it is bawdry, to another pure.
In the mother's heart every sensation, from the
nuptial embrace, through the uncertain symp-
toms of the quickening, to the birth of her child,
is watched with an interest more chaste and wist-
ful than the contemplations of the nun in her
cloister; yet the low-minded visitor of a woman
in such circumstances has the ignorant imperti-
nence to look down and feel a sort of shame.
Akin to the pathetic sublime of the two lines
of Herbert on the last leaf, are the lines in the
last Canto of Il Paradiso, thus translated:-
“O virgin mother, daughter of thy Son!
Created beings all in loveliness
Surpassing, as in height above them all.”
January 23.
I cannot read of the jubilee of Goethe, and of
such a velvet life, without a sense of incongruity.
Genius is out of place when it reposes fifty years
on chairs of state, and inhales a continual incense


252
JOURNAL
[Age 30
of adulation. Its proper ornaments and relief are
poverty and reproach and danger, and if the
grand-duke had cut Goethe's head off, it would
have been much better for his fame than his re-
tiring to his rooms, after dismissing the obse-
quious crowds, to arrange tastefully and contem-
plate their gifts and honorary inscriptions.'
New BEDFORD, January 29.
Michel Angelo's life, in the Library of Use-
ful Knowledge; and his poverty, by Signor Radici
in the Retrospective Review, volume xiii. These
elevate my respect for the artist. His life, they
say, too, was a poem. Beautiful is his Platonic
passion, before that word had been perverted by
affectation and hypocrisy. ...
Berni said of him, Ei dice cose, e voi dite parole.
Hesought to penetrate by just degrees to the cen-
tre of that eternal radiance, in which is hidden
“Pamor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.”
1 Compare Emerson's letter to Carlyle of November 20,
1834, in their Correspondence, I, 27.
2 Here follow passages used in the lecture on Michael An-
gelo given, a year later, before the Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge in Boston, in a course on Biography. The
lectures were, « Tests of Great Men," « Michel Angelo,"
« Luther,” « George Fox,” • Milton,” “Edmund Burke,"


1834) MICHEL ANGELO
253
Are not his struggles and mortifications a more
beautiful wreath than the milliners made for
Goethe?
In reference to this appetite for death, shall I
say it is sometimes permissible? that the object
of life is answered when the uses of time are dis-
covered; when the soul has so far discovered its
relation to external truth, that time can never more
be a burden, and nothing but the evils insepa-
rable from human condition prevent it from
being a heaven?
February 1.
In viewing the greatness of men of the first
ages, Homer and Alfred equal to Goethe and
Washington, does it not seem that a little ad-
ditional force of Will in the individual is equi-
valent to ages-ful of the improvements we call
civilization ? But these Anakim do yet yield to
the sad observer of his race real and great con-
solation (I am thinking now of Michel Angelo
and his Platonism), for they seem to him, him-
self without his faults and in favorable circum-
stances; he recognizes their lofty aspirations as
the thoughts of his own childhood; he looks at
these heroes as nothing peculiar and monstrous,
but as only more truly men, and he perceives
that a heaven of truth and virtue is still possible.
im-


254
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
Some thoughts always find us young, and keep
us so.' Such a thought is the love of the univer-
sal and eternal beauty. Every man leaves that
contemplation with the feeling that it rather be-
longs to ages than to mortal life.
February 2.
How often our nature is conscious of and la-
bours with its own limits! In the very act of pre-
tension it is oppressed with secret humiliation.
February 3.
I have read Corinne with as much emotion as
a book can excite in me.A true representation
of the tragedy of woman, which yet (thanks to
the mysterious compensation which nature has
provided) they rarely feel. The tragedy of genius
also. The story labours with the fault of an ex-
travagant, I may say ridiculous, filial passion in
Oswald, which no man of such intelligence can
carry so far, and then with the second impossi-
bility of his rapid marriage. No matter; though
i Olympian bards who sung
Divine ideas below,
Which always find us young,
And always keep us so.
Poems: “Ode to Beauty."
2 Corinne, ou l' Italie, by Mme. de Staël.


1834) PLYMOUTH. WEBSTER 255
the circumstances are untrue, the position and
the feelings of Corinne are possible, and, as Plato
would say, more true than history.
New Bedford, February 7.
I have been to Plymouth and stood on the
Rock, and felt that it was grown more important
by the growth of this nation in the minutes that
I stood there. But Barnabas Hedge ought not —
no man ought— to own the rock of Plymouth.
Mr. Bond said he had learned that men can
never learn by experience. In the last depression
of trade he had resolved never to be caught
again; and now, amid his perplexities, resolves
again. At sea we always judge by the present
weather the probable length of the voyage.
February 10.
The newspapers say they might as well pub-
lish a thunderstorm as a report of Webster's
speech in answer to Wright.' His tones were
1 Mr. Emerson had been chosen Poet for the annual meet-
ing of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge. The two
best passages in the poem, otherwise not remarkable, were
those on Lafayette, who had just died, and on Webster. The
latter is given in the Appendix to the Poems (Riverside and
Centenary Editions).


256
[AGE 30
JOURNAL
like those of a commander in a battle. Times of
eloquence are times of terror. I wrote to Charles
last night that the obstinate retention of simple
and high sentiments in obscurest duties is hard-
ening the character to that temper that will work
with honor, if need be, in the tumult, or on the
scaffold. Yet perhaps the courage of heroes in
revolutions is extemporary, and what seems su-
perhuman fortitude is the effect of an ecstasy of
sorrow. Evil times have the effect of making
men think. I suppose in the last few weeks
men have thrown more searching glances at the
structure and interdependence of society than in
years of prosperous times. They begin to trace
the path of an ear of corn from its stalk to their
table.
e
G. A. S.' confirms the views of the education
of the Will (see January 21) by saying, that in
his experience a very great change is produced
in men by the possession of property, a great
addition of force,which would remain to them if
their property were taken away. It is not the
possession of luxuries, but the exercise of power,
which belongs to wealth that has wrought this
effect. The possession of office has the same
i George A. Sampson.


1834) POSITION AND WILL 257
effect. What a pepper-corn man is - if he had
been poor. By this education of things and per-
sons he is now a person of decision and influ-
ence. How imbecile is often a young person of
superior intellectual powers for want of acquaint-
ance with his powers; bashful, timid, he shrinks,
retreats before every confident person, and is
disconcerted by arguments and pretensions he
would be ashamed to put forward himself. Let
him work, as many merchants do, with the forces
of millions of property for months and years
upon the wills of hundreds of persons, and you
shall see him transformed into an adroit, fluent,
masterful gentleman, fit to take and keep his
place in any society of men. This is the account
to be given of the fine manners of the young
Southerners brought up amidst slaves, and of the
concession that young Northerners make to
them, - yes, and old Northerners to old South-
erners. . . . This part of education is conducted
in the nursery and the playground, in fights,
in frolics, in business, in politics. My manners
and history would have been very different, if
my parents had been rich, when I was a boy
at school. Herein is good ground for our ex-
pectation of the high bearing of the English
nobleman.


258
(AGE 30
JOURNAL
B[enjamin] R[odman] called his friend, the
naval architect, a perfect ship. Mr. Hillman.
New Bedford, February 12.
The days and months and years flit by, each
with his own black riband, his own sad reminis-
cence. Yet I looked at the almanack affection-
ately as a book of Promise. These three last
years of my life are not a chasm — I could al-
most wish they were—so brilliantly sometimes
the vision of Ellen's beauty and love and life
come out of the darkness. Pleasantly mingled
with my sad thoughts the sublime religion of
Miss Rotch yesterday. She was much disciplined,
she said, in the years of Quaker dissension, and
driven inward, driven home, to find an anchor,
until she learned to have no choice, to acquiesce
without understanding the reason when she found
an obstruction to any particular course of acting.
She objected to having this spiritual direction
called an impression, or an intimation, or an
oracle. It was none of them. It was so simple it
could hardly be spoken of. It was long, long, be-
fore she could attain to anything satisfactory.
She was in a state of great dreariness, but she had
a friend, a woman, now deceased, who used to
advise her to dwell patiently with this dreariness


1834) MISS MARY ROTCH 259
and absence, in the confidence that it was neces-
sary to the sweeping away of all her dependence
upon traditions, and that she would finally attain
to something better. And when she attained a
better state of mind, its beginnings were very,
very small. And now it is not anything to speak
of. She designed to go to England with Mr.
and Mrs. Farrar, and the plan was very pleasant,
and she was making her preparations, and the
time was fixed, when she conceived a reluctance
to go for which she could not see any reason, but
which continued; and she therefore suspended
her purpose, and suffered them to depart with-
out her. She said she had seen reason to think
it was best for her to have staid at home. But
in obeying it, she never felt it of any importance
that she should know now or at any time what
the reasons were. But she should feel that it was
presumption to press through this reluctance and
choose for herself. I said it was not so much any
particular power as a healthful state of the mind;
to which she assented cordially. I said, it must
produce a sublime tranquillity in view of the fu-
ture — this assurance of higher direction; and
she assented.'
1 In the essay “Greatness" (Letters and Social Aims, p. 309,
Cent. Ed.) Mr. Emerson gives this doctrine of the Quakers.
ons were


260
JOURNAL [AGE 30
Can you believe, Waldo Emerson, that you
may relieve yourself of this perpetual perplexity
of choosing, and by putting your ear close to the
soul, learn always the true way? I cannot but
remark how perfectly this agrees with the Dai-
mon of Socrates, even in that story which I once
thought anomalous, of the direction as to the
choice of two roads; and with the grand unalter-
ableness of Fichte's morality. Hold up this lamp
and look back at the best passages of your life.
Once there was choice in the mode, but obe-
dience in the thing. In general there has been
pretty quiet obedience in the main, but much
recusancy in the particular.
“Hamlet. But thou wouldst not think how
ill all's here about my heart, but it is no mat-
ter.
“Horatio. If your mind dislike anything,
obey it.”
no
“The barber learns his art on the orphan's
face." ;
ARABIAN PROVERB.
i This proverb was a favorite one of Mr. Emerson's. He
used to say, “When a village Lyceum Committee asks me to
give a lecture, and I tell them I will read one I am just
writing, they are pleased. Poor men, they little know how


1834] WHALING STORIES 261
The walls of houses are transparent to the
architect.
Providence; men apply themselves to events,
and according to their affinities, that is sweet or
bitter. [The] good man is obedient to the laws
of the world, and so successful. The angel rather.
Conversation with William W. Swain.
Boston, February 19.
A seaman in the coach told the story of an
old sperm-whale, which he called a white whale,
which was known for many years by the whale- ;
men as Old Tom, and who rushed upon the
boats which attacked him, and crushed the boats
to small chips in his jaws, the men generally es-
caping by jumping overboard and being picked
up. A vessel was fitted out at New Bedford, he
said, to take him. And he was finally taken some-
where off Payta Head by the Winslow or the
Essex. He gave a fine account of a storm, which
I heard imperfectly, only “the whole ocean was
all feather white.” A whale sometimes runs off
three rolls of cord, three hundred fathom in
length each one.
different that lecture will be when it is given in New York,
or is printed. I try it on' on them; •The barber learns bis
trade on the orphan's chin.""


262
JOURNAL (AGE 30
February 20.
Self-contradiction is the only wrong;
For, by the laws of spirit, in the right
Is every individual character
That acts in strict consistence with itself.
COLERIDGE's Wallenstein.
February 21.
The true reasons for actions are not given.
George P. Bradford says that he is so well un-
derstood at Plymouth that he can act naturally
without being reckoned absurd. That is a valid
reason for going there. But how many would
not understand it, and how many, understand-
ing it, would hoot at it. They think a cheaper
board is a good reason for going to one house,
or the prospect of making acquaintance that give
parties, or the like; but such a reason as this,
which affects happiness and character, seems un-
worthy attention. As George says, it is agreed
in society to consider realities as fictions, and
fictions realities.
February 22.
It were well to live purely, to make your word
worth something. Deny yourself cake and ale
to make your testimony irresistible. Be a pure
reason to your contemporaries for God and


ne
1834) NEW SABBATHS 263
truth. What is good in itself can be bad to no-
body. As I went to church I thought how sel-
dom the present hour is seized upon as a new
moment. To a soul alive to God every moment
is a new world. A new audience, a new Sab-
bath, affords an opportunity of communicating
thought and moral excitement that shall surpass
all previous experience, that shall constitute an
epoch, a revolution, in the minds on whom you
act and in your own. The awakened soul, the
man of genius, makes every day such a day,
by looking forward only ; but the professional
mob look back only to custom and their past
selves.
February 25.
“The day is immeasurably long to him who
knows how to value and to use it,” said Goethe.
SS
March 2.
It is very seldom that a man is truly alone.
He needs to retire as much from his solitude
as he does from society, into very loneliness.
While I am reading and writing in my chamber
I am not alone, though there is nobody there.
There is one means of procuring solitude which
to me, and I apprehend to all men, is effectual,
and that is to go to the window and look at the


264
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
stars. If they do not startle you and call you
off from vulgar matters I know not what will.
I sometimes think that the atmosphere was
made transparent with this design, to give
man in the heavenly bodies a perpetual admo-
nition of God and superior destiny. Seen in
the streets of cities, how great they are!'
When I spoke of this to G. A. S. he said,
that he had sought in his chamber a place
for prayer and could not find one till he
cast his eye upon the stars.
New BEDFORD, March 15.
I have been again to Plymouth, and the fam-
ilies and the faces are almost as tranquil as their
pines. The blue ocean reminded me of Goethe's
fine observation that “Nature has told every-
thing once"; one illustration of it . . . was to
me this noble line of sea by which Nature is
pleased to reveal to the asking eye the dimen-
sions of the globe by showing the true outline
of the world.
Fine objects in Plymouth from men and
women down to vegetables. I saw and relished
all even to the Epigæa and the Byssus or Pul-
i One or two sentences in this paragraph occur in the
opening passage of Nature.


1834) QUAKER MEETINGS 265
vis simplicissimus, ground-pine, Sabbatia, and
Empetrum.'
“Nature tells everything once.” Yes, our mi-
croscopes are not necessary; they are a mechani-
cal advantage for chamber-philosophers; she has
magnified everything somewhere. Each process,
each function, each organ, is disproportionately
developed in some one individual. Go study it
there, instead of wearing your eyes out in your
6-million magnifier.
I count no man much because he cows or
silences me. Any fool can do that. But if his
conversation enriches or rejoices me, I must
reckon him wise.
FO
New BEDFORD, March 21.
I have been much interested lately in the MS.
Record of the debates in the Quaker Monthly
Meetings here in 1823, when Elizabeth Rodman
and Mary Rotch were proposed to be removed
from the place of Elders for uniting in the prayers
of Mary Newhall. I must quote a sentence
or two from two of these speakers. “Febru-
Byssus (+) Epigæa repens (mayflower), Sabbatia chlo-
roides, Corema Conradii (Gray).
2 These two sentences occur in “ Country Life,” in Natural
History of Intellect, Centenary Edition, p. 160.


266
JOURNAL
(Age 30
ary, 1823: M. N. rose in the meeting and began
with, “As the stream does not rise higher than
the fountain,' etc.; spoke of the Mosaic dis-
pensation in which the performance of certain
rituals constituted the required religion; the
more spiritual dispensation of our Saviour; of
the advent of Christ; and the yet more inward
and spiritual dispensation of the present day.
These dispensations she compared to the pro-
gressive stages of the human heart in the work
of religion, from loving our neighbor as our-
selves to loving our enemies, and lastly arriving
at that state of humility when self would be
totally abandoned and we could only say, Lord
be merciful to me a sinner.”
NEW BEDFORD.
My Swedenborgian friend Dr. Stebbins tells
me that he esteems himself“ measureably excused
for not preaching whilst I remain here, as I am
giving as much New Jerusalem doctrine as the
people will bear.”
Fine thought in the old verse by Barbour
describing Bruce's soldiers crowding around
him as with new unsated curiosity after a bat-
tle: —


267
1834) TRUE SELF-RELIANCE
“Sic wordis spak they of their king;
And for his hie undertaking
Ferleyit and gernit him for to see,
That with him ay was wont to be.”
March 22.
The subject that needs most to be presented,
developed, is the principle of Self-reliance, what
it is, what is not it, what it requires, how it teaches
us to regard our friends. It is true that there is
a faith wholly a man's own, the solitary inmate
of his own breast, which the faiths of all man-
kind cannot shake, and which they cannot con-
firm. But at the same time, how useful, how
indispensable, has been the ministry of our friends
to us, our teachers — the living and the dead!
I ask advice. It is not that I wish my com-
panion to dictate to me the course I should take.
Before God, No. It were to unman, to un-god
myself. It is that I wish him to give me infor-
mation about the facts, not a law as to the duty.
It is that he may stimulate me by his thoughts
to unfold my own, so that I may become mas-
ter of the facts still. My own bosom will supply,
as surely as God liveth, the direction of my
course.
This truth constitutes the objection to pledges.


268
JOURNAL (AGE 30
They are advocated on the principle that men
are not to be trusted. They are to be trusted.
They can never attain to any good, until they
are trusted with the whole direction of them-
selves, and therefore it is pernicious, it is post-
poning their virtue and happiness, whenever you
substitute a false principle for the true, in a mind
capable of acting from a right motive.
March 23.
It occurs that the distinction should be drawn
in treating of Friendship between the aid of com-
modity which our friends yield us, as in hospitality,
gifts, sacrifices, etc., and which, as in the old story
about the poor man's will in Montaigne, are
evidently esteemed by the natural mind (to use
such a cant word) the highest manifestations of
love; and, secondly, the spiritual aid, -far more
precious and leaving the other at infinite dis-
tances, — which our friends afford us, of confes-
sion, of appeal, of social stimulus, mirroring our-
selves.
March 26.
As the flower precedes the fruit, and the bud
the flower, so, long before the knowledge, comes
the opinion, long before the opinion comes the
instinct, that a particular act is unfriendly,


1834]
RUTH EMERSON 269
unsuitable, wrong. We are wonderfully pro-
tected. ...
March 28.
Wherever the truth is injured, defend it. You
are there on that spot within hearing of that word,
within sight of that action, as a Witness, to the
end that you should speak for it.
“My Heritage how long and wide, –
Time is my heritage, my field is Time.”
Boston, April 10.
Is it possible that, in the Solitude I seek, I
shall have the resolution, the force, to work as
I ought to work, as I project in highest, most
far-sighted hours? Well, and what do you pro-
ject? Nothing less than to look at every object
in its relation to myself.
Edward wrote on the back of Alexander's por-
trait of Mother, taken in 1825 at the age of
57,-
Feminæ, uxoris, viduæ, matris optima, laudatæ,
benedictæ, vita pulchra, similitudo tam similis pre-
tiosa. Ipsa mulier ad cælum ibit: umbra picta inter
amicos, Deo volente, numquam inter inimicos, quia
tales non sunt, vivis descriptionem sine errore mor-
talis quondam, tunc angeli, dabit.


270
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
C. C. E. proposes an improved reading of the
second sentence:— Ipsa mulier in cælum ibit :
umbra picta inter amicos, Deo volente, non umquam,
cum tales nulli sint, inter inimicos, errore pure
mortalis quondam, tunc anima beata, imaginem ser-
vabit.
Placuit omnibus cui satis uni placuisse; epi-
taph on Olivia Buckminster Emerson.
April 11.
Went yesterday to Cambridge and spent most
of the day at Mount Auburn; got my luncheon
at Fresh Pond, and went back again to the woods.
After much wandering and seeing many things,
four snakes gliding up and down a hollow for
no purpose that I could see — not to eat, not
for love, but only gliding; then a whole bed of
Hepatica triloba, cousins of the Anemone, all
blue and beautiful, but constrained by niggard
nature to wear their last year's faded jacket of
leaves ; then a black-capped titmouse, who came
upon a tree, and when I would know his name,
sang chick-a-dee-dee ; then a far-off tree full of
clamorous birds, I know not what, but you might
hear them half a mile. I forsook the tombs, and
found a sunny hollow where the east wind would


ver 1
1834) SPRING. MOUNT AUBURN 271
not blow, and lay down against the side of a tree
to most happy beholdings. At least I opened my
eyes and let what would pass through them into
the soul. I saw no more my relation, how near
and petty, to Cambridge or Boston; I heeded
no more what minute or hour our Massachusetts
clocks might indicate -I saw only the noble
earth on which I was born, with the great Star
which warms and enlightens it. I saw the clouds
that hang their significant drapery over us. It
was Day — that was all Heaven said. The pines
glittered with their innumerable green needles in
the light, and seemed to challenge me to read
their riddle. The drab oak-leaves of the last year
turned their little somersets and lay still again.
And the wind bustled high overhead in the for-
est top. This gay and grand architecture, from
the vault to the moss and lichen on which I lay,
- who shall explain to me the laws of its pro-
portions and adornments ?
See the perpetual generation of good sense:
nothing wholly false, fantastic, can take pos-
session of men who, to live and move, must
plough the ground, sail the sea, have orchards,
hear the robin sing, and see the swallow fly.
To-day I found in Roxbury the Saxifraga
vernalis.


272
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
April 12.
Glad to read in my old gossip Montaigne
some robust rules of rhetoric: I will have a
chapter thereon in my book. I would Thomas
Carlyle should read them. “In good prose,”
said Schlegel (?), “every word should be under-
scored.” Its place in the sentence should make
its emphasis. Write solid sentences, and you can
even spare punctuation. The passages in Mon-
taigne are in volume iii, pages 144-146.' We are
always on the brink of an ocean of thought into
which we do not yet swim. We are poor lords,
- have immense powers which we are hindered
from using. I am kept out of my heritage. ...
ca
... Are we not ever postponing great actions
and ineffable wisdom. We are ever coming up
with a group of angels still in sight before us,"
which we refer to when we say “the Truth” and
the Wise Man, and the corrections these shall
make in human society. All the mistakes I make
arise from forsaking my own station and trying
to see the object from another person's point of
view. I read so resolute a self-thinker as Carlyle,
and am convinced of the riches of wisdom that
i Probably Cotton's translation.
2 The thought of his poem, “ The Forerunners.”


1834) KEEP YOURSELF. WAIT 273
ever belong to the man who utters his own
thought with a divine confidence that it must
be true if he heard it there.
We live, animals in the basement story, and
when Shakspeare or Milton, or even my fan-
tastical Scotchman who fools his humor to the
top of his bent, call us up into the high region,
we feel and say, “ this is my region, they only
show me my own property. I am in my element.
I thank them for it.” Presently we go about our
business into the basement again, cumbered with
serving; and assured of our right to the halls
above, we never go thither.
I had observed long since that, to give the
thought a just and full expression, I must not
prematurely utter it. Better not talk of the mat-
ter you are writing out. It was as if you had let
the spring snap too soon. I was glad to find Goethe
say to the same point, that “ he who seeks a
hidden treasure must not speak.”
Sabbath, April 13.
There are some duties about courtesy: and
were it not lawful for the discontented spirit
sometimes to cry out, Husks, Husks! Ye feed
the people with words, even in their solemn


274
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
assembly? They distress me by their prayers,
and all the discourse was an impertinence. There
sat, too, the gifted man, and if he unlawfully
withheld his word, this wearisome prose was his
just punishment.
Elsewhere, - certainly not there, but from
M, M. E., from Carlyle, or from this delicious
day, or whatever celestial fingers touched the
divine harp,- I woke to a strain of highest mel-
ody. I saw that it was not for me to complain of
obscurity, of being misunderstood; it was not for
me, even in the filthy rags of my unrighteous-
ness, to despond of what I might do and learn.
Can you not do better than clear your action to
the highest of these puppets or these potentates
around you, by clearing it to your Creator, by
being justified to yourself? Absolve yourself to
the universe, and, as God liveth, you shall ray
out light and heat, – absolute good. Were it
not noble gratitude, since we are the fruit of
Time and owe all to the immeasurable Past-
its nations and ages guide our pen— to live for
the world; to inspect the present and, in the pre-
sent, report of the future for the benefit of the
existing race; and having once seen that Virtue
was beautiful, count that portion enough, with-
out higgling for our particular Commodity to


1834) FATAL MACHINERY
boot? Down with that fop of a Brutus!' Peace
to the angel of Innocency for evermore!.
SEEMING DISPROPORTIONATE
It occurs how much friction is in the ma-
chinery of society. The material is so much that
the spiritual is overlaid and lost. A man medi-
tates in solitude upon a truth which seems to
him so weighty that he proposes to impart it to
his fellow men. Immediately a society must be
collected, and books consulted, and much paper
blotted in preparation of his discourse. Alien
considerations come in, personal considerations
- and finally when he delivers his discourse, 'tis
quite possible it does not contain the original
message, so that it was no superfluous rule he
gave who said, “When you write, do not omit
the thing you meant to say.” The material in-
teguments have quite overlaid and killed the
spiritual child. Not otherwise it falls out in Edu-
cation. A young man is to be educated, and
schools are built, and masters brought together,
and gymnasium erected, and scientific toys and
I "It is told of Brutus that, when he fell on his sword
after the battle of Philippi, he quoted a line of Euripides,
O Virtue! I have followed thee through life and I find thee
at last but a shade.'” - “Heroism," Essays, First Series.


276
(Age 30
JOURNAL
monitorial systems and a college endowed with
many professorships, and the apparatus is so
enormous and unmanageable that the e-ducation
or calling out of his faculties is never accom-
plished; he graduates a dunce. See how the
French Mathematics at Cambridge have quite
destroyed the slender chance a boy had before
of learning Trigonometry.
Is it otherwise in our philosophic enterprises ?
They wish to heal the sick, or emancipate the
African, or convert the Hindoo, and immediately
agents are appointed, and an office established,
and Annual Reports printed, — and the least
streamlet of the vast contributions of the public
trickles down to the healing of the original evil.
The Charity becomes a job. Well now, is it
otherwise with life itself? We are always getting
ready to live, but never living. We have many
years of technical education; then many years of
earning a livelihood, and we get sick, and take
journeys for our health, and compass land and
sea for improvement by travelling, but the work
of self-improvement, — always under our nose,
— nearer than the nearest, is seldom seldom en-
gaged in. A few, few hours in the longest life.
Set out to study a particular truth. Read upon
it; walk to think upon it; talk of it; write about


1834] GLEAMS. PRAYERS
277
it;- the thing itself will not much manifest it-
self, at least not much in accommodation to your
studying arrangements. The gleams you do get
out, they will flash as likely at dinner, or in the
roar of Faneuil Hall, as in your painfullest ab-
straction.
Very little life in a lifetime.
M. M. E. writes, that, “ the world is full of
children, and what in our hearts we take no merit
in — blush that it is no more generous — we ex-
pose to the weak as justification.”
April 20.
A good Inaugural Sermon from Mr. Stearns
at Old South this morning; and from Mr. Froth-
ingham this P. M., a good unfolding of the part-
ing of Elijah and Elisha. Elijah said, “Ask what
thou wilt.” Who could have stood this test? To
whom would it not have been a snare? But
Elisha said, “ Let a double portion of thy spirit
be on me.” The preacher should have added, I
think, that the blessing descended in the asking,
the prayer answered itself, as all real prayers do.
· Awake, arm of the Lord ! Awake, thou God-
like that sleepest! Dear God that sleepest in
man, I have served my apprenticeship of bows
and blushes, of fears and references, of excessive
admiration.


278
[AGE 30
JOURNAL
The whole secret of the teacher's force lies in
the conviction that men are convertible. And
they are. They want awakening. Get the soul
out of bed, out of her deep habitual sleep, out
into God's universe, to a perception of its beauty,
and hearing of its call, and your vulgar man, your
prosy, selfish sensualist awakes, a god, and is
conscious of force to shake the world.
It seemed to me to-night as if it were no bad
topic for the preacher to urge the talent of hear-
ing good sermons upon their congregations. I
can hear a good sermon where Surd shall hear
none, and Absurd shall hear worse than none.
Spend the Sunday morning well, and the hours
shall shine with immortal light, shall epitomize
history, shall sing heavenly psalms. Your way
to church shall be short as the way to the play-
ground is to a child, and something holy and
wise shall sit upon all the countenances there
and shall inspire the preacher's words with a
wisdom not their own. Spend the Sunday morn-
ing ill, and you will hardly hear a good sermon
anywhere.
Could it be made apparent, what is really
true, that the whole future is in the bottom of
the heart, that, in proportion as your life is spent


1834)
GRATITUDE
279
within, in that measure are you invulnerable ?
In proportion as you penetrate facts for the law,
and events for the cause, in that measure is your
knowledge real, your condition gradually con-
formed to a stable idea, and the future foreseen.
I have laid my egg, but 't is either old or empty.
It was nobly said by Goethe that he endea-
vored to show his gratitude to all his great con-
temporaries, Humboldt, Cuvier, Byron, Scott,
or whosoever, by meeting them half way in their
various efforts by the activity and performances
of his own mind. It is like the worthy man whom
I once took up in my chaise as I rode, and who,
on parting, told me he should thank me by ren-
dering the same service to some future traveller.
April 22.
The most original sermon is adopted by each
hearer's self-love as his old Orthodox, or Uni-
tarian, or Quaker, preaching.
April 23.
In desert lands the bird alights on the barrel
of the hunter's gun, and many other facts are
there; but that which I would say is that every
teacher acquires a cumulative inertia ; the more
forcible, the more eloquent, have been his inno-


280
JOURNAL (Age 30
vating doctrines, the more eagerly his school
have crowded around him, so much the more
difficult is it for him to forfeit their love, to com-
promise his influence by advancing farther in the
same track. Therefore the wise man must be
wary of attaching followers. He must feel and
teach that the best wisdom cannot be communi-
cated; must be acquired by every soul for itself.
And the prudent world cannot wish that the
gifted Channing should advance one step, lest
it be left without confidence in its Conductor.
Newton, April 26.
The Muses love the woods, and I have come
hither to court the awful Powers in this sober
solitude. Whatsoever is highest, wisest, best,
favor me! I will listen and then speak.' To be
i Here follows a passage used in “The Preacher” (Lec-
tures and Biographical Sketches, p. 221, Centenary Edition),
beginning there : « Unlovely, nay, frightful, is the solitude
of the soul which is without God in the world.” The sen-
tence in that essay about “this chill, houseless, fatherless,
aimless Cain, the man who hears only the sound of his own
footsteps in God's resplendent creation,” is given in the jour-
nal version (omitted here) thus: “ This chill, houseless,
fatherless baboon, with the image, but not the soul of man.”
Mr. Cabot, in the preface to Letters and Social Aims, explains
the diversity of date often found in the posthumously printed


S 11
1834) SOUL WITHOUT GOD 281
without God in the world — who devised that
pregnant expression?...
There is no longer distinction between the
value of thoughts. To be sweet as sugar is sweet,
strong as iron is strong, wise as a miser, happy
as a drunkard, is the whole compass of his specu-
lation. And he is left in how terrible a solitude.
The hopes that cheered him, the glorious affec-
tions that made a sky over all he knew, the un-
seen powers that watched with tenderness his
education, that knit his yet imperfect endeavors
to the great Cause of goodness and to the uni-
verse that labors for it, the fellowship of all great
men working earnestly in the world, the smiles
and auspices of departed heroes, yea, and the
right and power to rejoice in anything that is won
or done — all, all depart from him, he is alone
in a barren and mean solitude. He bitterly feels
that he must yield the palm of real dignity to the
meanest worm or fly, for they are not tormented
with a consciousness of total worthlessness as
he is.' ...
papers by his account of his arranging these for publication with
Mr. Emerson's sanction, in his later days.
1 Here follows, also in « The Preacher," the passage be-
ginning, — “How gloomy is the day,” and ending, “ is
gone forever.”


282
JOURNAL
(Age 30
Do you not see that wherever the wise, the good
man goes, light springs up in his path — he car-
ries meaning to every dead symbol; the Creator
is in his heart, and illustrates and affects his world,
through the hands of his servant. But the evil
man, that is, the Atheist, goes up and down, and
all is dark and pernicious.
Rain, rain. The good rain, like a bad preacher,
does not know when to leave off.
God is promoted by the worst. Don't despise
even the Kneelands' and Andrew Jacksons. In
the great cycle they find their place, and like the
insect that fertilizes the soil with worm casts, or
i Abner Kneeland, editor of the Boston Investigator, who
had just been sent to jail in Boston, convicted of Blasphemy
in articles written and published by him expressing disbelief
in God, in Christ, in miracles and in immortality (Pickering's
Reports, vol. xx). Four years later, the young James Russell
Lowell, in his Class Poem, thus commented on Mr. Emer-
son's Divinity School Address :-
“ Woe for Religion, too, when men, who claim
To place a Reverend before their name,
Ascend the Lord's own holy place to preach
In strains that Kneeland had been proud to reach,
And which, if measured by Judge Thacher's scale,
Had doomed their author to the county jail," etc.
(See Scudder's Biography of Lowell.)


1834] BIRDS. SHELLS. FLOWERS 283
the scavenger bustard' that removes carrion, they
perform a beneficence they know not of, and can-
not hinder if they would.
I saw a hawk to-day wheeling up to heaven in
a spiral flight, and every circle becoming less to
the eye till he vanished into the atmosphere.
What could be more in unison with all pure and
brilliant images. Yet is the creature an unclean
greedy eater, and all his geography from that
grand observatory was a watching of barn-yards,
or an inspection of moles and field-mice. So with
the pelican, crane, and the tribes of sea-fowl -
disgusting gluttons all. Yet observe how finely
in nature all these disagreeable individuals in-
tegrate themselves into a cleanly and pleasing
whole.
April 27.
Here is a Mytilus margaritiferus as large as a
moon and of the same color, and a Tellina radiata
which reminds the beholder of the rising sun.
I think they should call one of those shells,
Moon, and the other, Morn. To-day I found
also the Andromeda calyculata, Houstonia, Poten-
tilla sarmentosa." This Empetrum and Smilax and
i Buzzard was meant.
2 Chamædaphne calyculata, Houstonia cerulea, Potentilla
pumila (Gray).


284
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
Kalmia’ and privet, I have wondered oft to what
end they grew. How ridiculous! Ask wrens and
crows and bluebirds. As soon as you have done
wondering and have left the plant, the bird and
the insect return to it as to their daily table. And
so it renews its race for a thousand, thousand
summers.
Natural History gives body to our knowledge.
No man can spare a fact he knows. The know-
ledge of nature is most permanent; clouds and
grass are older antiquities than pyramids or Ath-
ens; then they are most perfect. Goethe's plant,
a genuine creation. Then they bear strange but
well-established affinities to us. Nobody can
look on a Cistus or a Brentus without sighing at
his ignorance. It is an unknown America. Lin-
næus is already read as the Plato who described
Atlantis. A classification is nothing but a cabinet.
The whole remains to be done thereafter.
A religion of forms is not for me. I honor the
Methodists who find, like St. John, all Chris-
tianity in one word, Love. To the parishes in
my neighborhood Milton would seem a free-
thinker when he says, “They (the Jews] thought
i Corema Conradii, Smilax rotundifolia, Kalmia angusti-
folia (Gray).


1834 A DAY'S DEMANDS 285
it too much license to follow the charming pipe
of him who founded and proclaimed liberty and
relief to all distresses.”
April 28.
Vaccinium tenellum, Pyrus ovalis,' Anemone ne-
morosa, Fragaria virginiana : the day is as good
for these as for oaks and corn. The air vibrates
with equal facility to the thunder and to the
squeak of a mouse; invites man with provoking
indifference to total indolence and to immortal
actions. You may even shun the occasions of
excitement by withdrawing from a profession
and from society, and then the vast Eternity of
capacity, of freedom, opens before you, but
without a single impulse. A day is a rich abyss
of means, yet mute and void. It demands some-
thing godlike in him who has cast off the com-
mon yokes and motives of humanity, and has
ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster.
High be his heart, faithful his will, vast his con-
templations, that he may truly be a world, so-
ciety, law to himself; that a simple purpose may
be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others.
It is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptation,
that a reasoning Man, conscious of his powers
and duties, annihilates all distinction of circum-
I Amelanchier oblongifolia (Gray).


286
JOURNAL
[AGE 30
stances. What is Rome? what is royalty ? what
is wealth? His place is the true place, and su-
perior therefore in dignity to all other places.
Linnæus at Copenhagen, Oberlin on the high
Alps, White at Selborne, Roger Bacon at Ox-
ford, Rammohun Roy in India, and Heber at
Bombay, Washington in the Jerseys — these
are the Romes, the Empires, the Wealth of
these men. The place which I have not sought,
but in which my duty places me, is a sort of royal
palace. If I am faithful in it, I move in it with
a pleasing awe at the immensity of the chain of
which I hold the last link in my hand and am
led by it. I perceive my commission to be co-
eval with the antiquity of the eldest causes.
Literature is the conversion of action into
thought for the delight of the Intellect. It is the
turning into thought what was done without
thought.
It aims at ideal truth. But it is only approx-
imation. The word can never cover the thing.
You don't expect to describe a sunrise.
Art actualizes thought.
Literature idealizes action.
Mission of the intellect.


1834) NATURE'S STEPS 287
The vulgar man seems to himself unmoored
the moment he has changed his scene and asso-
ciates. He misses his chair and his hat-peg. The
wise man carries his spring and his regulator
within, and is at home in untrodden wilds.
April 29.
Fontenelle said, if men should see the princi-
ples of nature laid bare, they would cry,“What!
is this all?” How simple they are. How is the
wonder perpetually lessened by showing the dis-
proportionate effect upon the eye of simple com-
bination! The shell is a marvel until we see that
it was not one effort, but each knot and spine
has been in turn the lip of the structure. Shak-
speare how inconceivable, until we have heard
what Italian Novels and Plutarch's Lives and
old English Dramas he had, also what contem-
porary fund of poetic diction. A Webster's
speech is a marvel until we have learned that a
part of it he has carried in his head for years,
and a part of it was collected for him by young
lawyers, and that Mr. Appleton furnished the
facts, and a letter from Mr. Swain turned the
paragraph. St. Peter's did not leap full grown
out of the head of the architect; the part that was
builded instructed the eye of the next genera-


288
JOURNAL (Age 30
tion how to build the rest. Mirabeau has his
Dumont. The tree did not come from the acorn,
but is an annual deposit of vegetation in a form
determined by the existing disposition of the
parts. Every leaf contains the eyes which are
sufficient to originate a forest. The magnet is
a marvel when we simply see it spontaneously
wheel to the north, and cling to iron like one
alive. The wonder diminishes when it is shown
to be only one instance of a general law that
affects all bodies and all phenomena, light, heat,
electricity, animal life. A ship, a locomotive, a
cotton factory is a wonder until we see how these
Romes were not built in a day, but part.sug-
gested part, and complexity became simplicity.
The poem, the oration, the book are super-
human, but the wonder is out when you see the
manuscript. Homer how wonderful, until the
German erudition discovered a cyclus of Ho-
meric poems. It is all one; a trick of cards, a jug-
gler's sleight, an astronomical result, an algebraic
formula, amazing when we see only the result,
cheap when we are shown the means. This it is
to conceive of acts and works, to throw myself
into the object so that its history shall natu-
rally evolve itself before me. Well, so does
the Universe, Time, History evolve itself, so
re


1834)
LIMITS. CRISES
289
simply, so unmiraculously from the all-perceiv-
ing mind.
G. P. B. tells a ridiculous story about the boy
learning his alphabet. “That letter is A,” says
the teacher. “A,” drawls the boy. “That is B,”
says the teacher. “B,” drawls the boy, and so on.
“ That letter is W," says the teacher. “The
Devil! Is that W?” enquires the pupil. Now
I say that this story hath an alarming sound.
It is the essence of Radicalism. It is Jack Cade
himself. Or is it not exquisite ridicule upon our
learned Linnæan classifications? “What shell
is this?” “It is a strombus.” “ The devil! is that
a strombus ? ” would be the appropriate reply.
The fly strikes against the window-pane until
at last he learns that, though invisible, there is
an obstacle there. The soul of man by a thou-
sand offences learns at last that there is an in-
visible Law which
April 30.
There are more purposes in Education than
to keep the man at work. Self-questioning is
one; a very important end. The disturbance,
the self-discord which young men feel is a most
important crisis, indispensable to a free, improv-


290
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
able race creature. Give me the eye to see a
navy in an acorn.
If I could write like the wonderful bard whose
sonnets I read this afternoon, I would leave all,
and sing songs to the human race. Poetry with
him is no verbal affair; the thought is poetical,
and Nature is put under contribution to give
analogies and semblances that she has never
yielded before. Whether the same or an equal
tone of natural verse is now possible? Whether
we are not two ages too late? But how remark-
able every way are Shakspear's sonnets. Those
addressed to a beautiful young man seem to
show some singular friendship amounting al-
most to a passion which probably excited his
youthful imagination. They are invaluable for
the hints they contain respecting his unknown
self. He knew his powers; he loved Spenser ;
he deplored his own way of living, etc., etc.
What said C. C. E. the other day touching a
common impression left by Jesus of Nazareth
and this poet?
The war of the telescope and the microscope;
the mass and the particular. Science ever sub-
divides. It separates one star into two, a nebula
into a constellation, a class into genera, a genus


1834) UNITS. LAWS. WAVES 291
into species; and ever the most interesting facts
arise from ascertaining habits of an individual.
We should find the individual traits of a robin
or a bee probably far more interesting than their
generic habits when once we arrive to know
them, as much as the traits of one dog affect us
more than, though interesting, the canine char-
acter. Newton and Webster charm us more than
accounts of the character of the Saxon Race. It
occurred also in the forest, that there is no need
to fear that the immense accumulation of scien-
tific facts should ever encumber us, since as fast
as they multiply they resolve themselves into
a formula which carries the world in a phial.
Every commonplace we utter is a formula in
which is packed up an uncounted list of par-
ticular observations. And every man's mind at
this moment is a formula condensing the result
of all his conclusions.
May 1.
In this still Newton we have seven Sabbaths
in a week. The day is as calm as Eternity -
quite a Chaldean time.
The philosophy of the Wave. The wave
moves onward, but the water of which it is
composed does not. The same particle does not
rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is
dy


292
JOURNAL
(Age 30
on-
only phenomenal. So it is with men. There is
a revolution in this country now, is there? Well
I am glad of it. But it don't convert nor pun-
ish the Jackson men, nor reward the others.
The Jackson men have made their fortunes;
grow old; die. It is the new comers who form
this undulation. The party we wish to con-
vince, condemn, loses its identity. Elect Web-
ster President, — and find the Jackson party if
you can. All gone, dead, scattered, Webster-
men, Southerners, Masons, any and everything.
Judicial or even moral sentence seems no longer
capable of being inflicted. France, we say, suf-
fered and learned; but the red Revolutionists
did not. France to-day is a new-born race that
had no more to do with that regicide France
than the Sandwich Islanders.
May 3.
The Idea according to which the Universe is
made is wholly wanting to us; is it not? Yet
it may or will be found to be constructed on as
harmonious and perfect a thought, self-explain-
ing, as a problem in geometry. The classification
of all natural science is arbitrary, I believe; no
method philosophical in any one. And yet in
all the permutations and combinations suppos-
able, might not a cabinet of shells or a Flora be


mo
X-
1834) THE HIDDEN IDEA
293
thrown into one which should flash on us the
very thought? We take them out of compo- ,
sition, and so lose their greatest beauty. The
moon is an unsatisfactory sight if the eye be ex-
clusively directed to it, and a shell retains but
a small part of its beauty when examined sepa-
rately.' All our classifications are introductory
and very convenient, but must be looked on as
temporary, and the eye always watching for the
glimmering of that pure, plastic Idea. If Swam-
merdam forgets that he is a man, and when you
make any speculative suggestion as to the habits
or origin or relation of insects, rebukes you, with
civil submission that you may think what you
please, he is only concerned for the facts, -- he
loses all that for which his science is of any
worth. He is a mere insect-hunter, and no whit
more respectable than the nuthatch or titmouse
who are peeping and darting about after the
same prey.
This was what Goethe sought in his Meta-
morphosis of plants. The Pythagorean doctrine
of transmigration is an Idea; the Swedenbor-
gian of Affections Clothed, is one also. Let the
i Compare in Nature (Centenary Edition, p. 19) the para-
graph in the division “ Beauty,” beginning, “ But this beauty
of Nature."


294
JOURNAL (Age 30
mind of the student be in a natural, healthful
and progressive state, let him, in the midst of
his most minute dissection, not lose sight of the
place and relations of the subject; shun giving
it a disproportionate importance, but speedily
adjust himself and study to see the thing (though
with added acquaintance of its intimate structure)
under the sun and in the landscape as he did
before. Let it be a point as before. Integrate
the particulars. We have no theory of animated
nature. When we have, it will be itself the true
Classification. Perhaps a study of the cattle on
the mountain-side as they graze is more sugges-
tive of truth than the inspection of their parts in
the dissection-room. The way they classify is
by counting stamens, or filaments, or teeth and
hoofs and shells. A true argument, what we call
the unfolding an idea, as is continually done in
Plato's Dialogues, in Carlyle's Characteristics,
or in a thousand acknowledged applications of
familiar ethical truths, — these are natural classi-
fications containing their own reason in them-
selves, and making known facts continually.
They are themselves the formula, the largest
generalization of the facts, and if thousands on
thousands more should be discovered, this idea
hath predicted already their place and fate. When
e


1834) FACE THE QUESTION 295
shall such a classification be obtained in botany?
This is evidently what Goethe aimed to do, in
seeking the arch-plant, which, being known,
would give, not only all actual, but all possible
vegetable forms. Thus to study would be to
hold the bottle under water instead of filling it
drop by drop.
Monday, May 3.
The parliamentary people say, We must not
blink the question. There is an intellectual duty
as imperative and as burdensome as that moral
one. I come, e. g., to the present subject of
classification. At the centre it is a black spot-
no line, ņo handle, no character; I am tempted
to stray to the accessible lanes on the left hand
and right, which lead round it — all outside of
it. Intellectual courage, intellectual duty says
we must not blink the question, we must march
up to it and sit down before it and watch there,
incessantly getting as close as we can to the
black wall, and watch and watch, until slowly
lines and handles and characters shall appear on
its surface and we shall learn to open the gate
and enter the fortress, unroof it and lay bare its
ground-plan to the day.
Mr. Coleridge has written well on this mat-
ter of Theory in his Friend. A lecture may be


296
JOURNAL (AGE 30
given upon insects or plants, that, when it is
closed, irresistibly suggests the question,“Well,
what of that?” An enumeration of facts without
method. A true method has no more need of
firstly, secondly, etc., than a perfect sentence has
of punctuation. It tells its own story, makes
its own feet, creates its own form. It is its own
apology. The best argument of the lawyer is a
skilful telling of the story. The true classifica-
tion will not present itself to us in a catalogue of
a hundred classes, but as an idea of which the
flying wasp and the grazing ox are develop-
ments. Natural History is to be studied, not
with any pretension that its theory is attained,
that its classification is permanent, but merely
as full of tendency.
May 6.
Well, my friend, are you not yet convinced
that you should study plants and animals?' To be
sure the reasons are not very mighty : but words.
i It should be remembered that Mr. Emerson, having left
his pulpit, was earnestly searching for the highest truth as re-
vealed in Nature by the informing Spirit. Two days after this
entry he gave a lecture called " The Naturalist,” before the
Boston Natural History Society at their annual meeting. A
synopsis of this lecture is given in Cabot's Memoir, in the
Appendix, vol. ii, p. 712.


1834) TURNING TO NATURE 297
To it again. Say then that I will study Natural
History to provide me a resource when business,
friends, and my country fail me, that I may
never lose my temper, nor be without soothing,
uplifting occupation. It will yet cheer me in
solitude, or, I think, in madness, that the mel-
low voice of the robin is not a stranger to me,
that the flowers are reflections to me of earlier,
happier and yet thoughtful hours. Or again,
say that I am ever haunted by the conviction
that I have an interest in all that goes on
around me, that I would overhear the powers
- what they say. No knowledge can be spared,
or any advantage we can give ourselves, and this
is the knowledge of the laws by which I live;
but finally say frankly, that all the reasons seem
to me to fall far short of my faith upon the sub-
ject. Therefore, boldly press the cause as its own
evidence; say that you love Nature, and would
know her mysteries, and that you believe in your
power by patient contemplation and docile ex-
periment to learn them.
May 8.
The men of this world say ever of the Thinker,
“How knoweth this man these things, hav-
ing never learned?” Ho! every one that thirst-
eth! come ye to the waters, and he that hath
ma


298
JOURNAL
(AGE 30
no money, come buy wine and milk without
money.
The recluse hermit ofttimes more doth see, etc.
A few wise instincts, etc.
WORDSWORTH.
May 16.
I remember when I was a boy going upon the
beach and being charmed with the colors and
forms of the shells. I picked up many and put
them in my pocket. When I got home I could
find nothing that I gathered — nothing but
some dry, ugly mussel and snail shells. Thence
\ I learned that composition was more important
than the beauty of individual forms to effect.
On the shore they lay wet and social by the
sea and under the sky.'
· The sun illuminates the eye of the man, but
'the eye and the heart of the child. His heart
is in the right place.
Many eyes go through the meadow, but few
see the flowers in it.
May 21.
I will thank God of myself and for that I
have. I will not manufacture remorse of the
pattern of others, nor feign their joys. I am
i The origin of the poem “Each and All.”


1834) TRUST INSTINCT 299
born tranquil, not a stern economist of Time, but
never a keen sufferer. I will not affect to suffer.
Be my life then a long gratitude. I will trust
my instincts. For always a reason halts after
an instinct, and when I have deviated from
the instinct, comes somebody with a profound
theory teaching that I ought to have followed it:
some Goethe, Swedenborg, or Carlyle. I stick at
scolding the boy, yet conformably to rule, I
scold him. By and by, the reprimand is a proven
error. “Our first and third thought coincide.”
I was the true philosopher in college, and Mr.
Farrar and Mr. Hedge and Dr. Ware the false,
yet what seemed then to me less probable ? #
“There are three things,” said my worthy friend
W. W. to me, “ that make the gentleman, —
the hat, the collar, and the boots.” Ah, that
Professor Teufelsdrock' had heard the word !
May 29.
Dr. Darwin's work has lost all its consequence
in the literary world.” Why? not from Currie,
1 Mr. Emerson never mastered the spelling of Teufels-
dröckh.
2 Evidently one of the works of the elder Darwin (Dr.
Erasmus). He wrote “The Botanic Garden," a poem, and
later - Zoönomia, or Laws of Organic Life ;” later still,
“ Phytologia, or Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening.”


300
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
nor from Brown. No. A dim, venerable public
decides upon every work. When it offers itself,
a sort of perplexity, an uneasy waiting for judg-
ment appears in the living literary judges; but
the work presently takes its true place, by no
effort, friendly or hostile, but by the real impor-
tance of its principles to the constant mind of
man. And this in a way that no individual can
much affect by blame or praise. It is the specific
gravity of the atom. An aspiring young man
readily distinguishes in the first circles those who
are there by sufferance, and those who consti-
tute them first circles, and attaches himself to the
fountains of honor, not to the conduits. The true
aspirant goes one step further and discerns in
himself the Fountain of these fountainlets, and
so becomes the giver of all fine and high influ-
ences. In him is the source of all the romance,
the lustre, the dignity, that fascinates him in
some saloons with an inexpressible charm; for,
truth, honor, learning, perseverance, are the Jove
and Apollo who bewitched him.
May 30.
Languages as discipline, much reading as an
additional atmosphere or two, to gird the loins
and make the muscles more tense. It seems time
lost for a grown man to be turning the leaves of a


1834) LANGUAGES. WOMAN 301
dictionary, like a boy, to learn German, but I be-
lieve he will gain tension and creative power by so
doing. Good books have always a prolific atmos-
phere about them and brood upon the spirit.
[Newton was still the temporary abiding-
place. On May 31 Emerson wrote to his
brother Edward in Porto Rico: “Here sit
Mother and I among the pine-trees, still al-
most as we shall lie by and by under them ;”
and telling Edward of the accession of property
that had come to him from his late wife's estate,
urged him to come home and join him, saying:
“If you will come, we will retreat into Berkshire
and make a little world of other stuff.”]
June 2.
The life of women is unfortunately so much for
exhibition that every the minutest trait pleases
which is wholly natural, even to a girl's crying
because it thundered, et ce que disent les femmes
l'une de l'autre.
What more sensible than what they say of
Mr. — , that he sells his splendid Chinese
house and goes to live at Watertown because he
cannot make a bow and pleasantly entertain the


302
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
crowd of company that visit him. C. C. E. says
he should build a large room.
Preached at Waltham yesterday. Expect every
day when some trenchant Iarno' will come across
me and read me such a lesson. Is the preacher
one to make a fool of himself for the entertain-
ment of other people? would he say, When there
is any difference of level felt in the footboard of
the pulpit and the floor of the parlor, you have
not said that which you should say? The best
sermon would be a quiet, conversational analysis
of these felt difficulties, discords; to show the
chain under the leather; to show the true, within
the supposed advantage of Christian institutions.
There are several worthy people making them-
selves less because they would act the police offi-
cer, and keep the factory people at church. I
say, “Be genuine.” They answer,“ If we should,
our society, which has no real virtue, would go
to pot.” And so the yoke, it is confessed, is only
borne out of fear. Suppose they should let the
societies go down, and form new and genuine
ones. Let such as felt the advantage of a sermon
and social worship meet voluntarily and compel
nobody.
1 A character in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister.
OU
DIS


1834) COUNTERWORKINGS 303
June 3.
The lower tone you take, the more flexible
your voice is.
June 5.
What perpetual working and counterworking
in us, so that many good actions spring from bad
motives, and many bad actions from good mo-
tives. Verily. Then how slovenly and despite
ourselves we are continually jostled into know-
ledge of truth. D. P. commends peace to the
boys, the boys debate the matter and give such
cogent reasons to the contrary, that D. P. in
anger and fear to be put down, wades out be-
yond his depth in the other direction, and gets
unawares a knowledge of the infinite reason of
love. Highest praise and happiness is it to go
forward one step of our own seeing and find our-
selves in a position whose advantages we foresaw.
Fatal tendency to hang on to the letter and let
the spirit go. We will debate the precept about
“turning the cheek to the smiter,” the “coat and
cloke,” the “not taking thought what ye shall
speak,” etc., and question whether it is now prac
ticable, and is now obligatory. Yet every one of
us has had his hours of illumination by the same
spirit, when he fully understood those com-
mands and saw that he did not need them. He


304
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
had the Commander, giving fresh precepts fit
for the moment and the act. Yet it is well that
Christ's are recorded. They show how high the
waters flowed when the spirit brooded upon them,
and are a measure of our deficiency. The wonder
that is felt at these precepts is a measure of our
unreason.
ANTAGONISMS
There are persons both of superior character
and intellect whose superiority quite disappears
when they are put together. They neutralize,
anticipate, puzzle, and belittle each other.
June 8.
The solitary bird that sung in the pine tree
reminded me of one talker who has nothing to
say alone, but when friends come, and the con-
versation grows loud, is forthwith set into in-
tense activity, mechanically echoing and strength-
ening everything that is said, without any regard
to the subject or to truth.
The soul has its diurnal, annual and secular
periodic motions like the needle. You may doubt
for a day, but you will believe before the week's
end; you may abandon your friendships and
your designs, as you think, on good advice, for


1834) A RAILWAY RIDE
305
these months, but by and by it will come back
as with thunder from all heaven, that God crowns
him who persists in his purposes — no fair-
weather friend, - that the very armory of heroes
and sages is in obscurity, conflict, high heart
which sustained itself Alone.
You are there in that place to testify. There
was a man in Sais who was very good to all peo-
ple, but he could not be trusted alone. When
he was left alone, all the devils associated them-
selves to him, and he robbed, murdered, com-
mitted adultery, blasphemed, lied, cringed.
June 10.
One has dim foresight of hitherto uncom-
puted mechanical advantages who rides on the
railroad, and moreover a practical confirmation
of the ideal philosopher that matter is phenome-
nal, whilst men and trees and barns whiz by you
as fast as the leaves of a dictionary. As our tea-
kettle hissed along through a field of mayflow-
ers, we could judge of the sensations of a swallow
who skims by trees and bushes with about the
same speed. The very permanence of matter
seems compromised, and oaks, fields, hills, hith-
erto esteemed symbols of stability, do absolutely
en


306
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
dance by you. The countryman called it “Hell
in harness.” :
What habits of observation has my friend,
what keen senses. It would seem as if nothing,
though under your nose, was permitted to be visi-
ble to you until he had seen it. Thereafter, all the
world may see it, and it never leaves your eyes.
Washington wanted a fit public. Aristides,
Phocion, Regulus, Hampden had worthy ob-
servers. But there is yet a dearth of American
genius.
I went to the menagerie Tuesday and saw 14
pelicans, a sacred ibis, a gazelle,zebras, a capibara,
ich neumon, hyena, etc. It seems to me like“visit-
ing the spirits in prison." Yet not to“ preach.”
There was the mystery. No word could pass from
me to them. Animals have been called by some
German “the dreams of Nature." I think we go
to our own dreams for a conception of their con-
sciousness. In a dream I have the same instinc-
i It would seem that Mr. Emerson had taken a ride on
the portion of the new railroad between Boston and Worces-
ter which was opened in April, 1834, when the locomotive
engine had been for the first time introduced in New England.


1834] ANIMALS. TEACHING 307
tive obedience, the same torpidity of the highest
power, the same unsurprised assent to the mon-
strous, as these metamorphosed men exhibit.
The pelicans remind one of Nick Bottom. One
has a kind of compassionate fear lest they should
have a glimpse of their forlorn condition. What
a horrible calamity would be to them one mo-
ment's endowment of reason! Yet sometimes
the negro excites the same feeling, and sometimes
the sharp-witted, prosperous white man. You
think, if he could overlook his own condition,
he could not be kept from suicide. But to the
contemplations of the Reason is there never
penitence.
The scholar seeks the ingenuous boy to ap-
prize him of the treasures within his reach, to
show him poetry, religion, philosophy, and con-
gratulate him on being born into the universe.
The boy's parents immediately call to thank him
for his interest in their son, and ask him to pro-
cure him a schoolmaster's situation.
June 18.
Everything teaches, even dilettantism. The
dilettante does not, to be sure, learn anything
of botany by playing with his microscope, and


308
JOURNAL [AGE 31
with the terminology of plants, but he learns
what dilettantism is; he distinguishes between
what he knows and what he affects to know, and
through some pain and self-accusation he is at-
taining to things themselves.
Webster's speeches seem to be the utmost
that the unpoetic West has accomplished or can.
r We all lean on England; scarce a verse, a page,
I a newspaper, but is writ in imitation of Eng-
lish forms; our very manners and conversation
are traditional, and sometimes the life seems
dying out of all literature, and this enormous
paper currency of Words is accepted instead. I
suppose the evil may be cured by this rank
rabble party, the Jacksonism of the country, -
heedless of English and of all literature - a
stone cut out of the ground without hands; —
they may root out the hollow dilettantism of
our cultivation in the coarsest way, and the new-
I born may begin again to frame their own world
with greater advantage. Meantime Webster is
no imitator, but a true genius for his work, if
that is not the highest. But every true man
stands on the top of the world. He has a ma-
jestic understanding, which is in its right place,
the servant of the reason, and employed ever to


1834)
GOETHE
309
bridge over the gulf between the revelations of
his Reason, his Vision, and the Facts within, in
the microscopic optics of the calculators that
surround him. Long may he live.
It is singular that every natural object, how
wearisome soever in daily observation, is always
agreeable in description, and doubly so in illus-
tration.
June 20.
What a charm does Wilhelm Meister spread
over society, which we were just getting to think
odious. And yet, as I read the book to-day and
thought of Goethe as the Tag und Jahres Hefte
describes him, he seemed to me, - all-sided,
gifted, indefatigable student as he is, — to be
only another poor monad, after the fashion of
his little race bestirring himself immensely to
hide his nothingness, spinning his surface di-
rectly before the eye to conceal the universe of
his ignorance. The finest poems of the world
have been expedients to get bread, or else ex-
pedients to keep the writer from the mad-house
and amuse him and his fellow men with the illu-
sion that he knew; but the greatest passages they
have writ, the infinite conclusions to which they
owe their fame, are only confessions. Through-


310
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
out Goethe prevails the undersong of confession
and amazement; the apothegm of Socrates;
the recantation of Man. The first questions are
always to be asked, and we fend them off by much
speaking and many books, so that scarcely can
I blame the man who affects to philosophize as
some sensualists do, and says his fun is profound
calculation. And yet it is best in the poorest
view to keep the powers healthy and supple by
appropriate action.
“All things,” complained the philosopher,
“hasten back to unity.”
as
The bells in America toll because Lafayette
has died in France. The bells in all the earth,
in church, monastery, castle, and pagoda might
well toll for the departure of so pure, faithful,
heroic, secular a spirit out of the earth to which
it has been salt and spikenard. Go in, great
heart! to the Invisible, to the kingdom of love
and faith. He has
“ Lingered among the last of those bright clouds
Which on the steady breeze of Honour sail
In long procession, calm and beautiful.”
It occurred that the gestures of the Reason are
graceful and majestic, those of the Understand-
ing quick and mean. The uplifted eye of Mem-


1834] REASON. WOMAN 311
ory, the solemn pace, perfect repose, and simple
attitudes of Meditation inspire respect, but the
moment the senses call us back, and the Under-
standing directs us, we run, start, look askance,
or turn and look behind us, we skulk, fumble,
exceed in manner and voice, and suffer. Live
by reason, and you will not make the foul mouths,
nor utter the foul breath nor drag disgracefully
sleepy days that convince Alexander that he is
mortal. When Minerva, they say, saw her dis-
torted face in a brook, she threw away her haut-
boy.
June 26.
If friendship were perfect, there would be no
false prayers. But what could Wilhelm have
done at the Crabs house?
The rare women that charm us are those hap-
pily constituted persons who take possession of
society wherever they go, and give it its form,
its tone. If they sit, as we sit, to wait for what
shall be said, we shall have no Olympus. To
their genius elegance is essential. It is enough
that we men stammer and mince words and play
the clown and pedant alternately. They must
speak as clearly and simply as a song. I say all
this is a happiness, not a merit, and few there


312
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
be that find it. Society cannot give it, nor the
want of society withhold it. Aunt Mary and
S. A. R.' never wait for the condescending in-
fluences of society, but seek it out, scrutinize it,
amuse themselves with the little, sympathize
with and venerate the great. And Ellen, in a
life of solitude, was incapable of an inelegance.
Yesterday the attentions of the poor girl with
flowers made me think how elegant is kindness.
Kindness is never vulgar. Genius and strong
Will may be only phenomena in the chain of
causes, and most men and women may grow up
to be what they are, as the cows and horses grow
in the pastures, but kindness from a perfect
stranger — a sudden will to benefit me and
everybody — is a salient spring, it is a hint of
the presence of the living God. The condition
of young women, even the most favored, excites
sometimes a profound pity. ... But kindness,
native courtesy, redeems them at once out of
your pity; they are happy and the objects of
your joy and your respect.
“ Happy, happier far than thou,
With the laurel on thy brow,
She who makes the humblest hearth
Lovely but to one on earth.”.
1 Mrs. Ripley. 2 [Mrs. Hemans.]


1834) GOETHE AND MORALS 313
Next door to us lives a young man who is
learning to drum. He studies hard at his science
every night. I should like to reward his music
with a wreath of Smilax peduncularis.'
Goethe and Carlyle, and perhaps Novalis, have
an undisguised dislike or contempt for common
virtue standing on common principles. Mean-
time they are dear lovers, steadfast maintainers of
the pure ideal morality. But they worship it as
the highest beauty; their love is artistic. Praise
Socrates to them, or Fénelon, much more any
inferior contemporary good man, and they freeze
at once into silence. It is to them sheer prose.
The Tag und Jahres Hefte is a book unpar-
alleled in America, an account of all events, per-
sons, studies, taken from one point of view. The
problem to be solved is, How shall this soul
called Goethe be educated? And whatever he
does or whatever befalls him is viewed solely in
relation to its effect upon the development of
his mind. Even in the arms of his mistress at
Rome he says he studied sculpture and poetry.
To husband our admiration is an intellectual
temperance indispensable to health. But Goethe
1. Probably the older name for S. rotundifolia, the common
catbriar.


314
JOURNAL (AGE 31
was a person who hated words that did not
stand for things, and had a sympathy with
everything that existed, and therefore never
writes without saying something. He will be
artist, and look at God and man, and the Fu-
ture, and the infinite, as a self-possessed specta-
tor, who believed that what he saw he could
delineate. Herder wisely questioned whether a
man had a right thus to affect the god, instead
of working with all his heart in his place. Self-
cultivation is yet the moral of all that Goethe
has writ, and in indolence, intolerance and per-
version I think we can spare an olive and a lau-
rel for him. No man has drawn his materials of
fiction from so wide a circuit. Very properly he
introduces into the machinery of his romance
whatever feeling or impulse the most rapt enthu-
siast has trusted in. Coincidences, dreams, omens,
spiritual impressions, and a habitual religious
faith all these are the materials which, as a
wise artist, he avails himself of.
Nevertheless there is a difference between
thought and thought, and it is as real a de-
fect in a man not to perceive the right of
his moral sentiments to his allegiance, as it is
not to be conscious of moral sentiments. Yet
Goethe, with all his fine things about Entsagen,


1834] GOETHE'S LAPSE
315
can write and print too like Rochester and Bé-
ranger.
As to Carlyle, he is an exemplification of No-
valis's maxim concerning theunion of Poetry and
Philosophy. He has married them, and both are
the gainers. Who has done so before as truly
and as well? Sartor Resartus is a philosophical
poem.
[Added here, November 30.]
Goethe is praised as uvplovovs, or all-sided.
And, if I understand it, this is the apology that
is made for his Epicurean life compared with
his religious perceptions. To praise a man for
such quality is like praising an observatory for
being very low and massive, and a very good
fort. It is not more the office of man to receive
all impressions, than it is to distinguish sharply
between them. He that has once pronounced
intelligently the word “Self - renouncement,”
“ Invisible Leader," “ Powers of Sorrow," and
the like, is forever bound to the service of the
superhuman.
ca
ns
e a ma
n 10
Weare wonderfully protected. We have scarce
a misfortune, a hindrance, an infirmity, an en-
emy, but it is somehow productive of singular
advantage to us. After groaning through years


316
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
of poverty and hard labor, the mind perceives
that really it has come the shortest road to a
valuable position, that, though the rough climate
was not good for leaves and flowers, it was good
for timber. It has been saved from what asso-
ciations. It has been introduced to what thoughts
and feelings. “He knows you not, ye mighty
powers! who knows not sorrow.” God brings
us by ways we know not and like not into Par-
adise.
July 12.
“ Lincoln bell Aings o'er the fen
His far renowned alarum.”
I read this and straight regret that I did not
visit Lincoln Cathedral and hear the far renowned
alarum; such superstitious preference do we give
to other men's senses. Undoubtedly something
in my own sphere or spherule takes the place
to me of that particular gratification. I have
some “Lincoln bell,” heard with joy in my or-
dinary movements. Yet I long to hear this other,
simply out of deference to my fellows in England
who have exalted it by their love. Better believe
in the perfection of thine own lot. Retreat upon
your own spontaneous emotions. Mark the oc-
casions of them, and cheerfully believe that what
SON


1834) TRUST YOUR THOUGHT 317
has excited true and deep pleasure in one man
is fitted to excite the same emotions in all men.
So will I find my Lincolnshire in the next pas-
ture, and the“ bell” in the first thrush that sings.
Napoleon sat back on his horse in the midst of
the march to catch the fine tone of a bell. With
myself I shall always dwell, but Lincoln and Ni-
agara and Cairo are less accessible. And yet, and
yet, can aught approach the effect of the Sabbath
morn in quietest retreats? And yet is its sacred-
ness derivative and alien. Some thoughts are su-
perficial, others have their root in your being.
Always discriminate, when you would write, be-
tween them, and never choose the first for a topic.
Diogenes moved his tub in winter into the sun,
and in summer into the shade, and compared
himself to the Persian King who spent the one
season at Susa and the other at Ecbatana.
“As many languages as a man knows,” said
Charles V, “so many times is he a man.” Our
eagerness to possess this gift of foreign speech
rather hinders than helps us to it. I stand in a
company where circulates how much wit and in-
formation, yet not one thought can pass from
them to me, — I do not understand their speech.
1 This anecdote was later used in the poem “ Each and
dn
AU."


318
JOURNAL
(AGE 31
So0
My countryman enters who understands it, and
the communication between them and him is per-
fect. Stung with desire, I devote myself to the
task of learning the language, but this perpetual
poetic vision before me, which is quite foreign
from their experience, and which I shall lose as
soon as I master the speech, affords me so much
entertainment as to embarrass every particular
effort at dialogue, and dispirits me and unfits me
for that simple effort to know the thing said to
me, and to convey my thought in return, which
is the best instructor. Ralph Emerson said to
me in Paris, that the Americans think there is
some magic in speaking and writing French. He
who has mastered the tongue sees nothing be-
hind him but simple addition of particulars, and
this new knowledge blends harmoniously with
all his experience; and, moreover, it has lost all
its anticipated value.
When the wrong handle is grasped of com-
parative anatomy, the tresses of beauty remind
us of a mane. How much is an assembly of men
restrained! It seems often like a collection of
angels, and a collection of demons in disguise.
Come dal fuoco il caldo, esser diviso non può'l
bel dall eterno. Michel AngelO.


1834) SCHOLAR IN COMPANY 319
Bangor,' July 15.
The thoughtful man laments perhaps the un-
pliancy of his organization, which draws down
the corners of his mouth to ludicrous longitude,
whilst all the company chat and titter around
him. What matters it? He actually sympathizes
with each of the company more truly than the
liveliest chatterbox; for they are all going back
from this smiling time to discipline, to silence,
labor and anxiety, and then they recall the mel-
ancholy man with a fraternal remembrance.
In our plans of life an apparent confusion. We
seem not to know what we want. Why, it is
plain we can do best something which in the
present form of society will be misconstrued and
taken for another thing. I wish to be a true and
free man, and therefore would not be a woman,
or a king, or a clergyman, each of which classes,
i Mr. Emerson had been invited to preach in Bangor for
one or more Sundays. Possibly there was a vacancy in the
pulpit, for he wrote to Dr. Hedge: “I am almost persuaded
to sit down on the banks of this pleasant stream, and, if I
could persuade a small number of persons to join my colony,
we would have a settlement thirty miles up the river, at once.”
Evidently he had still the hope of establishing a home with
his brothers.


320
JOURNAL
(AGE 31
in the present order of things, is a slave. Mr.
Canning judged right in preferring the title of
Mister, in the company of Alexander and Napo-
leon, to My Lord. The simple, untitled, unof-
ficed citizen possessing manners, power, cultiva-
tion, is more formidable and more pleasing than
any dignitary whose condition and etiquette only
makes him more vulnerable and more helpless.
Noble strain of the revolutionary papers. See
Williamson, [History of Maine,] volume ii,
pp. 408-411.
And when the port of Boston had been closed
(in June, 1774), sixteen days they tolled the bells
in the town of Falmouth all day, and addressed
an affectionate letter to the inhabitants of Boston.
“We look upon you,” they say, “as sufferers
for the common cause of American liberty. We
highly appreciate your courage to endure priva-
tion and distress, sensibly aware that the season
puts to severest trial the virtues of magnanim-
ity, patience, and fortitude, which your example
will honorably exemplify. We beg leave to ten-
der you all the encouragements which the con-
siderations of friendship and respect can inspire,
and all the assurances of succor which full hearts
and feeble abilities can render.”
1Cou


1834] A HERO. GOD IN ALL 321
July 18.
The abomination of desolation is not a burned
town, nor a country wasted by war, but the dis-
covery that the man who has moved you is an
enthusiast upon calculation.
“ Indeed all that class of the severe and re-
strictive virtues are at a market almost too high
for humanity.” May be so. That gives them
their worth. It is that we ourselves, the observ-
ers, have been imposed upon and led to con-
demn the actor before, and the far-sighted hero-
ism of the sufferer has felt the condemnation,
and yet persisted in his own judgment and kept
up his courage — it is that conviction that adds
eagerness to our commendation now.
What is there of the divine in a load of
bricks? What is there of the divine in a bar-
ber's shop? ... Much. All.
George A. Sampson died Wednesday even-
ing, 23 July, 1834.
Newton, August 9.
Carlyle says Society is extinct. Be it so. So-
ciety existed in a clan ; existed in Alaric and
Attila's time, in the Crusades, in the Puritan
Conventicles. Very well. I had rather be soli-


322
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
Ilical.
tary as now, than social as then. Society exists
now where there is love and faithful fellow-
working, only the persons composing it are
fewer — societies of two or three, instead of na-
tions. Societies, parties, are only incipient stages,
tadpole states of men, as caterpillars are social,
but the butterfly not. The true and finished
man is ever alone. Men cannot satisfy him ; he
needs God, and his intercourse with his brother
is 'ever condescending, and in a degree hypo-
critical.
“He charged them that they should tell no
man.” “Hold thy tongue for one day; to-
morrow thy purpose will be clearer.” Why, yea,
and it would be good if the minister put off his
black clothes and so affirmed the reality of spir-
itual distinctions. When I was at the ordination
at Bangor the other day, the men in the pulpit
seemed woodsawyers dressed up, as they stood
up and spoke in succession. It would not out
of my head. By and by a true priest spoke.
... Renounce. Work hard. In the great heats
why should you leave your labor for a little
sweat, since the haymaker does not? He can-
not; therefore, if you are noble, you will not.
Renounce. When I was in the pasture and
stopped to eat, the familiar cried, Eat not. Tut,


1834) FIRST THOUGHTS 323
replied I, does Nemesis care for a whortle-
berry? I looked at the world, and it replied,
Yea. But the clock struck two and the table
was covered with fishes and fowls and confec-
tions. They are very good and my appetite is
keen; and I could not see any good in refusing
the pleasure of a hearty meal that was as great
as the pleasure. Look back, cried the familiar,
at years of good meat in Boston. Do you miss
anything that you forebore to eat? Nothing,
replied I.
First thoughts are from God; but not the
numerically first; allow what space you may for
the mind to grasp the facts, then the thoughts
that are first in place are divine and the second
earthly.
Sunday, August 10.
At Mr. Grafton's church this P.M. and heard
the eloquent old man preach his Jewish sermon
dry-eyed. Indeed I felt as a much worse spirit
might feel among worshippers — as if the last
link was severed that bound him to their tra-
ditions and he ought to go out hence. Strange
that such fatuity as Calvinism is now, should
be able to stand yet — mere shell as it is — in
the face of day. At every close of a paragraph
it almost seemed as if this devout old man


324
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
looked intelligence and questioned the whole
thing. What a revival, if St. Paul should come
and replace these threadbare rags with the in-
exhaustible resources of sound Ethics. Yet they
are so befooled as to call this sucked eggshell
high-toned orthodoxy, and to talk of anything
true as mere morality. Is it not time to present
this matter of Christianity exactly as it is, to
take away all false reverence from Jesus, and
not mistake the stream for the source ? “It is no
more according to Plato than according to me.”
God is in every man. God is in Jesus, but let
us not magnify any of the vehicles, as we mag-
nify the Infinite Law itself. We have defrauded
him of his claim of love on all noble hearts by
our superstitious mouth-honor. We love Soc-
rates, but give Jesus the Unitarian Association.
See two sincere men conversing together.
They deport themselves as if self-existent. Are
they not for the time two gods ? For every true
man is as if he should say, I speak for the Uni-
verse; I am here to maintain the truth against
all comers; I am in this place to testify.
August 11.
Is not man in our day described by the very
attributes which once he gave his God? Is not


1834) CHILDREN. REAL MEN 325
the sea his minister ; the clouds his chariot; the
flame his wheels; and the winds his wings?
August 13
Blessed is the child; the unconscious is ever
the act of God himself. Nobody can reflect upon
his unconscious period, or any particular word or
act in it, with regretor contempt. Bard or Hero
cannot look down upon the word or gesture of
a child; it is as great as they. Little Albert
Sampson asks when his father will come home,
and insists that his father can't die.
Сат
August 14.
We look up sometimes with surprise to see
that the tree, the hill, the schoolhouse are still
there, and have not vanished in our mood of
pyrrhonism. If there were many philosophers,
the world would go to pieces presently, all sand,
no lime. Quam parva sapientia. All society and
government seems to be making believe, when we
see such hollow boys with a grave countenance
taking their places as legislators, presidents, and
so forth. It could not be but that at intervals
throughout society there are real men inter-
mixed, whose natural basis is broad enough to
sustain these paper men in common times, as the


326
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
carpenter puts one iron bar in his banister to
five or six wooden ones. Yet when at other
times I consider the capacities of man and see
how nearalike they all are, and that (they] always
seem to be on the verge of all that is great, and
yet invisibly retained in inactivity and unac-
quaintance with our powers, it seems as if men
were like the neuters of the hive, every one of
which is capable of transformation into the
queen-bee, which is done with some one as soon
as the sovereign is removed.
The fourth chapter of my meditation is the
observation that the soul, or the day, is a turn-
ing wheel which brings every one of its manifold
faces for a brief season to the top. Now, this
dunghill quality of animal courage, indomitable
pluck, seems to be the supreme virtue; anon,
patience; then, elegance; then, learning; then,
wit; then, eloquence; then, wealth ; then, piety ;
then beauty ; each seems in turn the one desir-
able quality ; and thus every dog has his day.
It occurred that the fine verse of “Honor-
able age,” etc., in Wisdom of Solomon is quite
Greek in its genius, not Jewish.
August 15.
Natural history by itself has no value; it is
like a single sex; but marry it to human history,


1834) SHAKESPEARE
327
and it is poetry. Whole Floras, all Linnæus',
and Buffon's volumes contain not one line of
poetry, but the meanest natural fact, the habit
of a plant, the organs, or work, or noise of an in-
sect, applied to the interpretation or even asso-
ciated to [with] a fact in human nature is
beauty, is poetry, is truth at once.'
Saturday eve, August 16.
King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra still
fill me with wonder. Every scene is as spirited
as if writ by a fresh hand of the first class, and
there is never straining; sentiments of the high-
est elevation are as simply expressed as the
stage directions. They praise Scott for taking
kings and nobles off their stilts and giving them
simple dignity, but Scott's grandees are all tur-
gid compared with Shakspear's. There is more
true elevation of character in Prince Hal's sen-
tence about the pleached doublet than in any
king in the romances. Another mastership of
Shakspear is the immortality of the style, the
speeches of passion are writ, for the most part,
in a style as fresh now as it was when the play
was published. The remarkable sentences of
1 This passage is used in Nature, vol. i, p. 28 (Centenary
Edition), but in not quite so pleasing a form.


328
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
Lear, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, might as nat-
urally have been composed in 1834 as in 1600.
“ I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, called you children,
You owe me no subscription,” etc.
August 17.
Freedom. A very small part of a man's vol-
untary acts are such as agree perfectly with his
conviction, and it is only at rare intervals that he
is apprized of this incongruity — “so difficult
is it to read our own consciousness without mis-
takes.” Whose act is this church-going, whose
this praying? The man might as well be gone, so
he leave a Maelzel' machine in his place.
Evening.
On the wisdom of Ignorance. Milton was too
learned, though I hate to say it. It wrecked his
originality. He was more indebted to the He-
brew than even to the Greek. Wordsworth is a
more original poet than he. That seems the poet's
garland. He speaks by that right, that he has
somewhat yet unsaid to say. Scott and Cole-
ridge and such like are not poets, only professors
1 Johann Nepomuc Mälzel, an Austrian, inventor of an
orchestral panharmonicon, visited Boston in 1826.


1834] MESSAGE, NOT MAN 329
of the art. Homer's is the only Epic. He is origi-
nal, yet he separates before the German tele-
scopes into two, ten or twenty stars. Shakspeare,
by singular similarity of fortune, undeniably an
original and unapproached bard, — first of men,
- is yet enfolded in the same darkness as an in-
dividual writer. His best works are of doubted
authenticity, and what was his, and what his nov-
elist's, and what the players', seems yet disputed:
a sharp illustration of that relentless disregard
of the individual in regard for the race which
runs through history. It is not an individual,
but the general mind of man that speaks from
time to time, quite careless and quite forgetful of
what mouth or mouths it makes use of. Go to the
bard or orator that has spoken and ask him if
what he said were his own? No; he got it he
knows not where, but it is none of his. For ex-
ample, Edward Emerson, whence had you those
thunderous sentences in your Master's Oration?'
There is nothing in Wordsworth so vicious
in sentiment as Milton's account of God's chari-
ots, etc., standing harnessed for great days. We
republicans cannot relish Watts' or Milton's
royal imagery.
i Suggesting that Edward was influenced by Webster, in
whose office he was studying at the time of his college address.
ane


330
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
Is it not true that contemplation belongs to
us, and therefore outward worship, because our
reason is at discord with our understanding?
And that, whenever we live rightly, thought will
express itself in ordinary action so fully as to
make a special action, that is, a religious form,
impertinent? Is not Solomon's temple built
because Solomon is not a temple, but a brothel
and a change-house? Is not the meeting-house
dedicated because men are not? Is not the church
opened and filled on Sunday because the com-
mandments are not kept by the worshippers
on Monday? But when he who worships there,
speaks the truth, follows the truth, is the truth's;
when he awakes by actual communion to the
faith that God is in him, will he need any tem-
ple, any prayer? The very fact of worship de-
clares that God is not at one with himself, that
there are two gods. Now does this sound like
high treason and go to lay flat all religion? It
does threaten our forms; but does not that very
1 . form” already sound hollow? It threat-
hol forms, but it does not touch injuriously
L'ipo 1. Would there be danger if there were
risi mpion? If the doctrine that God is in man
se prithfully taught and received, if I lived to
.;... L'he truth and enact it, if I pursued every


1834) THE COMING PREACHER 331
generous sentiment as one enamoured, if the
majesty of goodness were reverenced, would not
such a principle serve me by way of police at
least as well as a Connecticut Sunday? But the
people, the people. You hold up your paste-
board religion for the people who are unfit for
a true. So you say. But presently there will
arise a race of preachers who will take such hold
of the omnipotence of truth that they will blow
the old falsehood to shreds with the breath of
their mouth. There is no material show so
splendid, no poem so musical as the great law
of Compensation in our moral nature. When an
ardent mind once gets a glimpse of that perfect
beauty, and sees how it envelopes him and de-
termines all his being, will he easily slide back
to a periodic shouting about “ blood atoning”?
I apprehend that the religious history of society
is to show a pretty rapid abandonment of forms
of worship and the renovation and exaltation
of preaching into real anxious instruction.
August 18.
The Mussulman is right, by virtue of the
law of Compensation, in supposing the scraps
of paper he saves will be a carpet under his
feet over the bridge of Purgatory. He has


332
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
ince
seca
S
learned the lesson of reverence to the name of
Allah.
August 19.
Never assume. Be genuine. So wrote I for
my own guidance months and years ago; but
how vainly ! Show me in the world the sincere
man. Even the wit, the sentiment that seasons
the dinner, is a sort of hypocrisy to hide the
coarseness of appetite. The child is sincere, and
the man when he is alone, if he be not a writer;
but on the entrance of the second person, hy-
pocrisy begins.'
What mischief is in this art of writing. An
unlettered man considers a fact, to learn what it
means; the lettered man does not sooner see it
than it occurs to him how it can be told. And
this fact of looking at it as an artist blinds him
to the better half of the fact. Unhappily he is
conscious of the misfortune, which rather makes
it worse. As cultivated flowers turn their sta-
mens to petals, so does he turn the practick part
to idle show. He has a morbid growth of eyes;
he sees with his feet. What an unlucky creature
is Dr. Channing. Let him into a room; would
not all the company feel that, simple as he looked,
1 This sentence occurs in “ Friendship," Essays, Second
Series.


1834) WRITING. GENTILESSE 333
the cat was not more vigilant, that he had the deli-
rium tremens and its insomnolency, that he heard
what dropped from any as if he read it in print?
We sit down with intent to write truly, and
end with making a book that contains no thought
of ours, but merely the tune of the time. Here
am I writing a 0 B K poem, free to say what I
choose, and it looks to me now as ifit would scarce
express thought of mine, but be a sort of fata mor-
gana reflecting the images of Byron, Shakspear,
and the newspapers. We do what we can, and
then make a theory to prove our performance
the best.
August 22.
The greatest men have been most thoughtful
for the humblest. Socrates, of whom see the fine
story told in Plutarch on Tranquillity; Alfred,
Franklin, Jesus Christ and all the Pauls and
Fénelons he has made. It requires no ordinary
elevation to go by the social distinctions and
feel that interest in humanity itself which is im-
plied in attentions to the obscure. Wordsworth
is a philanthropist; Fox; Wilberforce; How-
ard; Montaigne. Washington introduced the ass
into America. And, so keep me heaven, I will
love the race in general if I cannot in any par-
ticular.


334
JOURNAL
(Age 31
August 30.
. Were it not a heroic adventurein meto insiston
being a popular speaker, and run full tilt against
the Fortune who with such beautiful consistency
shows evermore her back? Charles's näif cen-
sure last night provoked me to show him a fact,
apparently wholly new to him, that my entire
success, such as it is, is composed wholly of par-
ticular failures, — every public work of mine
of the least importance, having been (probably
without exception) noted at the time as a failure.
The only success (agreeably to common ideas)
has been in the country, and there founded
on the false notion that here was a Boston
preacher. I will take Mrs. Barbauld's line for
my motto
« And the more falls I get, move faster on.”:
I never was on a coach which went fast enough
for me.
It is extremely.disagreeable, nay, a little fiend-
ish to laugh amid dreams. In bed I would keep
my countenance, if you please.
i Of a brook.


1834) COURAGE IN ACT -335
A poem is made up of thoughts, each of
which filled the whole sky of the poet in its
turn.
Newton, September 13.
There are some things which we should do,
if we considered only our own capacity and
safety, which we stick at doing when we think
of the estimates and prejudices of other people.
For the freest man society still holds some
bribe. He wants of it a living, or a friend, or a
wife, or a fit employment, or a reputation cor-
respondent to his self-esteem. Is it not possible
to draw in his importunate beggar hands and
ask nothing but what he can himself satisfy ?
In some respects certainly. In this matter of
reputation — is it not possible to settle it in
one's mind immoveably that merit of the first
class cannot, in the nature of things, be readily
appreciated; that immortal deeds, over which
centuries are to pass as days, are not brought
to light and wholly comprehended and decided
upon in a few hours? The wise man is to settle
it immoveably in his mind, that he only is fit
to decide on his best action; he only is fit to
praise it; his verdict is praise enough, and as to
society, “their hiss is thine applause.” It is
an ordinary enhancement of our admiration of


336
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
noble thinking and acting that it was done in
wilful defiance of present censure out of a clear
foresight of the eternal praise of the just. ...
Next, as to thoughts of the first class. Do
not cease to utter them and make them as pure
of all dross as if thou wert to speak to sages
and demigods, and be no whit ashamed if not
one, yea, not one in the assembly should give
sign of intelligence. Make it not worthy of the
beggar to receive, but of the emperor to give.
Is it not pleasant to you, unexpected wisdom?
depth of sentiment in middle life? Iarnos and
Abbés that in the thick of the crowd are true
kings, and gentlemen without the harness and
the envy of the throne? Is it not conceivable
that a man or a woman in coarse clothes may
have unspeakable comfort in being the only
human being privy to a virtuous action which
he or she is in the act of consummating? ...
Perhaps you cannot carry too far the doc-
trine of self-respect. The story that strikes me;
the joke that makes me laugh often; the face
that bewitches me; the flower, the picture, the
building, that, left to myself, I prefer, these I
ought to remember, love, and praise. For there
is nothing casual or capricious in the impres-


1834]
SELF-RESPECT
337 :
sion they make (provided always that I act nat-
urally,) but they make this strong impression be-
cause I am fit for them and they are fit for me.
But if I forsake my peculiar tastes, overawed by
the popular voice or deferring to Mr. Everett's
or Mr. Wordsworth's or Baron Swedenborg's
tastes, I am straightway dwarfed 'of my natural
dimensions for want of fit nourishment and fit
exercise. It is as if you should fill the stomach
of a horse with the food of a fish. Lean without
fear on your own tastes. Is there danger in the
doctrine as if it permitted self-indulgence? Fool!
Every man hath his own conscience as well as his
own genius, and if he is faithful to himself he will
yield that law implicit obedience. All these doc-
trines contained in the proposition, Thou art
sufficient unto thyself (Ne te quæsiveris extra)
are perfectly harmless, on the supposition that
they are heard as well as spoken in faith. There
is no danger in them to him who is really in ear-
nest to know the truth, but like everything else,
may be a mere hypocrite's cloak to such as seek
offence, or to such as talk for talk's sake.
una
Sunday, September 14.
What is the doctrine of infallible guidance if
one will abdicate choice, but striving to act uncon-


338
JOURNAL (AGE 31
sciously, to resume the simplicity of childhood?
It is to act on the last impression derived from
a knowledge of all the facts, and not wilfully to
secure a particular advantage. The single-minded
actor insists on the tranquillity of his own mind.'
Ne te quæsiveris extra. I would insist so far on
my own tastes as to read those books I fancy and
postpone reading those which offer me no attrac-
tion. If Dr. Linberg would have me study Swe-
denborg because I have respect for his doctrines,
I shall hold it sufficient answer that the aura of
those books is not agreeable to my intellectual
state. It is not for nothing that one word makes
such impression, and the other none; it is not
without preëstablished harmony, this sculpture
in the memory. The eye was placed where that
ray should fall, to the end that it might testify
of that particular ray. I will not so far do violence
to myself as to read them against my inclination,
believing that those books which at any time I
crave are the books fittest at that time for me.
This is Carlyle's justification for giving such hu-
morous prominence to such incidents as George
Fox's leather suit of clothes. If I obey my pas-
1 This seems an attempt to reconcile the Quaker doctrine
of Acquiescence with Self-Reliance. This was later done in
“The Oversoul.”


1834) GEORGE W. BLAGDEN 339
sion, instead of my reason, that is another affair.
The appeal is always open from Philip drunk
to Philip sober.
September 15.
Heard Mr. Blagden' preach yesterday with
much interest. What an orator would some ex-
traordinary discipline of events make of him !
Could some Socrates win him to the love of the
True and the Beautiful; or extreme sorrows
arouse the mighty interior reactions; or revolu-
tionary violence call into life the best ambition;
could any event acquaint him with himself, hę
would, with his rare oratorical talents, absolutely
command us. His manner is the best I know
of, and seems to me unexceptionable. As to his
preaching, that was good, too, in the main. The
skeleton of his sermon, or, as Charles called it,
the frame of his kite, was fallacious, illogical after
the most ordinary fashion of the Wisners and
Beechers, but his strong genius led him contin-
ually to penetrate this husk, and, leaning simply
on himself, speak the truth out of this unneces-
sary mask. The conflict of the tradition and of
his own genius is visible throughout. He gets
his hands and eyes up in describing Jehovah
i Dr. George Washington Blagden, pastor of the Old South
Church,
rs


340
JOURNAL
(AGE 31
exalted as in Calvinistic state, and then saves the
whole by ending with — “in the heart's affec-
tions.” I listen without impatience, because,
though the whole is literally false, it is really
true; only he speaks parables which I translate
as he goes; thus, he says, “ The carnal mind
hates God continually”; and I say, “ It is the
instinct of the understanding to contradict the
reason.” One phrase translates the other.
reaso
se
The charm of Italy is the charm of its names.
I have seen as fine days from my own window.
Then what Boswellism it is to travel! Illus-
x trate, eternize your own woodhouse. It is much
cheaper, and quite possible to any resolute
thinker.
What matters it, I said to myself on my jour-
ney, as the persons in the coach disputed as to
the name of the town, whether this bunch of bar-
berry bushes and birches visible from the coach-
window be called Bridgewater or Taunton ? So,
what matter whether this hill and yon green field
be called Garofalo, Terni, or Ipswich and Cape
Cod? Let the soul be fully awake, and its
thought is so much that the place becomes no-
thing. Remember the Sunday morning in Na-
ples when I said, “This moment is the truest


1834] WORD AND LIFE. WEALTH 341
vision, the best spectacle I have seen amid all
the wonders, and this moment, this vision I
might have had in my own closet in Boston.”
Hence learn that it is an unworthy superstition
for seers to go to Italy or France and come
home and describe houses and things ; let them
see men and magnify the passages of common
life. Let them be so man-wise that they can see
through the coat, the rank, the language, and
sympathize promptly with that other self that
under these thin disguises wholly corresponds to
their own. ...
You do not know any Socrates. Very likely.
The philosopher whom you have admired in dis-
course makes a different impression in private
life. Very likely. Most men do ; their aims are
not distinct enough. As his aim becomes more
distinct, it will insensibly pervade and charac-
terize his private action, his manners, his table-
talk.
The whole matter of Riches and Poverty is
reversed by the act of reflexion, whenever it be-
gins. The intellect at once takes possession of
another's wealth, and habits, and performances,
as if it were its own. Who is rich in the room


342
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
where Socrates sits but he? Whilst Webster
speaks to the Senate, who is formidable but he ?
The Intellect, fairly excited, overleaps all bounds
with equal ease, and is as easily master of mil-
lions as master of one. With each divine im-
pulse it rends the thin rinds of the visible and
finite and comes out into Eternity, inspires and
expires its air. It converses with truths that
have always been spoken in the world, and be-
comes conscious of a closer sympathy with Pho-
cion and Epictetus than with the persons in the
house.
Afternoon.
No art can exceed the mellow beauty of one
square rood of ground in the woods this after-
noon. The noise of the locust, the bee, and the
pine ; the light, the insect forms, butterflies, can-
kerworms hanging, balloon - spiders swinging,
devils-needles cruising, chirping grasshoppers ;
the tints and forms of the leaves and trees, - not
a flower but its form seems a type, not a cap-
sule but is an elegant seedbox,- then the myriad
asters, polygalas, and golden-rods, and through
the bush the far pines, and overhead the eternal
sky. All the pleasing forms of art are imitations
of these, and yet before the beauty of a right
action all this beauty is cold and unaffecting.


1834]
ARC AND ORBIT
343
Noble scene in I Promessi Sposi, the humili-
ation of Fra Cristoforo. That is what we aim
to teach in all our Christian rhetoric about the
transforming power of godliness.
Young men, struck with particular observa-
tions, begin to make collections of related truths
and please themselves, as Burton did, with
thinking the wheel, an arc of whose curve they
discern, will, by their careful addition of arc to
arc as they descry them, by and by come full
circle, and be contained in the field of their
vision. By and by they learn that the addition
of particular facts brings them no nearer to the
completion of an infinite orbit.
Shall I say that the use of Natural Science
seems merely ancillary to Moral? I would learn
the law of the diffraction of a ray because, when
I understand it, it will illustrate, perhaps suggest
a new truth in ethics.
September 16.
How despicable are the starts, sidelong
glances, and lookings back of suspicious men.
Go forward and look straight ahead, though
you die for it. Abernethy says in his Hunter
book, that the eye-sockets are so formed in the


344
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
gods and heroes of Greek Sculpture that it
would be impossible for such eyes to squint and
take furtive glances on this side and that. You
have looked behind you at the passenger and
caught his eye looking behind also. What das-
tards you both are for that moment! The un-
conscious forever, which turns the whole head
or nothing !
September 17.
How truly has poetry represented the diffi-
culty of reflexion in the story of Proteus or
Silenus, and in that of Odin's Prophetess! Any
evasion, any digression, anything but sitting
down before the gates with immoveable determi-
nation that they mustopen. One of the forms the
Proteus takes is that of civil self-depreciation.
“You quite mistake, sir; I am not that you
took me for, a poor, evanescent topic really not
worth your consideration; it was my resem-
blance to a relation that deceived you. Had
you not better seek that?”
The poet writes for readers he little thinks of.
Persons whom he could not bear, and who could
not bear him, yet find passages in his works
which are to them as their own thoughts. So
Aunt Mary quotes the verses.


1834) UNCONSCIOUS STRENGTH 345
“ That which Sir William Pepperell willed,
came to pass.” There is in some men, as it were,
a preëxistent harmony stablished between them
and the course of events, so that they will at the
precise moment that which God does. They are
pitched to the tune of the time. Or, shall I say,
they are like the fly in the coach?
September 22.
One is daunted by every one of a multitude
of rules which we read in books of criticism, but
when we speak or write unconsciously we are
carried through them all safely without offend-
ing or perceiving one.
October 6.
In September, the roads and woods were full
of crickets, and as fast as one falls by the way,
the rest eat him up.
The high prize of eloquence may be mine,
the joy of uttering what no other can utter, and
what all must receive.
I thought how much, not how little accom-
plishment in manners, speech, practick, address,
an open eye discovers in each passenger. If an
i Williamson.


346
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
equal vitality is dealt out to each man, how
strange, if diverging by all that force from your
line, your neighbor had not attained a degree
of mastery in one sort admirable to you. Insist
on yourself' .... Adhere to your own and pro-
duce it with the meek courage that intimates,
This possession is my all; is my inheritance from
Almighty God and must have value.
October 14.
Every involuntary repulsion that arises in
your mind, give heed unto. It is the surface of a
central truth.
In Boston, at Second Church, George Samp-
son told me after I preached my sermon on
Habit, that Mr. Washburn said to him, that he
wished he was in the habit of hearing such ser-
mons as that; which speech I found to be good
praise and good blame.”
New York, October 18.
Received the tidings of the death of my dear
brother Edward on the first day of this month
i Here follows a short passage printed in “Self-Reliance.”
2 This passage is written in here in Mr. Emerson's hand-
writing of many years later.



EDWARD BLISS EMERSON





ea
1834] EDWARD. DEATH 347
at St. John, Porto Rico. So falls one pile more
of hope for this life. I see I am bereaved of a
part of myself.
« Whatever fortunes wait my future life
The beautiful is vanished and returns not.” :
October 27.
“Let them rave !
Thou art quiet in thy grave." :
Even so, how oft saith the spirit, that happier
is the lot of the dead than of the living that are
yet alive. Who that sees the spirit of the Beast
uppermost in the politics and the movements
of the time, but only congratulates Washington
that he is long already wrapped in his shroud,
and forever safe, that he was laid sweet in his
grave, the Hope of humanity not yet subju-
i From Schiller's Wallenstein, Coleridge's translation.
For an account of Edward Bliss Emerson, see Cabot's and
Holmes's Memoirs of Emerson, also Senator Hoar's Autobi-
ography, and Emerson's “ In Memoriam E. B. E.” in the
Poems (Centenary and Riverside Editions) before which he
placed his brother's “ Last Farewell ” on leaving home, for
Porto Rico. See also the “ Dirge.”
2 Quoted from memory incorrectly from Tennyson's
“ Dirge.”


348
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
gated in him.' And Edward's fervid heart is
also forever still, no more to suffer from the tu-
mults of the natural world. And they who sur-
vive and love men have reason to apprehend
that, short as their own time may be, they may
yet outlive the honor, the religion, yea, the
liberty of the country. Yet, yet is
“ Hope the paramount duty which Heaven lays
For its own honor, on man's suffering heart.”
Otherwise one would be oppressed with melan-
choly and pray to die whenever he heard of the
orgies of the Julien Hall or of the outrages of
a mob.
The best sign which I can discover in the
dark times is the increasing earnestness of the
cry which swells from every quarter that a sys-
tematic Moral Education is needed. Channing,
Coleridge, Wordsworth, Owen, De Gerando,
Spurzheim, Bentham. Even Saul is among the
Prophets. The gentleman will by and by be
found to mean the man of Conscience. Carlyle;
also Pestalozzi.
“Where every man may take liberties there
is little Liberty for any man.”
This sentence appears in the last paragraph of “Hero-
ism” (Essays, First Series).


1834) THE SEEMING REAL 349
All around us in vulgar daylight are hid (yes,
hid in daylight) sublimest laws. De Staël saw
them. Ours have not yet been seen. Do not
multiply your facts, but seek the meaning of
those you have. This eternal superiority be-
longs to the contemplative man over his more
forcible and more honored neighbor, styled the
practical man, that the former moves in a real
world, the latter in a phenomenal; that though
the seasons of the former's activity may be rare
and with intermissions of deepest gloom, yet
when he works it is life, properly so called,
whilst the latter's endless activity and bound-
less pretension reminds him too often of the
laborer at the poor-house who worked all win-
ter shovelling a ton of coal from the yard to the
cellar, and then from the cellar to the yard.
Euler's truth against all experience.'
It is losing time to inquire anxiously respect-
ing the opinions of another speculator. The
way his opinions have attained any value is by
his forbearing to inquire and merely obsery-
ing.
Man is great, not in his goals, but in his
transition from state to state. Great in act, but
instantly dwarfed by self-indulgence.
For full quotation, see p. 356.


350
(Age 31
JOURNAL
Not Universal Education, but the Penny
Magazine has failed. Brougham may have failed,
but Pestalozzi has not. Leibnitz said, “I have
faith that man may be reformed when I see how
much Education may be reformed.” Why not
a moral Education as well as a discovery of
America ?
The education of the mind consists of a con-
tinual substitution of facts for words, as in pe-
trefaction a particle of stone replaces a particle
of wood. But observe that what are called facts
are commonly words, as regards the fact-man.
It is rather humiliating to attend a public
meeting such as this New York Caucus last
evening, and see what words are best received,
and what a low, animal hope and fear patriotism
is. There is, however, great unity in the audi-
ence. What pleases the audience very much,
pleases every individual in it. What tires me,
tires all.
Greatest care is taken instinctively on both
sides to represent their own cause as the win-
ning one. The word, “Why then do we de-
spond?” was manifestly a mistake in Mr. Hone's
speech. This party-lie aims to secure the votes
of that numerous class (whose vote, weighed,
W


1834) THOUGHTLESS VOTES 351
would kick the beam) of indifferent, effeminate,
stupid persons, who in the absence of all inter-
nal strength, obey whatever seems the voice of
their street, their ward, their town, or whatever
domineering strength will be at the trouble of
civilly dictating to them. But their votes count
like real votes.
Transcribe from Quarterly Review the sen-
tences on the progressive influence of the man
of genius. If you kill them, I will write a hymn
to their memory that shall sing itself, might
Luther say.
October 29.
Michel Angelo Buonarotti : John Milton :
Martin Luther: George Fox: Lafayette : Falk-
land, Hampden. Are not these names seeds ?
“Men akin unto the Universe.”
The sentiment which, like Milton's, comes
down to new generations is that which was no
i Mr. Emerson was preparing the course of lectures on
Biography which he gave before the Society for the Diffusion
of Useful Knowledge, in Boston, in the following winter.
They were : « Tests of Great Men,” “ Michel Angelo,"
« Luther," " Milton,” • Burke.” For short abstracts, see
Cabot's Memoir, vol. ii, Appendix F, p. 712.


352
JOURNAL
(Age 31
sham or half-sentiment to Milton himself, but
the utterance of his inmost self,
“plainest taught and easiest learnt
What makes a nation happy and keeps it so.”
Thanks for my sins, my defects; as the stag
should have thanked for his feet. As no man
thoroughly understands a truth until he has
first contended against it, so no man has a thor-
ough acquaintance with the hindrances or the
talents of men until he has suffered from the
one and seen the triumphs of the other over
his own want of the same. I should not be a
bard of common life, wants, individualities, in
the pulpit, were I not the foolish parlor and
table companion that I am.
We always idealize. Hard to find in Paul,
Luther, Adams, Lafayette, anything so fine as
to bear out our praises. For said not Aristotle,
“Action is less near to vital truth than descrip-
tion”? We tinge them with the glories of that
Idea in whose light they are seen.
We should hold to the usage until we are
clear it is wrong.


1834) OLD WAR-CRIES DIE 353
How different is one man in two hours !
Whilst he sits alone in his studies and opens
not his mouth, he is God manifest, in flesh. Put
him in a parlor with unfit company, and he
shall talk like a fool.
October 31.
It is not to be doubted that the subjectivity
(to use the Germanic phrase) of man clothes
itself with a different objectivity in every age.
Satan, who plays so prominent a part in the
theology of the last age, is a hollow word now,
but the evil principles which that word desig-
nated are no whit abated in virulence. I am
bound by all my tastes to a reverence for Lu-
ther, yet can I by no means find any but a sub-
jective, that is, essential correspondence in me
to his mind. I cannot reanimate and appropriate
his difficulties and speculations. Socrates, Bacon.
How then Jesus and the apostles ? Sometimes
it seems nations, ages, were the body of shades of
thought. Wrote mother, of Edward, what is true
of all, that no words but his name can describe
the peculiarities of any remarkable person.
But what shall be the action of society? How
superficial are our fears and hopes! We meet
with a single individual, or read a single news-


354
JOURNAL [Age 31
paper expressing malignant sentiments, and we
despond for the republic. By one declaimer of
an opposite character our confidence is renewed
that all will go well. In these times a ragged
coat looks sinister and revolutionary. “Who
injures one threatens all.”
Luther says, “Pull not by force any one
person from the mass. Reflect on my conduct
in the affair of the indulgences. I had the
whole body of the Papists to oppose. I preached,
I wrote, I pressed on men's consciences with
the greatest earnestness the positive declarations
of the Word of God, but I used not a particle
of force or constraint. What has been the con-
sequence? This same Word of God has, while
I was asleep in my bed, given such a blow to
papal despotism as not one of the German
princes, not even the Emperor himself, could
have done. It is not I, it is the divine Word
that has done all.” Sublimely is it said in Nat-
ural History of Fanaticism, of angry persons,
“ Night does not part the combatants.'
At least let the good side of these truths be
applied to the true Word which the Poet has
uttered whilst he is asleep in his bed, and when
he is asleep in the grave it never halts or faints,
but prospers in the work whereto it is sent.


1834] MEN BIPOLAR
355
I believe in the existence of the material world
as the expression of the spiritual or real, and so
look with a quite comic and condescending in-
terest upon the show of Broadway with the air
of an old gentleman when he says, “Sir, I knew y
your father.” Is it not forever the aim and en-
deavor of the real to embody itself in the phe-
nomenal ? Broadway is Trade and Vanity made
flesh. Therein should the philosophers walk as
the impersonations of States, as if Massachusetts,
Carolina, Ohio, should go out to take an airing.
November 1.
The union of extreme sensitiveness and defi-
ance of opinion is not very uncommon. Every
man is bipolar; never a circle; somewhere there-
fore in each one of never so many million you
shall find the contrariety, inconsistency of his
nature. And as language translates language,
verb, verb, and noun, noun, so, could their sur-
faces be adjusted to each other, might we find
one age corresponding to another age in every
minute peculiarity, and every one man to every
other man. This makes the interest of bio-
graphy. I have heard men say they were afraid
to read the accounts of suicides in the newspa-
pers last year so remarkable for that crime.
P-


356
JOURNAL (Age 31
Humboldt's scientific imagination will make
the mnemonics of science. I read yesterday his
designation of the sudden and violent disturb-
ances of the magnetic equilibrium as “magnetic
storms.” So before of “volcanic paps.”
The speculations of one age do not fit another.
The great man of one age is a showing how the
great man of this time would have acted in that.
Now and then comes a crisis when the contempo-
raries of one opinion become contemporaries of
another, and then the great man becomes the man
of two ages, as was Burke. Fault of our mortal-
ity, we cannot act in a past age; we compensate
ourselves by choosing out of that generation its
most human individual and say, “Lo, how man
acted!” Some men stand on the solid globe;
others have no basis: but some one stands by and
puts a shovel under their feet at any moment.
Euler, having demonstrated certain properties
of Arches, adds, “ All experience is in contradic-
tion to this; but this is no reason for doubting
its truth.”
November 5.
The elections. Whilst it is notorious that the
Jackson party is the Bad party in the cities and


1834] GOOD IN BAD PARTY 357
in general in the country, - except in secluded
districts where a single newspaper has deceived
a well disposed community, — still, on all the
banners, equally of Tory and Whig, good pro-
fessions are inscribed. The Jackson flags say,
“Down with corruption!” “We ask for nothing
but our Right.” “The Constitution, the Laws,"
“The Laboring Classes,”“ Free trade,” etc., etc.
So that they have not yet come to the depravity
that says, “ Evil be thou my good.” Should the
Whig party fail, which God avert ! the patriot
will still have some confidence in the redeeming
force of the latent, i. e., deceived virtue that is
contained within the Tory party; and yet more
in the remedial, regenerative Nature of Man,
which ever reproduces a healthful moral sense
even out of stupidity and corruption. Thus the
children of the convicts at Botany Bay are found
to have sound moral sentiments. Mr. H. says the
Tories deserve to succeed, for they turn every
stone with an Irishman under, and pick him up.
Surprising tendency of man in action to believe
in his continuance. If these stormy partisans
doubted their immortality in these hours, as in
others, it would calm their zeal.
“The moral and intelligent instrumentality
from the which the Sovereign Grace refuses to


358
JOURNAL [AGE 31
sever itself, is nothing else than the vital force
which animates each single believer.” Fanati-
cism, p. 8.
Noisy election ; flags, boy processions, pla-
cards, badges, medals, bannered coaches, every-
thing to get the hurrah on our side. That is the
main end. Great anxiety, pale faces are become
florid. They count that 1600 minutes are all the
time allowed in all three days. Indisposition to
business, and great promptness to spend.
me
- S verses.
The philosophy of the erect position. God
made man upright.
The sublime of the ship is that in the pathless
sea it carries its own direction in the chart and
compass. See Herrick's verses.
'Tis as hard to blow a flageolet — it takes so
little breath — as to blow a flute, which costs so
much; so in writing poetry, to speak simply
enough in the abundance of thoughts and im-
ages is not easier than to be profound enough in
their superficiality.
There is a way of making the biography of
Luther as practical and pertinent to-day as the
last paragraph from Liverpool upon the price
of cotton.


1834] RECOILS IN POLITICS 359
The children of this world are wiser than the
children of light. The good cause is always on
the defensive, the evil, assailant. Because the
unscrupulous can not only avail themselves of
innocent means to their ends, but all evil ones
likewise. The Whigs can put in their own votes.
But the Tories can do this and put them in again
in another ward, or bring a gang of forsworn
gallows-birds to boot, to elect the officers that
are to hunt, try, imprison and execute them.
Let the worst come to the worst, and the Whig
cause be crushed for a season, and the Consti-
tution be grossly violated, then you should see
the weak Whig become irresistible. They would
then acquire the gloom and the might of fanati-
cism, and redeem America as they once redeemed
England, and once aforetime planted and eman-
cipated America.
“How many big events to shake the earth
Lie packed in silence waiting for their birth."
Heard Mr. Maxwell at the Masonic Hall,
a thoroughly public soul, the mere voice of
the occasion and the hour. There are these
persons into whom the general feeling enters,
and through whom it passes and finds never
a hitch or hindrance; they express what is boil-


360
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
ing in the bosóms of the whole multitude around
them. Plain is it, too, that there are people
who justly make the impression of ability upon
us, and yet can neither speak nor write nór act
well. There is a callus or paralysis somewhere,
a slight excess or defect that neutralizes a fine
genius.
It is a great step from the thought to the
expression of the thought in action... If the
wishes of the lowest class that suffer in these
long streets should execute themselves, who can
doubt that the city would topple in ruins. Do
not trust man, great God! with more power
until he has learned to use his little power better.
Does not our power increase exactly in the mea-
sure we learn how to use it?
as
[Emerson now desired to live close to Nature,
and what other spot had the same charm for him
as had the low, wooded hills, the old Indian
cornfields and the great meadows along the Con-
cord River — Musketaquid — where he and his
brothers had taken delight during vacations in
boyhood? Doctor Ripley, his step-grandfather,
lived in the Manse, built by his predecessor,
the young William Emerson, the patriot min-



*6
III
ta
மாமியார்
-
THE OLD MANSE





1834) THE ANCESTRAL HOME 361
ister of the days of the Revolution. He wel-
comed Madam Emerson with her sons, Waldo
and Charles, as boarders, until plans for a more
permanent home could be made.]
CONCORD, November 15.
Hail to the quiet fields of my fathers! Not
wholly unattended by supernatural friendship
and favor, let me come hither. Bless my pur-
poses as they are simple and virtuous. Cole-
ridge's fine letter (in London Literary Gazette,
September 13, 1834) comes in aid of the very
thoughts I was revolving. And be it so. Hence-
forth I design not to utter any speech, poem or
book that is not entirely and peculiarly my work.
I will say at public lectures, and the like, those
things which I have meditated for their own sake,
and not for the first time with a view to that oc-
casion. If, otherwise, you select a new subject,
and labor to make a good appearance on the
appointed day, it is so much lost time to you,
and lost time to your hearer. It is a parenthesis
in your genuine life. You are your own dupe,
and for the sake of conciliating your audience
you have failed to edify them, and, winning their
ear, you have really lost their love and grati-
tude.
rowi


362
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
V
Respect a man ! assuredly, but in general only
as the potential God, and therefore richly deserv-
ing of your pity and your tears. Now he is only
a scrap, an ort, an end, and in his actual being
no more worthy of your veneration than the poor
lunatic. But the simplest person who, in his in-
tegrity, worships God, becomes God: at least no
optics of human mind can detect the line where
man, the effect, ceases, and God, the Cause, be-
gins.
Unhappy divorce of Religion and Philoso-
phy.
I suppose the materials may now exist for a
Portraiture of Man which should be at once his-
tory and prophecy. Does it not seem as if a per-
fect parallelism existed between every great and
fully developed man and every other? Take a
man of strong nature upon whom events have
powerfully acted — Luther or Socrates or Sam
Johnson — and I suppose you shall find no trait
in him-no fear, no love, no talent, no dream
in one that did not translate a similar love, fear,
talent, dream, in the other. Luther's Pope and
Turk and Devil, and Grace, and Justification,
and Catherine de Bore, shall reappear under far
other names in George Fox, in John Milton, in


1834] DESCENT OF THOUGHT 363
George Washington, in Goethe, or, long before,
in Zeno and Socrates. Their circles, to use the
language of geometry, would coincide. Here and
there, to be sure, are anomalous, unpaired crea-
tures, who are but partially developed, wizzled
apples, — as if you should seek to match mon-
sters, one of whom has a leg, another an arm,
another two heads.
If one should seek to trace the genealogy of
thoughts he would find Goethe's “Open Secret”
fathered in Aristotle's answer to Alexander,
" that these books were published, and not pub-
lished.” And Mme. de Staël's “ Architecture is
frozen music,” borrowed from Goethe's “ Archi-
tecture is dumb music,” borrowed from Vitru-
vius, who said, “The architect must not only
understand drawing, but also music.” And
Wordsworth's man “that pleased his childish
thought,” got from Schiller’s “Reverence the
dreams of his youth,” got from Bacon's Primæ
cogitationes et consilia juventutis plus Divinitatis
babent.
1 ... if those great Doctors truly said
That th’ Ark to man's proportion was made.
- Donne. (R. W. E.'s note.)


364
JOURNAL (Age 31
November 19.
The aged grandsire' came out of his chamber
last evening into our parlor for the first time
since his sickness, in cloak and velvet cap, and
attended prayers. In things within his experience
he has the most robust, erect common sense, is
as youthful, vigorous in his understanding, as a
man of thirty; in things without his circle often
puerile. He behaved and spoke last evening as
Jefferson or Franklin might. His prayer, as
usual, with the happiest pertinence. “We have
been variously disciplined; bereaved, but not
destitute; sick, but thou hast healed, in degree,
our diseases; and when there was but a step be-
tween us and death, thou hast said, Live." He
ever reminds one, both in his wisdom and in the
faults of his intellect, of an Indian Sagamore, a
sage within the limits of his own observation, a
child beyond; his discourse and manners so far
fittest, noblest, simplest, the grace and dignity
of a child. What could be better than his speech
to me after grandmother's death. “Well, the
bond that united us is broken, but I hope you
i Doctor Ripley. Although most of this entry is to be found
in Mr. Emerson's sketch «Ezra Ripley” (Lectures and
Biographical Sketches), it seems appropriate to retain it in its
place in the Journal.


1834)
DOCTOR RIPLEY 365
and your brothers will not cease to come to this
house. You will not like to be excluded, and I
shall not like to be neglected.” And his conver-
sation with the M — family after the death of
their father, I admired. The son was supposed
to be intemperate in his habits. The family and
friends were all collected for the funeral when we
went in. “Madam, I condole with you; Sir, I
condole with you; and with you all. I remember,
Sir, when I came to this town your grandfather
was living on this farm, and a most respectable
citizen. His father lived here before him. Your
father has stood in their place, and lived a useful
and respected life. Now, Sir, the name and re-
spectability of your family rests on you. Sir, if
you fail - Ichabod - the glory is departed, -
and I hope you will not.”
CSS
History teaches what man can do, and not
less what man can suffer and what he can
believe. The slowness with which the stirps
generosa, seu historica in Europe opened their
eyes to the monstrous lie of Popery, might
startle us as to the possible depth of our own
degradation through the sleep of Reason, and
prompt a hope of what height we may yet
attain.


366
(AGE 31
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Is it not an instructive fact in literary history,
that of Luther's writing from Wittemberg to
Spalatin for the Elector's collection of gems, to
assist him in translating the twenty-first chap-
ter of Revelation? They were sent and, after
careful examination, returned. (Vide Secken-
dorf, p. 204.)
And here is another eulogy, a true eulogy of
that great man. King Christiern of Denmark,
passing through Saxony, sent for Luther. He
afterwards declared, “Never have I heard the
gospel so well explained as by Luther. So long
as I continue to live I shall hold his discourse
in remembrance, and shall submit with greater
patience to whatever I am destined to endure.”
Longinus could not improve the sentence, and
the last clause should be writ in the diary of
every preacher.
The Marseillaise Hymn, and the Ballads of
the Reformation, and Watts' Hymnbook, and
the Ranz des Vaches.
The best cause has been seldom defended on
its merits. Men are possessed by the Idea of
liberty or right in the matter, but the fewest are
able to state in propositions that which makes


1834) SMALL ISSUES APPEAR 367
the strength and soul of their party. The idea
is deep and pervades the whole mass of men
and institutions involved, but that which makes
the surface is the names of certain men and
other accidentsEven the divine Milton re-
curs with bitterness to tippet and surplice, etc.
These are what, in words, the antagonist party
oppose and revile, and therefore on these (as in
European war, on the Milanese) the battle is
fought. Luther has never stated his thought so
well as Mackintosh has done for him; and
dwelleth far more on the bald pates and gray
cloaks of his opponents. Luther was a great
man and, as Coleridge says, acted poems, and
his words, if they will, they may characterize as
half-battles. But the sublime of them, critically
considered, is the material sublime, not the
moral. “If the heavens should pour down
Duke Georges for nine days,” etc. “If I don't
burn them, 't is because I can't find fire.” “I'll
go, if all the devils are in the way,” etc. It is
like Mahomet's description of the angel whom
he saw in heaven: “It was nine days' journey
from one of his eyes to the other.” Mere sub-
limity of magnitude and number; but Landor
says well, “Where the heart is not moved, the
gods stride and thunder in vain. The pathetic


368
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
is the true sublime.” I speak of course of the
homely monk's sayings as sentences.
The purposes and character which they man-
ifest is quite another Consideration. There is
something akin to sublimity. But there is no
such force in all his sayings as in “ Forgive his
virtues too."
Let a man have no presence, no manners. It
takes some men so long to get through their
preliminaries that everybody avoids them for
fear of the trouble. But be a mere word, a mere
action; and when parade-days come, then do
these long courtesies when there is time and
expectation; but spare working-days and work-
ing-people.
O what is Heaven but the fellowship
Of minds that each can stand against the world
By its own meek but incorruptible will.*
CY
November 21.
Ah, how shone the moon and her little spar-
klers last eve! There was the light in the self-
1 Forgive his crimes; forgive his virtues too,
Those smaller faults, half converts to the right.
Young.
2 When some friend asked Mr. Emerson to write some-
thing in an album, he often wrote these lines.


1834) COMFORT IN GOD 369
same vessels which contained it a million years
ago.
I perceived in myself this day with a certain i
degree of terror the prompting to retire. What!
is this lone parsonage in this thin village so
populous as to crowd you and overtask your
benevolence? They who urge you to retire
hence would be too many for you in the centre
of the desert or on the top of a pillar.'
se
Mage so
How dear, how soothing to man, arises the
Idea of God peopling the lonely place, effacing
the scars of our mistakes and disappointments !
When we have lost our God of tradition and
ceased from our God of rhetoric, then may God
fire the heart with his presence.
November 23.
The root and seed of democracy is the doc-
trine, Judge for yourself. Reverence thyself. It
is the inevitable effect of that doctrine, where it
has any effect (which is rare), to insulate the par-
i Merely social life was always difficult for Mr. Emerson. '.
For this reason he never wished to visit for more than a day.
At the Manse, of course, parishioners came to pay their re-
spects to the pastor and his guests. “ Urge you to retire”
means only make you want to run away.


370
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
tisan, to make each man a state. At the same
time it replaces the dead with a living check in
a true, delicate reverence for superior, congenial
minds. “How is the king greater than I, if he
is not more just?”
How does every institution, every man, every
thought embody, clothe itself externally with
dress, houses, newspapers, societies. As I sat in
the Orthodox Church this day, I thought how
brick and laths and lime flew obedient to the
master idea that reigns in the minds of many per-
sons, be that idea what it may, Jackson, Anti-
masonry, Diffusion of Knowledge, Farm School,
or Calvinism. Why then should the Sweden-
borgian doctrine be obnoxious, that in the spir-
itual world the affections clothe themselves with
appropriate garments, dwellings, and other cir-
cumstances? ...
What concerns me more than Orthodoxy,
Anti - masonry, Temperance, Workingmen's
party, and the other Ideas of the time?
Is the question of Temperance pledges a
question whether we will, in a pestilence, go
into quarantine?
Wonderful charm in the English elegiac verse


1834) ELEGIAC VERSE. MONEY 371
for the expression of amatory sorrow, and the
shades of feeling of a mystic; but it is only in
newspapers and by second-rate or third-rate
poets that I have seen it used. A fine verse of
this sort I chanced upon, addressed to Music,
in which, after saying that Music links us to
higher realities than we see around us, the un-
known poet saith
Therefore a current of sadness deep
Through the streams of thy triumph is heard to
sweep.
November 26.
Goethe says of Lavater, that, “it was fearful
to live near a man to whom every boundary within
which Nature has seen fit to circumscribe us was
clear.”
se
us was
“The world in which I exist is another world
indeed, but not to come.” COLERIDGE.
O what a wailing tragedy is this world, con-
sidered in reference to money-matters. Rather
melancholy, after asking the opinion of all liv-
ing, to find no more receivers of your doctrine
than your own three or four, and sit down to wait
until it shall please God to create some more men
before your school can expect increase.


372
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
Show a head of Cuvier, Goethe, or Milton to
vulgar people, and they see nothing but resem-
blances to Deacon Gulliver or Mr. Gibbons.
A year ago on November 13, little Ezra Rip-
ley started up in bed and told his father all the
stars were falling down. His father bid him
sharply go to sleep, but the boy was the better
philosopher.'
What can be conceived so beautiful as actual
nature? I never see the dawn break or the sun
set, as last evening, when from every grey or
slate-coloured cloud over the whole dome de-
pended a wreath of roses, or look down the river
with its tree-planted banks (from the bridge north
of the house) absolutely affecting an elegancy,
without a lively curiosity as to its reality, and a
self-recollection that I am not in a dream. Well,
is this all superficial, and is the earth itself un-
sightly? Look at a narcissus, or crocus, or lily,
or petal, or stamen, or plumule, - at any process
of life, and answer. What can be conceived so
i This was the night of the most remarkable meteoric shower
on record. Ezra Ripley, the child here mentioned, was the
grandson of Dr. Ripley. He grew up to a noble manhood, left
the profession of law to serve as lieutenant in a Massachusetts
regiment in the Civil War, and died in service.


1834] EACH AND ALL 373
beautiful as an assemblage of bright and opake
balls floating in space, covered each with pretty
races, and each individual a counterpart and con-
templator of the whole. Everything, to be ap-
preciated, must be seen from the point where its
rays converge to a focus. This gorgeous land-
scape, these poetical clouds, what would they
be if I should put my eye to the ground? a few
pebbles; or into the cloud? a fog. So of human
history, and of my own life. We cannot get far
enough away from ourselves to integrate our
scraps of thought and action, and so judge of
our tendency or ascend to our idea. We are in
the battle, and cannot judge of its picturesque
effect, nor how the day is going, nor at present
of its consequences. The shepherd or the beggar
in his red cloak little knows what a charm he
gives to the wide landscape that charms you on
the mountain-top and whereof he makes the
most agreeable feature, and I no more the part
my individuality plays in the All.'
To an idle inquiry whether you are immortal,
God maketh no answer. No argument of con-
viction can be found; but do your duty, and you
1 The first note of the opening lines in “ Each and All ”
(Poems); evidently a European memory.


374
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
are already immortal; the taste, the fear of death
has already vanished. We would study Greek and
Astronomy if life were longer. Study them, and
life is already infinitely long.
December.
Yesterday saw I at Waltham the eclipse of the
Sun, 10.45 digits. The fact that a prediction is
fulfilled is the best part of it; the preternatural
half-night which falls upon the hills, and the
violet shade which touches all the clouds. The
fine fringes of the cloud made the best smoked
glass through which to see the sun, while the
shadow encroached upon his face.
When the young philosopher forgets men's
opinions, nothing seems so worthy employment,
or rather life, as religious teaching. If I could
persuade men to listen to their interior con-
victions, if I could express, embody their in-
terior convictions, that were indeed life. It were
to cease being a figure, and to act the action of
a man. But for that work he must be free and
true. He must not seek to weld what he be-
lieves, to what he does not wish publicly to deny.
Nothing can compensate for want of belief; no
accomplishments, no talents. A believing man, in
a cause worthy of a man, gives the mind a sense


1834) TALENT AND CHARACTER 375
of stability and repose more than mountains. I
could not help calling the attention of my vener-
able neighbor to the different impression made
by A [lexander] Everett and James Savage :'
one, very accomplished, but inspires no confi-
dence; for he is not much of a man; the other,
tolerably well equipped, but is himself an up-
right, single-hearted man, pursuing his path by
his own lights and incapable of fear or favor.
Columbus did not affect to believe in a new
continent and make dinner speeches about it
(other than his egg speech), and George Fox
and Emanuel Swedenborg never advise people
to go to church for the sake of example.
It would give scope for many truths in ex-
perimental religion to preach from the text,
« There shall be new heavens and a new earth.”
i Alexander Everett, older brother of Edward Everett, a
man of wide culture who received honorary degrees from
many colleges and learned societies, became President of Jef-
ferson College, Louisiana, and later was sent to Spain as
Minister Plenipotentiary. Died 1847. James Savage, a useful,
fearless, public-spirited citizen of Boston, founder of the Prov-
ident Institution for Savings; a scholar who did valuable work
on the history of the early settlers of New England. He was
made LL. D. Harvard, and Overseer, Fellow of the American
Academy, and President of the Massachusetts Historical Society.


376
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
,
Sometimes we perceive that God is wholly un-
known in the world, that the church and the
sermon and the priest and the alms are a pro-
fanation.
“We were early cast upon thy care,” is a
heathen expression.
COMPENSATION
Why should I keep holiday
When other men have none ?
Why but because, when these are gay,
I sit and mourn alone ?
And why, when Mirth unseals all tongues,
Must I be ever dumb ?
Ah, late I spoke to breathless throngs,
And now their hour is come.'
CONCORD, December 2.
The age of puberty is a crisis in the life of the
man worth studying. It is the passage from the
Unconscious to the Conscious; from the sleep
of the Passions to their rage; from careless re-
ceiving to cunning providing; from beauty to
use; from omnivorous curiosity to anxious stew-
i These verses, which, slightly altered, Mr. Emerson pub-
lished in the Poems years later, are written in pencil under the
above entries in ink, and evidently belong to this period.


1834] PUBERTY. SECTS 377
ardship; from faith to doubt; from maternal
Reason to hard, short-sighted Understanding;
from unity to disunion; the progressive influ-
ences of poetry, eloquence, love, regeneration,
character, truth, sorrow, and of search for an
Aim, and the contest for property.
I look upon every sect as a Claude Lorraine
glass through which I see the same sun and the
same world and in the same relative places as
through my own eyes, but one makes them
small, another large; one, green; another, blue;
another, pink. I suppose that an Orthodox
preacher's cry, “The natural man is an enemy
of God,” only translates the philosopher's that
“ the instinct of the Understanding is to con-
tradict the Reason”; so Luther's Law and Gos-
pel (also St. Paul's); Swedenborg's love of self
and love of the Lord; William Penn's World
and Spirit; the Court of Honor's Gentleman
and Knave. The dualism is ever present, though
variously denominated.
I have not so near access to Luther's mind
through his works as through my own mind
when I meditate upon his historical position.
When they jeered at the devil, Luther says,


378
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
he went away " Quia est superbus spiritus et non
potest ferre contemptum sui.”
My own picture was ugly enough to me. I
read that when his own picture was shown to
Erasmus, he said, “Look I like this picture?
So am I the greatest knave that liveth,” which
Luther relates with sharpness.
Francis comes to Doctor Ripley at breakfast
to know if he shall drive the cow into the battle-
field.
Blessed are the woods. In summer they shade
the traveller from the sun; in winter, from the
tooth of the wind; when there is snow, it falls
level ; when it rains, it does not blow in his face.
There is no dust, and a pleasing fear reigns in
their shade. Blessed are the woods !
I think the most devout persons be the freest
of their tongues in speaking of the Deity, as
i The Old Manse, which had come to Dr. Ripley through
his wife, widow of Rev. William Emerson, was close by the
battle-ground ; and as the original North Bridge had been
taken down some forty years before this time, and the new
monument had not been erected, the field where the British
stood and fired was the Doctor's pasture.


are
1834] DEVOUT FREEDOM 379
Luther, Fuller, Herbert, Milton, whose words
are an offence to the pursed mouths which make
formal prayers; and beyond the word, they are
free-thinkers also. “Melancthon discoursed with
Luther touching the prophets who continually
do boast in this sort and with these words,
• Thus saith the Lord,' etc., - whether God
spake in person with them or no? Then Luther
said, They were very holy, spiritual people,
which seriously did contemplate on holy and
divine causes : therefore God spake with them
in their consciences, which the prophets held for
sure Revelations.” — Table-Talk, p. 362, folio
edition. So Saint James he frankly called “epis-
tola straminea.”
Bring men near one another, and love will
follow.
Once the men of distant countries were painted
as of monstrous bodies without necks, with tails,
etc. But Commerce contradicted the report.
Then they were described as having monstrous
minds, thieves, sottish, promiscuously mixed, des-
titute of moral sentiments. But Commerce has
exposed that slander too, and shown that as face
answereth to face in water, so the heart of man
to man.


380
JOURNAL (AGE 31
A man is a very vulnerable creature. His
manners and dignity are conventional. Leave
him alone and he is a sorry sight.
[Here follows the passage on apologies; see
“Heroism," Essays, First Series, page 260,
Centenary Edition.]
How sad, how disgusting, to see this niedrig
air on the face, a man whose words take hold
on the upper world, whilst one eye is eternally
down cellar, so that the best conversation has
ever a slight savor of sausages and soap-barrels.
Basest when the snout of this influence touches
the education of young women, and withers the
blessed affection and hope of human nature by
teaching that marriage is nothing but house-
keeping, and that woman's life has no other
aim.
Even G. was capable of saying “the worst
marriage is better than none,” and S. made a
similar stab at the sanity of his daughter.
CONCORD, December 3.
The poor Irishman, a wheelbarrow is his
country.'
1 The building of the railroads in New England at this
time brought the first important immigration of Irishmen with
their families.


DU-
1834] MORAL OF HEREDITY 381
When I remember the twofold cord, then
fourfold, and, go a little back, a thousand and
a millionfold cord of which my being and every
man's being consists; that I am an aggregate
of infinitesimal parts, and that every minutest
streamlet that has flowed to me is represented
in that man which I am, so that, if every one
should claim his part in me, I should be in-
stantaneously diffused through the creation and
individually decease, then I say, If I am but an
alms of all, and live but by the charity of innu-
merable others, there is no peculiar propriety
in wrapping my cloak about me and hiding the
ray that my taper may emit. What is a man
but a congress of nations. Just suppose for one
moment to appear before him the whole host
of his ancestors. All have vanished; he — the
insulated result of all that character, activity,
sympathy, antagonism, working for ages in all
corners of the earth — alone remains. Such is
his origin; well, was his nurture less compound?
Who and what has not contributed something
to make him that he is ? Art, science, institu-
tions, black men, white men, the vices and the
virtues of all people, the gallows, the church,
the shop, poets, nature, joy, and fear, all help,
all teach him. Every fairy brings a gift.


382
JOURNAL {AGE 31
Deliver us from that intensity of character
which makes all its 'crows swans. So soon as
I hear that my friend is engaged, I perceive at
once that a very ordinary person is hencefor-
ward adopted into that rose-colored atmosphere
which exhales from his self-love, and every trait,
every trifle, every nothing about the new person
is canonized by identifying the same with the
positive virtue to which it is related, just as
children refer the moon to the same region of
heaven with the stars. Talent becomes genius;
inoffensiveness, benevolence; wilfulness, char-
acter; and even stupidity, simplicity. Poor, dear
human nature; leave magnifying and caricatur-
ing her; it frets and confuses us. More winning,
more sociable and society-making is she as she
stands, faults and virtues unpainted, confessed;
then the fault even becomes piquant, and is seen
to prop and underpin some excellent virtue,
Let us deal so with ourselves and call a spade a
spade.
December 6.
Do you imagine that because I do not say
Luther's creed, all his works are an offence to
me? Far otherwise. I can animate them all that
they shall live to me. I can worship in that
temple as well as in any other. I have only to


1834] PRAYER. HUMAN GIFTS 383
translate a few of the leading phrases into their
equivalent verities, to adjust his almanack to my
meridian, and all the conclusions, all the predic-
tions shall be strictly true. Such is the everlast-
ing advantage of truth. Let a man work after
a pattern he really sees, and every man shall be
able to find a correspondence between these
works and his own and to turn them to some
account in Rome, London, or Japan, from the
first to the hundredth Century.
On reading yesterday afternoon, to Aunt
Mary, Coleridge's defence of prayer against the
author of Natural History of Enthusiasm, she
replied, “ Yes, for our reason was so distinct
from the Universal Reason that we could pray
to it, and so united with it, that we could have
assurance we were heard.”
December 8.
The world looks poor and mean so long as
I think only of its great men; most of them of
spotted reputation. But when I remember how
many obscure persons I myself have seen pos-
sessing gifts that excited wonder, speculation
and delight in me ; when I remember that the
very greatness of Homer, of Shakspeare, of
Webster and Channing, is the truth with which


384
JOURNAL (AGE 31
they reflect the mind of all mankind; when I
consider that each fine genius that appears is
already predicted in our constitution, inasmuch
as he only makes apparent shades of thought in
us of which we hitherto knew not (or actualizes
an idea); and when I consider the absolute
boundlessness of our capacity — no one of us
but has the whole untried world of geometry,
fluxions, natural philosophy, ethics, wide open
before him. When I recollect the charms of
certain women, what poems are many private
lives, each of which can fill our eye, if we so will,
(as the swan, the eagle, the cedar-bird, the ca-
nary, each seems the type of bird-kind whilst
we gaze at it alone,) and then remember how
many millions I know not; then I feel the riches
of my inheritance in being set down in this world,
gifted with organs of communication with this
accomplished company.
Pray heaven that you may have a sympathy
with all sorts of excellence, even with those an-
tipodal to your own. If any eye rest on this page,
let him know that he who blotted it could not
go into conversation with any person of good
understanding without being presently grav-
elled. The slightest question of his most familiar


1834] CHOICE, NOT PLEDGES 385
proposition disconcerted him, eyes, face and
understanding, beyond recovery. Yet did he,
not the less, respect and rejoice in this daily gift
of vivacious common sense, which was so formi-
dable to him. May it last as long as the world.
The application of Goethe's definition of
genius; “That power which by working and
doing gives laws and rules,” to common life, to
the art of living, is obvious. Deacon Warren,
Mr. Turner, Mr. Crafts, and every new, simple
heart give us a new image of possible virtues and
powers.
If you ask me whether I will be so good as to
abstain from all use of ardent spirits for the sake of
diminishing by my pint per annum the demand,
and so stopping the distiller's pernicious pump,
I answer, Yes, with all my heart. But will I sig-
nify the same fact by putting my name to your
paper? No. Be assured, I shall always be found
on your side in discouraging this use and traffic.
But I shall not deprive my example of all its
value by abdicating my freedom on that point.
It shall be always my example, the spectacle to
all whom it may concern of my spontaneous
action at the time.


386
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
- -
-
Why,O diffusers of Useful Knowledge, do you
not offer to deliver a course of lectures on Aris-
totle and Plato, or on Plato alone, or on him
and Bacon and Coleridge? Why not strengthen
the hearts of the waiting lovers of the primal phi-
losophy by an account of that fragmentary high-
est teaching which comes from the half fabulous
personages Heraclitus, Hermes Trismegistus,
and Giordano Bruno, and Vyasa, and Plotinus,
and Swedenborg. Curious, now that first I col-
lect their names, they should look all so mytho-
logical
- -
- -
I rejoice in Time. I do not cross the common
without a wild poetic delight, notwithstanding
the prose of my demeanour. Thank God I live
in the country. Well said Bell, that no hour,
no state of the atmosphere but corresponded to
some state of the mind; brightest day, grimmest
night.
December 9.
The dear old Plutarch assures me that the
lamp of Demosthenes never went out; that King
Philip called his orations soldiers, and in a mo-
ment of enthusiasm, on hearing the report of
one of his speeches, exclaimed, “Had I been
there, I too should have declared war against


1834) DEMOSTHENES .387
myself.” Flying before Antipater, he wrote his
own epitaph at Calauria ; -
"Elep ionv páunu yróun, Anuoobéves, foxes,
Ούποτ' άν Ελλήνων ήρξεν "Αρης Μακεδών.
When Epicles twitted him upon his exact
preparation, he said, “I should be ashamed to
speak what comes uppermost to so great an as-
sembly.”
One day his voice failing him, he was hissed,
and he cried unto the people, “Ye are to judge
of players indeed by the clearness and tune-
ableness of their voice, but of orators by the
gravity and excellency of their sentences.” De-
spising other orators, when Phocion arose, De-
mosthenes was wont to say, “ Pruning-knife of
my orations, arise !”
Last night, abed, I recollected four names for
four lectures : Luther, Michel Angelo, Milton,
George Fox; then comes question of Epami-
nondas, esteemed by the ancients greatest of the
Greeks; Demosthenes for the sake of his oratory
and the related topics; Alfred for his human
· character; Sam. Johnson for his genuineness ;
Phocion, More, and Socrates, for their three re-
nowned deaths; Hampden for his Saxon soul;


388
JOURNAL. (AGE 31
Muley Moloch;' Reynolds. But it seemed to
me that a fit question to handle in a public lec-
ture is the one involved in the claims and apolo-
gies made by people and orators in this New
England raft of ours every day. It is said that
the people can look after their own interests;
that “common sense, though no science, is
fairly worth the seven”; that a plain, practical
man is better to the state than a scholar, etc.
He were a benefactor to his countrymen who
would expose and pillory this state sophism.
We hold indeed that those reasons for a public
action which are presented to us should be of
that simple, humane character as to be fully com-
prehensible by every citizen of good capacity, as
well the uneducated as the educated. That is a
good test and condition of such reasons. They
should not be addressed to the imagination, or
to our literary associations, but to the ear of
plain men. Therefore are they such as plain
men, farmers, mechanics, teamsters, seamen or
soldiers might offer, if they would gravely, pa-
tiently, humbly reflect upon the matter. There
i Abd el Malek, Sultan of Morocco in the sixteenth
century. His heroic death in battle is mentioned in the
Spectator, no. 349. He is there called Muly Moluc. Muley
means My Lord. See, also, Dryden's Don Sebastian.


1834] LIGHT FOR ALL MEN 389
is nothing in their want of book-learning to
hinder. This doctrine affirms that there is im-
parted to every man the Divine light of reason,
sufficient not only to plant corn and grind wheat
by, but also to illuminate all his life, his social,
political, religious actions. Sufficient according
to its faithful use. Sufficient, if faithfully used.
The propositions are true to the end of the
world, with this inseparable condition; Every
man's Reason is sufficient for his guidance, if
used. But does it mean that because a farmer,
acting on deep conviction, shall give a reason as
good as Bacon could have given, that therefore
the ordinary arguments of farmers are to be pre-
ferred to those of statesmen? that whatever
crude remarks a circle of people talking in a bar-
room throw out, are entitled to equal weight
with the sifted and chosen conclusions of ex-
perienced public men? And because God has
made you capable of Reason, therefore must I
hear and accept all your selfish railing, your
proven falsehoods, your unconsidered guesses as
truth? No; I appeal from you to your Reason,
which, with me, condemns you.... It amounts
to this; “Every man's Reason can show him
what is right. Therefore every man says what is
right, whether he use his Reason or no.” I hate


390
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
this fallacy the more that it is, beside being dire
nonsense, a profanation of the dearest truths.
Democracy, Freedom, has its root in the sacred
truth that every man hath in him the divine
Reason, or that, though few men since the crea-
tion of the world live according to the dictates of
Reason, yet all men are created capable of so
doing. That is the equality and the only equality
of all men. To this truth we look when we say,
Reverence thyself; Be true to thyself. Because
every man has within him somewhat really di-
vine, therefore is slavery the unpardonable out-
rage it is.
There is great delight in learning a new lan-
guage. When the day comes in the scholar's
progress unawares, when he reads pages without
recurrence to the dictionary, he shuts up his
book with that sort of fearful delight with which
the bridegroom sits down in his own house with
the bride saying, “I shall now live with you
always."
December 11.
When the sick man came out of doors, the
stars seemed to shine through his eyes into his
heart, and the blessed air that he inhaled seemed
to lighten his frame from head to feet.


1834) EZRA RIPLEY
391
A little above I referred to one of my charac-
ters.' It might be added that if he made his
forms a strait-jacket to others, he wore the same
himself all his years, and so reanimated for his
beholders the order of La Trappe. . . . One
who showed ever, in his fireside discourse, traits
of that pertinency and judgment, softening ever
and anon into elegancy, which make the distinc-
tion of the scholar, and which, under better dis-
cipline, might have ripened into a Salmasius or
Hedericus. Sage and savage strove harder in
him than in any of my acquaintance, each get-
ting the mastery by turns, and pretty sudden
turns. “Save us,” he said in his prayer, “ from
the extremity of cold, and violent sudden
changes.” — “ The society will meet after the
Lyceum, as it is difficult to bring the people
together in the evening,--and no moon,” etc.
“Mr. N. F. is dead, and I expect to hear the
death of Mr. B. It is cruel to separate old peo-
ple from their wives in this cold weather.”
Thus is one reminded of the children's prayer,
who in confessing their sins, say, “Yes, I did
take the jump-rope from Mary.” Pleasantly
1 Rev. Dr. Ezra Ripley of Concord. A portion of what
follows is included in Mr. Emerson's Memoir of Dr. Ripley,
in Lectures and Biographical Sketches.


392
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
said he at supper, that his “last cup was not po-
tent in any way, neither in sugar, nor cream, nor
souchong; it was so equally and universally de-
fective, that he thought it easier to make another
than to mend that.”
The counsellor's fine simplicity and sweetness
of character saved his speech, the other evening,
from being distressful to the hearers. Charles is
reminded by him of Edward. There are some
points of resemblance. This for one, that neither
was ever put out of countenance.
Concord, December 14.
Yesterday, I sealed and despatched my letter
to Carlyle. To-day, riding to East Sudbury, I
pleased myself with the beauties and terrors of
the snow; the oak leaf hurrying over the banks
is fit ornament. Nature in the woods is very
companionable. There, my Reason and my
Understanding are sufficient company for each
other. I have my glees as well as my glooms
alone. Confirm my faith (and when I write the
word, Faith looks indignant), pledge me the
word of the Highest that I shall have my dead
and my absent again, and I could be content
and cheerful alone for a thousand years.
I know no aisle so stately as the roads through


1834] SCHLEIERMACHER 393
the pine woods in Maine. Cold is the snow-drift,
topping itself with sand. How intense are our
affinities : acids and alkalis. The moment we
indulge our affections, the earth is metamor-
phosed: all its tragedies and ennụis vanish, all
duties even; nothing remains to fill eternity with
but two or three persons.' But then a person is
a cause. What is Luther but Protestantism? or
Columbus but Columbia ? And were I assured
of meeting Ellen tomorrow, would it be less than
a world, a personal world ? Death has no bitter-
ness in the light of that thought.
PS
In Boston, Hedge? read me good things out
of Schleiermacher concerning the twofold di-
visions of study; 1. Physics, or that which is ;
2. Ethics, or that which should be. Also his
definition of Sciences and Art; the one, all things
brought into the mind; the other, the mind going
into things. Then the Ascetic, or the discipline
of life produced by the opinions. Every man's
system should appear in his ascetic. Scarce one
man's does.
This last sentence occurs in “ Friendship,” Essays, First
Series.
2 Dr. Frederic Henry Hedge, clergyman and student of
German metaphysics.


394
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
December 17.
If it has so pleased God, it is very easy for
you to surpass your fellows in genius; but sur-
pass them in generosity of sentiment; see not
their meanness, whilst your eyes are fixed on
everlasting virtues; being royal, being divine, in
your sentiment: “this shall be another morn
risen on mid-noon.” This shall be your own,
O no; God forbid ! not your own, but a vast
accession of the Divinity into your trembling
clay.
God has made nothing without a crack, ex-
cept Reason. What can be better than this?
“ Quanto era proprio per far tutta la pompa del
suo profundo sapere.” Note in Vasari's Life of
Michel Angelo.
Poets and painters ever walk abreast.
December 18.
I am writing my lecture of Michel Angelo,
clothed with a coat which was made for me
in Florence: I would I were clothed with the
spirit of beauty which breathed life into Italian
art.
Quello ch' apporta mane e lascia sera. — Dante.


1834) WRITING AS AN ART – 395
Solon said, “Such as the speech, such is the
life of the man.”
Loathsome lecture last evening on precocity,
and the dissection of the brain, and the distor-
tion of the body, and genius, etc. A grim com-
post of blood and mud. Blessed, thought I, were
those who, lost in their pursuits, never knew that
they had a body or a mind.
December 19.
He who makes a good sentence or a good
verse exercises a power very strictly analogous
to his who makes a fine statue, a beautiful cornice,
a staircase like that in Oxford, or a noble head
in painting. One writes on air, if he speaks; but**
no, he writes on mind more durable than marble,
and is like him who begets a son, that is, originates
a begetter of nations.
The maker of a sentence, like the other artist,
launches out into the infinite and builds a road
into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by
those who hear him with something of wild, crea-
tive delight.
December 20.
I like well the doctrine“ that every great man,
Napoleon himself, is an Idealist, a Poet with
different degrees of utterance.” As the love of


396
JOURNAL
RNAL
[AGE 31
flowers contains the Science of Botany, so the
innate love of novelty, - enterprise like that
which delighted me when a boy in Atkinson
Street with climbing by help of a small ladder
and touching for the first time the shingles of the
shed; yes, and makes every boy a poet when a
fine morning in Spring seducingly shows him the
uplands in the neighboring towns on his way to
school, — this same desire of the untried, leads
the young farmer in Maine to load his little
wagon and rattle down the long hills on his way
to Illinois.
A strictest correspondence ties all the arts.
and it is as lawful and as becoming for the poet
to seize upon felicitous expressions and lay them
up for use as for Michel Angelo to store his
sketch-book with hands, arms, triglyphs, and
capitals to enrich his future compositions. The
| wary artist in both kinds will tear down the scaf-
folding when the work is finished, and himself
supply no clue to the curiosity that would know
how he did the wonder.
The chickadees are very busy and happy in
Cæsar's Woods' between the spots of snow. I
i On the bluffs over the Great Meadows, near the Manse.


1834] SPIRITUAL RELIGION 397)
met them yesterday. Whatis the green leaf under
the snow resembling a potentilla ?
Spiritual religion is one that cannot be harmed
by the vices of its defenders. Unitarianism and
all the rest are judged by the standing or falling
of their professors. I refuse that test to this. It
is true. I see this to be true, though I see it con-
demns my life, and no man liveth by it. They
[spiritual laws] are truth itself; they are the
measure of truth; and can no more be affected
by my falling away, or all men's denial, than
the law of gravity is changed by my acting as if
it were not. Yet is it dangerous. It is very far
from a system of negatives; it lowly, earnestly
sees and declares how its laws advance their reign
for evermore into the Infinitude on all sides
of us.
Jesus was a setter up more than a puller down.
Socrates was also. Both were spiritualists. George
Fox, William Penn were urgent doers, hard
livers. But they were of wrath. I see the world
and its Maker from another side. It seems to
me beauty. He seems to me Love.
Spiritual religion has no other evidence than
its own intrinsic probability. It is probable be-
cause the mind is so constituted as that they
[its laws] appear likely so to be. It simply de-
more


398
[Age 31
JOURNAL
scribes the laws of moral nature as the naturalist
does physical [laws] and shows the surprising
beauties and terrors of human life. It never
scolds and never sneers. It is opposed to Cal-
vinism in this respect, that all spiritual truths
are self-evident, but the doctrines of Calvin are
not, and are not pretended to be by their under-
standing defenders ;– mystery. This is the only
live religion ; all others are dead or formal.
This cannot be but in the new conviction of
the mind. Others may. This produces instant
and infinite abuses. It is a two-edged sword,
because it condemns forms, but supplies a bet-
ter law only to the living. It leaves the dead
to bury their dead. The popular religion is an
excellent constable; the true religion is God him-
self to the believer and maketh him a perfect
lover of the whole world; but it is only a cloak
of licentiousness to the rest. It would dismiss all
bad preachers and do great harm to society by
taking off restraints.
My Reason is well enough convinced of its
immortality. It knows itself immortal. But it
cannot persuade its down-looking brother, the
Understanding, of the same. That fears for the
cord that ties them, lest it break. Hence Miss


1834] CHAINS. MICHEL ANGELO 399
Rotch affirms undoubtedly, “I shall live for-
ever," and, on the other hand, does not much
believe in her retaining Personality.
UC
December 21.
Who says we are not chained? He lies. See
how greedily you accept the verse of Homer or
Shakspear; the outline of Michel Angelo; the
strain of Handel; the word of Webster ; how
thoroughly you understand and make them your
own; and are well assured, too, that they are only
units from an infinite store of the same kinds;
well, now put out your own hands and take one
more unit thence. I say you are chained.
Michel Angelo was the Homer of painting.
Titian the Moore, or better, the Spenser. The
difference is the same betwixt this stern De-
signer and the beautiful colorists that followed
him, as between the severe Aristotle and the
ornate Cicero.
Blessed is the day when the youth discovers
that Within and Above are synonyms.
Actio agentis nihil aliud est quam extrabere rem
de potentia ad actum. AristotlE.


400
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
We can all put out our hands towards the de-
sired truth, but few can bring their hands to meet
around it. He alone is an artist whose hands can
perfectly execute what his mind has perfectly
conceived;—.
Solo a quello arriva
La man che obbedisce all intelletto.
Michel Angelo.'
The domestic man loves no music so well as
his kitchen clock and the airs which the logs
sing to him as they burn in the fireplace.
The best means of mending a bad voice is to
utter judicious remarks with it; the second best
is to favor it by silence.
Translation of Michel Angelo's Sonnet VII
“ I know not if it is the light of its first maker
impressed on the imagination, which the soul
1 Mr. Emerson later rendered the sonnet of Michel An-
gelo of which these words are a part into verse, beginning
thus :-
Never did sculptor's dream unfold
A form which marble doth not hold
In its white block; yet it therein shall find
Only the hand secure and bold
Which still obeys the mind.
See Poems, “Translations."


me
1834] THE FINISHED MAN 401
perceives, or if from the memory, or from the
mind, any other beauty shines through into the
heart; or if in the soul yet beams and glows
the bright ray of its primitive state, leaving of
itself I know not what burning, which is perhaps
that which leads me to complain. That which I
feel, and that which I see, and that which guides
me, is not with me, nor know I well where to
find it in me; and it seems to me that another
shows it to me. This, lady, happened to me
when I first saw you, that a bitter-sweet, a Yes
and No, moved me; (certainly it must be your
eyes).”
December 22.
It is very easy in the world to live by the opin-
ion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to
be self-centred. But the finished man is he who
in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect
sweetness the independence of solitude. I knew
a man of simple habits and earnest character who
never put out his hand nor opened his lips to
court the public, and having survived several
rotten reputations of younger men, Honor came
at last and sat down with him upon his pri-
vate bench from which he had never stirred. I
too can see the spark of Titan in that coarse
clay;
ne
barse


402
JOURNAL (Age 31
Queis arte benigna
Et meliore luto finxit præcordia Titan."
Wherever is life, wherever is God, there the
Universe evolves itself as from a centre to its
boundless irradiation. Whosoever therefore ap-
prehends the infinite, — and every man can, —
brings all worth and significance into that spot
of space where he stands, though it be a ditch,
a potato-field, a work-bench; or, more properly,
into that state of thought in which he is, whether
it be the making a statue or designing a church
like Michel Angelo, or holding silent meet-
ings like George Fox, and Job Scott, or fighting
battles like Leonidas, Washington, Lafayette;
exploring the law of laws like Plotinus; or lov-
ing like Socrates, Petrarch and Angelo; or pre-
scribing the ethics of the scholar like Schiller.
Therefore is it in the option of every gener-
ous spirit to denominate that place in which
he now is, his Rome, his world; his sunshine
shall be Susa; his shade, Ecbatana; and let him
rest assured, if he invite them, not one deity
will stay away from his feast. And therefore also
.
These lines from Juvenal might be thus rendered: -
Whose hearts the God of Day
Fashioned with loving hand and from a nobler clay.


commune
1834] HARMONY. WAITING 403
is it that every good sentence seems to imply all
truth.
Truly exists that Quoddam vinculum commune
between all the arts and knowledges of men.
Vitruvius said that to understand architecture
needed, not only to draw well, but also to
understand music; and Michel Angelo said of
architecture that he who did not understand
something of the anatomy of the human body
could know nothing of that subject.
The philosophy of Waiting needs sometimes
to be unfolded. Thus he who is qualified to
act upon the Public, if he does not act on many,
may yet act intensely on a few; if he does not
act much upon any, but, from insulated condi-
tion and unfit companions, seem quite with-
drawn into himself, still, if he know and feel his
obligations, he may be (unknown and uncon-
sciously) hiving knowledge and concentrating
powers to act well hereafter, and a very remote
hereafter.
God is a rich proprietor, who, though he
may find use for sprouts and saplings of a year's
growth, finds his account also in leaving un-
touched the timber of a hundred years, which
hardens and seasons in the cold and in the sun.


404
JOURNAL
[Age 31
But a more lowly use (and yet with right feel-
ings all parts of duty are alike lowly) is pleasing;
that of serving an indirect good to your friends
by being much to them, a reserve by which
their sallies of virtue are fortified and they cor-
dially cheered by the thoroughness of a mutual
understanding. How has Edward served us
most in these last years? by his figures and in-
voices ? or through the healthful influence of his
perfect moral health ? How serves the Aunt
Mary? How but by bearing most intelligible
testimony which is felt where it is not compre-
hended.
In Friendship too, observe my song,
There is both equal, broad, and long;
But this thou must not think to find
With eyes of body but of mind.
EMPEDOCLES.
Love, idle of himself, takes up his rest
And harbors only in a slothful breast.
If I were more in love with life and as afraid
of dying as you seem to insinuate, I would go to
a Jackson Caucus or to the Julien Hall, and I
doubt not the unmixed malignity, the withering
selfishness, the impudent vulgarity, that mark
those meetings would speedily cure me of my ap-


1834] MONARCHS AND COURTS 405
petite for longevity. In the hush of these woods
I find no Jackson placards affixed to the trees. I
We republicans do libel the monarchist. The
monarchist of Europe for so many ages has really
been pervaded by an Idea. He intellectually and
affectionately views the King as the State. And
the monarch is pervaded by a correspondent
idea, and the worst of them has yet demeaned
himself more or less faithfully as a State. A
crown then is by no means “a stripe of velvet
with jewels,” nor is Louis XVI Mr. Louis
Capet, as we chuse to affirm. Certainly there is
something that mightily tickles a human ear in
being named a nation, as Elizabeth of England,
Mary of Scotland, Anne of Austria.
All pomps and ceremonies of courts do only
flourish and idealize the simple facts in which
that state began, as the orders of architecture do
in every ornament refer to some essential part of
the building. “The Pope performeth all ecclesi-
astical jurisdiction, as in consistory among his
cardinals, which were originally but the parish
priests of Rome,” so to the wise eye, an eti-
quette is a history.
Mr. Coleridge has thrown many new truths
into circulation; Mr. Southey never one.


406
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
Yet falsehoods, superstitions, are the props,
the scaffolding, on which how much of society
stands. Look at the relation betwixt the unedu-
cated and educated classes. “One's afraid and
the other dares n't,” as the boys say. Each sup-
poses much in the other which is not in him, and
so the peace and place is kept. Accurately, I sup-
pose the graduate underestimates the grocer,
whilst the grocer far overestimates the graduate,
and so the strong hand is kept in submission to
what should be the wise head. The reason why
Mr. Graduate's secret is kept, and never any
accident discovers his bankruptcy and produces
a permanent revolution, is, that there is a real
object in Nature to which the grocer's reverence
instinctively turns, viz., the intellectual man, and
though the scholar is not that object, he is its
representative, and is, with more or less symp-
toms of distrust, honored for that he ought to
be....
It is a manifest interest which comes home to
my bosom and every man's bosom, that there
should be on every tower Watchers set to ob-
serve and report of every new ray of light, in
what quarter soever of heaven it should appear,
and their report should be eagerly and reverently
received. There is no offence done, certainly, to
IS na


1834) THE SCHOLAR'S OFFICE 407
the community in distinctly stating the claims
of this office. It is not a coveted office: it is open
to all men. All see their interest in it, yet very
few feel any inclination to adopt it as their voca-
tion. The blessed God has given to each his
calling in his ruling love, ... has adapted the
brain and the body of men to the work that is
to be done in the world. Greenough has an
invincible penchant to carve marble, and John
Haskins to fry caoutchouc. A small number
of men meantime have a contemplative turn,
and voluntarily seek solitude and converse with
themselves, a work which to most persons has
a jail-smell. This needs a peculiar constitu-
tion, a dormancy of some qualities, and a har-
monious action in all, that is rare. It has its
own immunities, and also its own painful taxes,
like the rest of human works. But where it is
possessed, let it work free and honoured, in
God's name. ... Every discovery he makes,
every conclusion he announces, is tidings to
each of us from our own home. His office is
to cheer our labor as with a song by highest
hopes.
Of the German Nation:- Itis the only nation
that addresses the Deity with the appellation
Dear. Lieber Gott!


408
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
The sun is the sole inconsumable fire
And God is the sole inexhaustible giver.
December 23
A good chapter might be writ of Optical De-
ceptions. A sort of disappointment is felt by an
ingenious man on hearing opinions and truths
congenial to his own announced with effect in con-
versation. They are so near to his own thought
or expression that he thinks he ought to have
spoken first. That is an Optical Deception of the
mind. If they had not been uttered by this other,
he would not have uttered them. It is merely
under the influence of this magnet that he be-
comes intensely magnetic. Take it away, and
this effect will subside in him. Perhaps I shall
never write of Shakspear's sonnets, yet let any
critic execute that work, and I should go to law
with him for assault and battery.
Bottom, in Shakspear, is a philosopher of this
kidney. He fathers each new part the moment
it is named. It fills his whole horizon. He would
be that alone. He mistakes his omnivolence for
omnipotence. The only remedy is to present
still a new thought to withdraw him from the
last.
It results from the fact that every thought is


1834] THE AUNT. LYCEUM 409
one side of Nature, and really has the whole
world under it. This exclusive prominence of
one thought is that which Bacon indicated by
idols of the cave.
“Time and patience change a mulberry leaf
into satin."
A good aunt is more to the young poet than
a patron. Molière had more happiness the year
round from his old woman than from Louis.
Do, dear, when you come to write Lyceum
lectures, remember that you are not to say, What
must be said in a Lyceum? but, What discoveries
or stimulating thoughts have I to impart to a
thousand persons? not what they will expect to
hear, but what is fit for me to say.
“No matter where you begin. Read anything
five hours a day and you will soon be knowing,
said Johnson.
Out of these fragmentary, lob-sided mortals
shall the heaven unite Phidias, Demosthenes,
Shakspear, Newton, Napoleon, Bacon and Saint
John in one person.


410
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
December 24.
Him I call rich, that soul I call endowed,
whether in man or woman, who by poverty or
affliction or love has been driven home so far as
to make acquaintance with the spiritual dominion
of every human mind. Henceforward he is in-
troduced into sublime society, henceforward he
can wave the hand of adieu to all the things he
coveted most. Henceforward he is above com-
passion. He may, it is true, seldom look at his
treasure; he may, like one who has brought home
his bride, go apart and compose himself and only
take furtive glances at his good with a fearful
joy, from the very assurance of confirmed bliss,
but him I leave in his heaven, and all others I
call miserably poor.
he
A singular equality may be observed between
the great men of the first and the last ages. The
astronomy, the arts, and the history of sixty cen-
turies give Lafayette, Canning, Webster no ad-
vantage over Saladin, Scipio, or Agesilaus. The
reason is, the arts, the sciences are in man, and
the Spartan possessed and used the very talent
in his war that Watt used for economical ends,
and the pride and self-sufficiency of the ancient
was founded on this very consciousness of in-
reaso
lences


1834) MAN THROUGH THE AGES 411
finitely versatile resources. The beggars of Sparta
and of Rome hurled defiance with as proud a
tone as if Lysander's fleet of tubs had been an
Armada, or the rude walls of Sparta had been
the bastions of Gibraltar. The resources of the
mechanic arts are merely costume.' If Fabricius
had been shown, instead of Pyrrhus's elephants,
Napoleon's park of artillery, he would have dis-
played no more emotion; he would have found
a counter-balance in himself: all the finites can-
not outweigh one infinite. All the erudition of
an university of doctors is not a match for the
mother-wit of one Æsop.
Raphael's three manners of painting may be
matched in the biography of every genius.
Nature keeps much on her table, but more in
her closet.
A few words writ by a trembling hand of old
Isaiah or Homer become an immoveable pali-
sado to guard their sense against change or loss
through all the storms and revolutions of
time.
1 The opening sentence and also the last one of this para-
graph occur in “Self-Reliance."
S


412
JOURNAL
· [AGE 31
“Where there is D E F there must be A B
C,” saith Sancho's aunt.
[Here follows the passage in “Friendship”
(the latter half), beginning, “Let me be alone
till the end of the world," and the ten lines end-
ing “than be his echo.”]
I lament with a contrition too deep for groan-
ing every sacrifice of truth to fat good-nature,
and not less those where Custom has insensibly
produced a great alteration in a well-founded
opinion. I am thankful that I was permitted
to write — in his bereavement, that I lacked
sympathy with the character of his wife. If I
praise her virtues, he will now believe me.
An obscure and slender thread of truth runs
through all mythologies, and this might lead often
to highest regions of philosophy. Isis and Osiris.
Eros and Anteros. A singular correspondence
is also to be remarked in the fables themselves.
“Old Knurre Murre is dead,”: seems only a
1 The peasant, in the tale, going home in the night, hears
. a voice say : -
“ Hie home, Goodman Platt,
Tell thou the gib-cat,
That steals buttermilk out of the buttermilk vat,
That old Knurre Murre is dead."


1834] PERSONS. JESUS. LIGHT 413
travestie of “ The great god Pan is dead," in
Pythian oracles.
A few persons, three or four, perhaps, are to
Burns what nations and races and long chroni-
cles of annals are to Gibbon, and often it may be
suspected that Shakspeare tacks the name of
Rome or France upon traits to which he had
more truly given the name of Nicholas Bacon or
John Sylvester.
ever
How beautiful are the feet of him that bringeth
good tidings, that publisheth Salvation! Forever
graceful in every unperverted eye are the acts
of Jesus of Nazareth, the man who believed in
moral nature and therefore spake; who came not
in his own name.
There is no object in nature which intense
light will not make beautiful, and none which
loses beauty by being nearer seen.
It is a thin partition that divides the house-
breaker and the hero; him that, in the conven-
ticle, bawls Glory! and the philosopher who
muses in amazement.
Only an inventor that knows how to borrow.


414
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
Knowledge transfers the censorship from the
Statehouse to the reason of every citizen and
compels every man to mount guard over him-
self, and puts Shame and Remorse for sergeants
and maces.
December 27.
We say every truth supposes or implies every
other truth. Not less true is it that every great
man does in all his nature point at and imply the
existence and well-being of all the institutions
and orders of a state. He is full of reverence.
He is by inclination (though far remote in posi-
tion) the defender of the grammar school, the
almshouse, the Christian Sabbath, the priest, the
judge, the legislator, and the executive arm.
Throughout his being is he loyal. Such was
Luther, Milton, Burke; each might be called an
aristocrat, though by position the champion of
the people.
Bacon never mentions Shakspear nor Spen-
ser, though often very inferior Latin and Greek
poets. Milton's praise of Shakspear is most un-
equal to the subject, and Jonson's much more.
Milton, in his turn, was not seen by his contem-
poraries, and was valued most as a scholar.


1834] POETRY. CHRISTIANITY 415
Tasso, Dante, Michel Angelo make no figure in
Milton's estimate.
Everything may be painted, everything sung,
but, to be poetized, its feet must be just lifted
from the ground.
Snow and moonlight make all landscapes
alike.
I
I believe the Christian religion to be pro-
foundly true; true to an extent that they who
are styled its most orthodox defenders have
never, or but in rarest glimpses, once or twice in
a lifetime, reached.
I, who seek to be a realist, to deny and put off
everything that I do not heartily accept, do yet
catch myself continually in a practical unbelief
of its deepest teachings.
It taught, it teaches the eternal opposition of
the world to the truth, and introduced the abso-
lute authority of the spiritual law. Milton appre-
hended its nature when he said, “For who is
there almost that measures wisdom by simplic-
ity, strength by suffering, dignity by lowliness?”
That do I in my sane moments, and feel the


416
JOURNAL
(AGE 31
ineffable peace, yea and the influx of God, that
attend humility and love, - and before the cock
crows, I deny him thrice.
“ There's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes
it so.”
A friend once told me that he never spent any-
thing on himself without deserving the praise
of disinterested benevolence.
Saturday night.
There is in every man a determination of
character to a peculiar end, counteracted often
by unfavorable fortune, but more apparent, the
more he is left at liberty. This is called his
genius, or his nature, or his turn of mind. The
object of Education should be to remove all
obstructions, and let this natural force have free
play and exhibit its peculiar product. It seems
to be true that no man in this is deluded. This
determination of his character is to something
in his nature; something real. This object is
called his Idea. It is that which rules his most
advised actions, those especially that are most
his, and is most distinctly discerned by him in
those days or moments when he derives the sin-
cerest satisfaction from his life. It can only be
cere


CU-
1834) EACH MAN'S IDEA 417
indicated by any action, not defined by anything
less than the aggregate of all his genuine actions;
perhaps then only approximated. Hence the
slowness of the ancients to judge of the life be-
fore death. “Expect the end.” It is most accu-
rately denoted by the man's name, as when we
say the Scipionism of Scipio;'or,“There spoke
the soul of Cæsar.” The ancients seem to have,
expressed this spiritual superintendence by repre-
senting every human being as consigned to the
charge of a Genius or Dæmon by whose counsels
he was guided in what he did best, but whose
counsels he might reject.
“Heathen philosophers taught that whosoever
would but use his ear to listen might hear the
voice of his guiding Genius' ever before him,
calling, and, as it were, pointing to that way
which is his part to follow.” Milton, vol-
ume i.
December 28.
Whenever I open my eyes, I read that every-
thing has expression, a mouth, a chin, a lock of
hair, the lappet of a coat, a cream-pot, a tree, a
stone, the crimp or plait of a cap. So much I
1 Yet, later, Mr. Emerson used to smile at the poverty-
stricken newspaper reporters, who often wrote of his last even-
ing's discourse: “ The lecture was — well — Emersonian.”


418
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
concede to the physiognomist and craniologist.
At the same time I see well enough how differ-
ent is the expression of a pink ribbon upon one
and upon another head. But ah! the pink rib-
bons of clouds that I saw last eve in the sunset,
modulated with tints of unspeakable softness,
and the air meantime had so much vivacity and
sweetness that it was a pain to come indoors.
Charles saw the same flecks of cloud and lik-
ened them to gold fishes. Had they no expres-
sion? Is there no meaning in the live repose
which that amphitheatre of a valley behind
Ball's Hill reflects to my eye, and which Ho-
mer or Shakspeare could not re-form for me in
words? The leafless trees become spires of flame
in the sunset, with the blue East for their back-
ground, and the stars of the dead calices of flow-
ers, and every withered stem and stubble rimed
with frost, with all their forms and hues contrib-
ute something to the mute music."
Rather let me be" a pagan suckled in a creed
outworn ” than cowardly deny or conceal one
particle of my debt to Greek art, or poetry, or
i The last half of this paragraph, though printed in Na-
Ture, is refreshing among the philosophic speculations, and in
form more local than in the book.


1834) OUR DEBT TO GREECE 419
virtue. Certainly I would my debt were more,
but it is my fault, not theirs, if 'tis little. But
how pitiful if a mind enriched and infused with
the spirit of their severe yet human Beauty,
modulating the words they spake, the acts they
did, the forms they sculptured, every gesture,
every fold of the robe; especially animating the
biography of their men with a wild wisdom and
an elegance as wild and handsome as sunshine;
the brave anecdotes of Agesilaus, Phocion, and
Epaminondas; the death of Socrates, that holy
martyr, a death like that of Christ; the purple
light of Plato which shines yet into all ages, and
is a test of the sublimest intellects — to receive
the influences, however partial, of all this, and to
speak of it as if it were nothing, or, like a fool,
underpraise it in a sermon, because the worship-
pers are ignorant, and incapable of understand-
ing that there may be degrees and varieties of
merit, and that the merit of Paul shall not be
less because that of Aristotle is genuine and great,
- I call that mean-spirited, if it were Channing
or Luther that did it.
Be it remembered of Milton, who drank
deeply of these fountains, that, in an age and as-
sembly of fierce fanatics, he drew as freely from
these resources and with just acknowledge-
resources


420
JOURNAL
[Age 31
ment, as from those known and honored by
his party :-
« His soul was like a star and dwelt apart.”
ar
If I were called upon to charge a young minis-
ter, I would say Beware of Tradition : Tradition
which embarrasses life and falsifies all teaching.
The sermons that I hear are all dead of that ail.
The preacher is betrayed by his ear. He begins
to inveigh against some real evil, and falls un-
consciously into formulas of speech which have
been said and sung in the church some ages, and
have lost all life. They never had any but when
freshly and with special conviction applied. But
you must never lose sight of the purpose of help-
ing a particular person in every word you say.
Thus, my preacher summed the deaths of the
past year, and then reminded the bereaved that
these were admonitions of God to them, etc.,
etc. Now all these words fell to the ground. They
are Hamlet's“ many As-es of great charge”; mere
wind. He ought to have considered whether it
were true, as his ear had always heard, to be
sure without contradiction, that deaths were
admonitions. By enumerating in his mind the
persons that would be included in this address,
he would quickly perceive that there was great


1834) TRADITIONAL SERMONS 421
disparity in the cases. Many had mourned, but
were not now mourners; that some of the deaths
were to the survivors desirable; some quite in-
different; that some of the survivors were per-
sons of that habitual elevation of religious view
as to have just views of death and so were above
this prose. Others were of such manifold busi-
ness or preoccupation of mind as that any death
must occupy but a subordinate place in their
thoughts, and if anywhere the words might be
spoken with strict propriety, they were yet so
general as not likely to strike that ear. I am pro-
lix on this instance, yet the fault is obvious to
a discerning ear in almost every sentence of
the prayers and the sermons that are ordinarily
heard in the church. Not so with Edward Tay-
lor,' that living Methodist, the Poet of the
church. Not so with the Swedenborgians, if
their pulpit resembles their book.
December 29.
A critic pronounced that Wordsworth was a
good man, but no poet. “Ah!” said one pre-
sent, “ you know not how much poetry there is
in goodness!”
i “Father” Taylor, the ex-seaman and powerful preacher
of the Sailors' Bethel at the North End of Boston.


422
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
Charles says he has four stomachs, like a
camel, and what law he reads in the morning he
puts into the first stomach till evening; then
it slides into the second.
Every truth is a full circle.
“He made himself of no reputation.” The
words have a divine sound.
: To the music of the surly storm that thickens
the darkness of the night abroad, and rocks the
walls and fans my cheek through the chinks and
cracks,' I would sing my strain, though hoarse
and small. Yet, please God, it shall be lowly,
affectionate and true. It were worth trial whether
the distinction between a spiritual and traditional
religion could not be made apparent to an ordi-
nary congregation. There are parts of faith so
1 Mr. Emerson occupied the northwest second-story cham- '
ber of the Manse. There he worked upon Nature, which he
had alluded to in his journal at sea (September 5) as a book
already begun, but it was not published until September, 1836.
Hawthorne, when he temporarily occupied the house some ten
years later, wrote the Mosses from an Old Manse there. In
the south gable of the third story is a little room, known as
the Saints' Chamber, which from early days gave hospitality
to ministers and scholars.


Inc!
1834) THE MANSE. SPIRIT 423
great, so self-evident, that when the mind rests
in them the pretensions of the most illuminated,
most pretending sect pass for nothing. When I
rest in perfect humility, when I burn with pure
love, what can Calvin or Swedenborg say to
me?
But to show men the nullity of church-going
compared with a real exaltation of their being, I
think might even promote parish objects and
draw them to church. To show the reality, and
infinite depth of spiritual laws, that all the max-
ims of Christ are true to the core of the world;
that there is not, can't be, any cheating of na-
ture, might be apprehended.
Every spiritual law, I suppose, would be a
contradiction to common sense. Thus I should
begin with my old saws, that nothing can be
given; everything is sold ; love compels love;
hatred, hatred; action and reaction always are
equal; no evil in society but has its check which
coexists; the moral, the physical, the social
world is a plenum, and any flood in one place
produces equal ebb in another; nothing is free
but the will of man, and that only to procure his
own virtue: on every other side but that one he
beats the air with his pompous action; that pun-
ishment not follows but accompanies crime.


424
JOURNAL
(AGE 31
They have said in churches in this age, “Mere
Morality.” O God, they know thee not who
speak contemptuously of all that is grand. It is
the distinction of Christianity, that it is moral.
All that is personal in it is nought. When any-
one comes who speaks with better insight into
moral nature, he will be the new gospel ; mira-
cle or not, inspired or uninspired, he will be the
Christ; persons are nothing. If I could tell you
what you know not; could, by my knowledge of
the divine being, put that within your grasp which
now you dimly apprehend, and make you feel
the moral sublime, you would never think of
denying my inspiration. The whole power of
Christianity resides in this fact, that it is more
agreeable to the constitution of man than any
other teaching. But from the constitution of
man may be got better teaching still.
Morality requires purity, but purity is not it;
i Compare, in « Worship” (Conduct of Life): “ Men
talk of mere morality' – which is much as if one should
say, Poor God with nobody to help him.'” Also in “ The
Sovereignty of Ethics" (Lectures and Biographical Sketches):
“Mere morality' means — not put into a personal master
of morals.”
2 Mr. Emerson, in the Journal, here makes a written
reference to the entry, on the 9th August previous, about the
« Jewish sermon” that he heard that Sunday.


1834)
“MERE MORALITY”
425
<
requires justice, but justice is not that; requires
beneficence, but is something better. Indeed
there is a kind of descent and accommodation
felt when we leave speaking of Moral Nature
to urge a virtue it enjoins. For to the soul in
her pure action all the virtues are natural, and
not painfully acquired. Excite the soul, and it
becomes suddenly virtuous. Touch the deep
heart, and all these listless, stingy, beef-eating
bystanders will see the dignity of a sentiment;
will say, This is good, and all I have I will give
for that. Excite the soul, and the weather and
the town and your condition in the world all
disappear; the world itself loses its solidity,
nothing remains but the soul and the Divine
Presence in which it lives. Youth and age are
indifferent in this presence.
“Overturn, overturn, and overturn,” said our
aged priest, "until he whose right it is to reign,
shall come into his kingdom.”
The great willow tree over my roof is the
trumpet and accompaniment of the storm and
gives due importance to every caprice of the gale,
and the trees in the avenue announce the same
facts with equal din to the front tenants. Hoarse
rse


426
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
concert: they roar like the rigging of a ship in a
tempest.
The Unitarian preacher who sees that his
Orthodox hearer may with reason complain that
the preaching is not serious, faithful, authorita-
tive enough, is by that admission judged. It is
not an excuse that he can with clearness see the
speculative error of his neighbor. But when a
man speaks from deeper convictions than any
party faith, when he declares the simple truth,
he finds his relation to the Calvinist or Metho-
dist or Infidel at once changed in the most agree-
able manner. He is of their faith, says each.
It is really a spiritual power which stopped
the mouths of the regular priests in the presence
of the fervent First Quaker and his friends. If
the dead-alive never learned before that they do
not speak with authority from the Highest, they
learn it then, when a commissioned man comes,
who speaks because he cannot hold back the
message that is in his heart. Certainly I read
a similar story respecting Luther; that the
preacher's heart, stout enough before, mis-
gave him when he perceived Luther was in the
audience.
The height of virtue is only to act in a firm


1834] VIRTUE'S ELEGANCE 427
belief that moral laws hold. Jesus and Saint Paul
and Socrates and Phocion believed, in spite of
their senses, that moral law existed and reigned,
and so believing, could not have acted otherwise.
The sinner lets go his perception of these laws,
and then acts agreeably to the lower law of the
senses. The logic of the sinner and of the saint
is perfect. There is no flaw in either Epicurean-
ism or Stoicism.
Does not Aristotle distinguish between Tem-
perance for ends and Temperance for love of
temperance ? Each of these virtues becomes
dowdy in a sermon. They must be practiced
for their elegance; the virtuous man must be a
poet and not a drudge of his virtues, to have
them perfect. If he could by implication perform
all the virtues, that is, not aim to be temperate,
nor aim to be honest, nor aim to be liberal, but
in his lofty piety be all three without knowing
it, then is he the good moralist. The Ecclesi-
astical dogma of “Faith, not Works” is based
on this truth.
Jesus believed in moral nature, and he did not
come in his own name. (When a preacher does
not say he comes in his own name, he generally
looks it, or speaks it plainer than by words.)
OV
in
n


428
(Age 31
JOURNAL
AUTHORS OR BOOKS QUOTED OR REFERRED TO
IN JOURNAL FOR 1834
[In this list, and hereafter, those standard authors, Mr. Emerson's fa-
vorites, that appear nearly every year, will be omitted in the list of his
reading or references, namely: -
Homer, Plato, Plutarch, Virgil, Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, Montaigne,
Bacon, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Donne, Her-
rick, Herbert, Milton, Sir Thomas Browne, Jeremy Taylor, Pascal, George
Fox, Locke, Newton, Fénelon, Young, Pope, Johnson, Swedenborg, Pitt,
Hume, Burke, Gibbon, Stewart, Jeffrey, Mackintosh, De Gérando, De
Staël, Wordsworth, Scott, Landor, Coleridge, Byron, Napoleon.]
Empedocles ; Vyasa ; Plotinus'; Hermes Trismegistus ;
Sheking (Chinese) ; Arabian Proverbs ;
Dante, Paradiso ; Petrarch ; Machiavelli ;
John Barbour, Bruce;
Michel Angelo's Poems, apud Signor Radici in Retrospec-
tive Review ; Vasari's Life of, apud Library of Useful Know-
ledge ;
Luther, apud Coleridge, Table Talk;
Earl of Rochester ; Swammerdam;
Gilbert White, Natural History of Selborne ; Linnæus,
Metamorphosis of Plants; Oberlin ; Erasmus Darwin ; Fried-
rich Augustus Wolf;
Goethe, Tag und Jahres Hefte, Entsagen ; Schiller, Wal-
lenstein, apud Coleridge ; Novalis (Friedrich von Harden-
berg) ; Reginald Heber ;
Brougham, Practical Observations on the Education of the
People ; Spurzheim, View of the Elementary Process of Edu-
cation ; Robert Dale Owen, Outline of the System of Educa-
tion at New Lanark;
Dr. Jacob Bigelow, Plants of the Vicinity of Boston;
Humboldt ;
Mrs. Barbauld, The Brook; Tennyson, Dirge ; Béranger,
Chansons ;
Carlyle, Characteristics;
Edinburgh and Retrospective Reviews.


JOURNAL
THE NEW HOME IN CONCORD
MARRIAGE TO LIDIAN JACKSON
CHARLES EMERSON
COURSE OF LECTURES IN BOSTON
ALCOTT
PREACHING IN EAST LEXINGTON


JOURNAL XXVI
1835
(From Journal B)
“To think is to act "
Concord, January 6, 1835.
No doubt we owe most valuable knowledge to
our conversation, even with the frivolous; yet
when I return, as just now, from more than
usual opportunities of hearing and seeing, it
seems to me that one good day here is worth
more than three gadding days in town. Sunday
I went for the first time to the Swedenborg
Chapel. The sermon was in its style severely
simple, and in method and manner had much the
style of a problem in geometry, wholly uncol-
oured and unimpassioned. Yet was it, as I told
Sampson Reed, one that, with the exception of a
single passage, might have been preached with-
out exciting surprise in any church. At the op-
posite pole, say rather in another Zone from this
hard truist, was Taylor,' in the afternoon, wish-
i Rev. Edward Taylor.


18351 - FATHER TAYLOR
431
ing his sons a happy new year, praying God for
his servants of the brine, to favor commerce, to
bless the bleached sail, the white foam, and
through commerce to Christianize the universe.
“May every deck,” he said, “ be stamped by the
hallowed feet of godly captains, and the first
watch and the second watch be watchful for the
Divine light.” He thanked God he had not been
in Heaven for the last twenty-five years, — then
indeed had he been a dwarf in grace, but now he
had his redeemed souls around him. And so he
went on, — this poet of the sailor and of Ann
Street, — fusing all the rude hearts of his audi-
tory with the heat of his own love, and making
the abstractions of philosophers accessible and
effectual to them also. He is a fine study to the
metaphysician or the life philosopher. He is
profuse of himself; he never remembers the
looking-glass. They are foolish who fear that
notice will spoil him. They never made him,
and such as they cannot unmake him; he is a
real man of strong nature, and noblest, richest
lines on his countenance. He is a work of the
same hand that made Demosthenes and Shak-
spear and Burns, and is guided by instincts di-
viner than rules. His whole discourse is a string
of audacious felicities harmonized by a spirit of


432
JOURNAL (Age 31
joyful love. Everybody is cheered and exalted
by him. He is a living man and explains at once
what Whitefield and Fox and Father Moody
were to their audiences, by the total infusion of
his own soul into his assembly, and consequent
absolute dominion over them. How puny, how
cowardly, other preachers look by the side of
this preaching! He shows us what a man can
do. As I sat last Sunday in my country pew,
I thought this Sunday I would see two living
chapels, the Swedenborg and the Seamen's, and
I was not deceived.
January 7.
Bitter cold days, yet I read of that inward
fervor which ran as fire from heart to heart
through England in George Fox's time. How
precisely parallel are the biographies of religious
enthusiasts — Swedenborg, Guyon, Fox, Luther,
and perhaps Boehmen. Each owes all to the dis-
covery that God must be sought within, not
without. That is the discovery of Jesus. Each
perceives the worthlessness of all instruction, and
the infinity of wisdom that issues from medita-
tion. Each perceives the nullity of all conditions
but one, innocence; the absolute submission
which attends it. All becomes simple, plain in
word and act. Swedenborg and the Quakers
COV


1835] INFLUENCE OF JESUS 433
have much to say of a new name that shall be
given in heaven.
The most original writer feels in every sen-
tence the influence of the great writers who have
established the conventions of composition ; and
the religious Revolution effected by Jesus Christ
insensibly or avowedly models each of these
succeeding reforms. The boldest vision of the
prophet communing with God only, is confined
and coloured and expressed according to the
resistless example of the Jewish.
Luther's jocularity and learning give him the
most reputation for sanity. The Quaker casts
himself down a passive instrument of the Su-
preme Reason, and will not risque silencing it
by venturing the coöperation of his Under-
standing. He therefore enacts his first thought,
however violent or ludicrous, nor stays to con-
sider whether the purport of his vision may not
be expressed in more seemly and accustomed
forms.
January 8.
There is an elevation of thought from which
things venerable become less, because we are in
the presence of their Source. When we catch
one clear glimpse of the moral harmonies which
accomplish themselves throughout the everlast-


434
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
ing Now and throughout the omnipresent Here,
how impertinent seem the controversies of the-
ologians. God is before us, and they are wran-
gling about dead gods. What matters it whether
theinspiration was plenary or secondary; whether
this or that was intended by the prophet; whether
Jesus worked a miracle or no; if we have access
inwardly to the almighty and all-wise One In-
spirer of all prophecy, container of all Truth and
Sole Cause of Causes? All the Godhead that was
in either of those ages, in either of those men,
was the perception of these resplendent laws
which, at this very moment, draw me, at the
same time that they outrun and overwhelm my
faculties. The Teacher that I look for and await
shall enunciate with more precision and uni-
versality, with piercing poetic insight those beau-
tiful yet severe compensations that give to moral
nature an aspect of mathematical science. He
will not occupy himself in laboriously reani-
mating a historical religion, but in bringing men
to God by showing them that he is, not was,
and speaks, not spoke.
January 9.
The only true economy of time is to rely
without interval on your own judgment. Keep
the eye and ear open to all impressions, but


1835) TRUST THE SPIRIT 435
deepen no impression by effort, but take the
opinion of the Genius within, what ought to
be retained by you, and what rejected by you.
Keep, that is, the upright position. Resign
yourself to your thoughts, and then every ob-
ject will make that mark, that modification of
your character which it ought. This were better
advice to a traveller than Sir Henry Wotton's,
“Il viso sciolto, i pensieri stretti.": All your time
will be lived; the journey, the dinner, the wait-
ing, will not need to be subtracted.
“The spirit of prophecy is the witness of
Jesus.” Madame Guyon's incapability to speak
before the captious is Swedenborg's inability to
utter what is not believed, a “ though they folded
their lips to indignation.” Prayer is—is it not?
- the forcible subjugation for the time of the
Understanding to the Reason.
I wrote in my last blotting book that we need
a theory of interpretation or Mythology. How
true a picture is Prometheus....
I Open countenance and secret thoughts.
2 Said of the angels.
3 The substance of what follows in the MS. is omitted, as
printed in “ History,” Essays I, p. 31, Centenary Edition.


436 . . JOURNAL
(AGE 31
There are some occult facts in human nature
that are natural magic. The chief of these is,
the glance (æillade). The mysterious communi-
cation that is established across a house between
two entire strangers, by this means, moves all
the springs of wonder. It happened once that a
youth and a maid beheld each other in a public
assembly for the first time. The youth gazed
with great delight upon the beautiful face until
he caught the maiden's eye. She presently be-
came aware of his attention, and something like
correspondence immediately takes place. The
maid depressed her eyes that the man might gaze
upon her face. Then the man looked away, that
the maiden might gratify her curiosity. Presently
their eyes met in a full, searching, front, not to be
mistaken glance. It is wonderful how much it
made them acquainted. The man thought that
they had come nearer together than they could
by any other intercourse in months. But he felt
that by thatglance he had been strangely baulked.
The beautiful face was strangely transformed.
He felt the stirring of owls and bats and horned
hoofs, within him. The face, which was really
beautiful, seemed to him to have been usurped
by a low devil, and an innocent maiden, for so
she still seemed to him, to be possessed. And


1835) A GLANCE. ILLUSIONS. 437
that glance was the confession of the devil to his
inquiry. Very sorry for the poor maiden was the
man, and when the assembly separated, and she
passed him as a stranger in the crowd, her form
and feet had the strangest resemblance to those of
some brute animal. It is remarkable too that the
spirit that appears at the windows of the house
does at once, in a manner, invest itself in a new
form of its own to the mind of the beholder.'
se
January 12.
Truth is beautiful. Without doubt; and so
are lies. I have no fairer page in my life's album
than the delicious memory of some passages at
Concord on the Merrimack when affection con-
trived to give a witchcraft surpassing even the
deep attraction of its own truth to a parcel of ac-
cidental and insignificant circumstances. Those
coach wheels that rolled into the mist and dark-
ness of the July morning. The little piazza, a
piece of silk, the almshouse, the D girl, and
such other things, which were not the charm,
have more reality to this groping memory than
the charm itself which illuminated them.
1 Two or three sentences of the above paragraph were
printed, years later, in the essay “ Behaviour" in Conduct of
Life.


438. JOURNAL [AGE 31
« Passing sweet
Are the remains of tender memory.”
Be assured there is as deep a wisdom in em-
broidered coats and blue and pink ribbons, as
in truth and righteousness.'
Is it not the stupendous riches of man's na-
ture that gives an additional delight to every
new truth? When I read a problem, I would be
a geometer; poetry, a poet; history, a historian;
sermons, a preacher; when I see paintings, I
would paint; sculpture, carve; and so with all
things, the manifold soul in me vindicates its
acquaintance with all these things. Similar de-
light we have in the admirable artist's, soldier's,
or sailor's life. We individuate ourselves with
him, and judge of his work. What is this but
our first ride round our estate to take possession,
promising ourselves withal, after a few visits
more, to have an insight and give a personal
direction to all the affairs that go on within our
domain, which is the All?
January 13...
“Our very sign-boards show there has been
a Titian in the world.” Do you think that Aris-
1 In “ Love,” Essays II, pp. 174, 175, these memories
are expressed in a less personal form.


1835] EACH CAN HELP ALL 439
totle benefits him only who reads the Ethics
and the Rhetoric? Or Bacon, or Shakspear, or
the Schools, those only who converse in them?
Far otherwise; these men acted directly upon
the common speech of men and made distinc-
tions which, as they were seen to be just by all
who understood them, were rigidly observed as
rules in their conversation and writing; and so
were diffused gradually as improvements in the
vernacular language. Thus the language thinks
for us, as Coleridge said.
Also Simeon the Stylite is not quite useless
to me, nor Danton, nor Robespierre, nor Rabe-
lais, nor Aretin. And the merest speculatists —
Plotinus and Dante — act most intensely on me.
Fine sketch of the life of Descartes in Cousin.
The student at his first course of philosophical
lectures looks wistfully at every knob and ball
and glass rod or cylinder, as menacing him with
the occult energies which they are about to dis-
close to their compeller.
I think I will read for a Lyceum lecture the
three deaths of Phocion, Socrates and Sir Thomas
More. Perhaps the martyrdom of Sir John Cob-
ham in Southey’s Book of the Church might serve
as a fourth.


440
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
My friend Mr. — will be a good minister
“When it shall please the Lord
To make his people out of board."
It is a great happiness when two good minds
meet, both cultivated and with such difference
of learning as to excite each the other's curiosity,
and such similarity as to understand each other's
allusions in the Touch-and-go of conversation.
They make each other strong and confident. ...
The unspoken part of this conversation is the
most valuable. How many secrets that have
puzzled us for years are then told, and with
most unexpected issues. You may find, for ex-
ample, that the reason of your friend's superi-
ority in power arises, strangely enough, not from
a defect, but a superfluity in your constitution.
Far, very far from envy is this free commu-
nication. A mutual respect rejoices them both.
Coöperation, and not exclusiveness is the
fruit.
The great value of Biography consists in the
perfect sympathy that exists between like minds.
Space and time are an absolute nullity to this
principle. Anaction of Luther's that I heartily ap-
prove do I adopt also. We are imprisoned in life


1835]
SPIRITUAL HELPERS
441
in the company of persons painfully unlike us,
or so little congenial to our highest tendencies,
and so congenial to our lowest, that their influ-
ence is noxious, and only now and then comes
by us some commissioned spirit that speaks as
with the word of a prophet to the languishing,
nigh dead faith in the bottom of the heart, and
passes by, and we forget what manner of men
we are. It may be that there are very few per-
sons at any one time in the world who can ad-
dress with any effect the higher wants of men.
This defect is compensated by the recorded
teaching and acting of this class of men. Soc-
rates, St. Paul, Antoninus, Luther, Milton
have lived for us as much as for their contem-
poraries, if by books or by tradition their life
and words come to my ear. We recognise with
delight a strict likeness between their noblest
impulses and our own. We are tried in their trial.
By our cordial approval we conquer in their
victory. We participate in their act by our
thorough understanding of it. And thus we be-
come acquainted with a fact which we could not
have learned from our fellows, that the faintest
sentiments which we have shunned to indulge
from the fear of singularity are older than the
oldest institutions,—are eternal in man; that


442
JOURNAL
[Age 31
we can find ourselves, our private thoughts, our
preferences, and aversions, and our moral judge-
ments perhaps more truly matched in an ancient
Lombard, or Saxon, or Greek, than in our own
family.
roar
It is a beautiful fact in human nature that the
roar of separating oceans, no, nor the roar of
rising and falling empires, cannot hinder the ear
from hearing the music of the most distant
voices ; that the trumpet of Homer's poetry yet
shrills in the closet of the retired scholar across
three thousand years; that the reproof of Soc-
rates stings as like the bite of a serpent, as it did
Alcibiades. These affinities atone to us for the
narrowness of our society, and the prison of our
single lot, by making the human race our soci-
ety, and the vast variety of human fortune the
arena of actions on which we, by passing judge-
ment, take part. History, taken together, is as
severely moral in its teaching as the straitest re-
ligious sect. And thus we are fortified in our
moral sentiments by a most intimate presence
of sages and heroes.
Pythagoras is said (falsely, I suppose) to have
declared that he remembered himself to have
existed before, under the name of Euphorbus,
arena


1835]
DISGUISED GODS 443
at the siege of Troy. Which of us who is much
addicted to reading but recognizes his own say-
ing or thinking in his favorite authors ?
January 14.
Apollo kept the flocks of Admetus, said the
priests; another significant fable. Every man is
an angel in disguise, a god playing the fool. It
seems as if Heaven had sent its insane angels
into our world as an asylum, and here they will
break out into rare music and utter at intervals
the words they have heard in Heaven, and then
the mad fit returns and they mope and wallow
like dogs. When the gods come among men
they are not known. Jesus was not. Socrates
and Shakspear were not."
My thoughts tame me. Proud may the bard
be among his fellow men, but when he sits wait-
ing his inspiration he is a child, humble, reverent,
watching for the thoughts as they flow to him
from their unknown source. The moment of
inspiration,- I am its reverent slave. I watch
and watch and hail its aurora from afar.”
i The first sentence in this paragraph and the concluding
ones are printed in “ History," Essays I.
2 Cf. “The Poet,” Poems, Centenary Edition, p. 313.


444
JOURNAL
(Age 31
January 15.
Saw the morn rise from the hilltop, but could
not wait for the sun. Those long slender bars of
cloud swim like fishes in the sea of crimson light.
Nor am I ashamed to be
A lover of that silent sea.'
My grandfather William Emerson left his
parish and joined the Northern army, in the
strong hope of having great influence on the
men. He was bitterly disappointed in finding
that the best men at home became the worst in
the camp, vied with each other in profanity,
drunkenness and every vice, and degenerated as
fast as the days succeeded each other, and in-
stead of much influence, he found he had none.'
This so affected him that when he became sick
with the prevalent distemper, he insisted on
taking a dismission, not a furlough, and, as he
died on his return, his family lost, it is said, a
major's pension.
i Here follows the passage in Nature, “ Beauty,” • How
does Nature deify us,” etc.
2 Mr. Emerson did not take into account that his uni-
formly brave and hopeful grandfather had, when he wrote the
letter on which this paragraph is based, the poison of mortal dis-
ease already working in his blood; hence his depression.


1835] COURTESY. PLYMOUTH 445
We are all glad of warm days, they are so eco-
nomical, and in the country in winter the back
is always cold."
January 16.
The whole of heraldry is in courtesy. A man
of fine manners can pronounce your name in
his conversation with all the charm that ever
“My Lord” or “Your Highness ” or “Your
Grace” could have had to your ear.
VE
er
January 23.
Home again from Plymouth, with most
agreeable recollections.
Some thoughts lost. The C- s and
B- s can finish their sermon, the man of
genius cannot, because they write words and
pages which are finite things and can be num-
bered and ended at pleasure; he writes after
nature, which is endless. His work, therefore,
when it is best concluded, he sees to be only
begun. May I say without presumption that,
like Michel Angelo, I only block my statues.
Mr. Hoar, in the coach, said of Judge Mar-
shall “ that if his intellects failed, he could lose
as much as would furnish brains to half a dozen
1 The modern reader must remember that open fires were
the sole dependence for warmth.


446
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
common men, before common men would find
it out.”
It is one of the laws of composition that, let
the preparation have been how elaborate, how
extended soever, the moment of casting is yet
not less critical, not the less all-important mo-
ment on which the whole success depends.
Ichabod Morton at Plymouth said that he
did not, in dealing with his brother, look very
sharply to his own interest or mind the loss of
a few dollars. He wished to treat all men in the
same way.
January 30.
I spent at Plymouth with Lydia Jackson.
February 2.
Let Christianity speak ever for the poor and
the low. Though the voice of society should
demand a defence of slavery, from all its organs,
that service can never be expected from me.
My opinion is of no worth, but I have not a
syllable of all the language I have learned, to
utter for the planter. If by opposing slavery I
go to undermine institutions, I confess I do not
wish to live in a nation where slavery exists. The


1835)
SLAVERY
447
life of this world has but a limited worth in my
eyes, and really is not worth such a price as the
toleration of slavery. Therefore — therefore —
though I may be so far restrained by unwilling-
ness to cut the planter's throat as that I should
refrain from denouncing him, yet I pray God
that not even in my dream or in madness may
I ever incur the disgrace of articulating one
word of apology for the slave-trader or slave-
holder.
Yesterday, had I been born and bred a
Quaker, I should have risen and protested
against the preacher's words. I would have said
that in the light of Christianity is no such thing
as slavery. The only bondage it recognizes is
that of sin.
Clytemnestra, in Sophocles, thinks herself too
violently reproved by her daughter. Electra
answers, —
«'T is you that say it, not I; you do the deeds,
And your ungodly deeds find me the words.”
The childhood shows the man,
As morning shows the day.
Paradise Regained.
“Nothing great was ever achieved without
enthusiasm.”


448
JOURNAL (AGE 31
February 11.
It needs to say something, they tell me, of
the French Revolution. Why, yes, I believe
that it has been advantageous on the whole. I
very readily seek and find reasons for any such
proposition, because whilst I believe that evil
is to be hated and resisted and punished, at least
forcibly hindered, yet offences must needs come,
and out of them comes good as naturally and
inevitably as the beautiful flower and the nour-
ishing fruit out of the dark ground. I believe
that the tendency of all thought is to Optimism.
Now for the French Revolution. I believe, in
the first place, that it would be an advantage,
though we were not able to point out a single
benefit that had flowed thence, and were able to
show many calamities. I should still incline to
think that we were too near to judge, like a sol-
dier in the ranks who is quite unable, amid the
din and smoke, to judge how goes the day, or
guess at the plan of the engagement.
If I could see no direct good which it had
occasioned, I should still say, See what great
lessons it has taught the governor and the sub-
ject. It has taught men how surely the relaxing
of the moral bands of society is followed by
cruelty. It taught men that there was a limit


1835] MILTON, BURNS, BRYANT 449
beyond which the terrors of a standing army
and of loyal association could not avail; that
there was a limit beyond which the patience, the
fears of a down-trodden people could not go.
February 14.
Grand is that word of Milton in his letter to
Diodati excusing his friend for not writing to
him, “ for though you have not written, your
probity writes to me in your stead.”
Well said the wise aunt to-day, “Elizabeth
grows on one; she is capable of humility; her
manners to the obscure are without fault.”.
February 16.
If Milton, if Burns, if Bryant, is in the world,
we have more tolerance, and more love for the
changing sky, the mist, the rain, the bleak, over-
cast day, the indescribable sunrise and the im-
mortal stars. If we believed no poet survived on
the planet, nature would be tedious.
February 25.
On visits. If I had anything to say to you,
you would find me in your house pretty quick.
i Miss Elizabeth Hoar, always regarded as a sister by Mr.
Emerson because of her engagement to his brother Charles.


450
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
asse
I looked upon trades, politics, and domestic life
as games to keep men amused and hinder them
from asking cui bono? until their eyes and minds
are grown. Then came Edward's tragic verses,'
and I thought we give full leave to the poor man
and to the parting man to feel bitterness; but
not less bitter (though we give them no allow-
ance) are the sad farewells of the realist amidst
home, friends, and wealth.
March 17.
Many days give me marine recollections, as
to-day. It is because when the wind is loud and
the air clear, the great masses of cloud move so
fast as to suggest immediately their vicinity to
the sea. The wind blowing from the west, they
must reach the coast, and shade the sea in an
hour. Instantly, therefore, comes up before the
eye the cold blue sea gathered up into waves all
rippled and scored over with wind-lines, and a
few sail scudding on their several tracks, though
scarce seen to move over the broad black circle.
But nature is a picture - frame which fits
equally well a comic or a mourning piece.
Taylor in the preface to this healthful poem,
Van Artevelde, says that sense must be the
1 - The Last Farewell,” which Mr. Emerson printed with
his own poems.


1835] SENSE UNDER POETRY 451
basis of all consummate poetry. It is well and
truly said. We have almost a theory of Shak-
spear, the wonder of Shakspear is almost dimin-
ished, when we say, Strong sense is the staple
of his verse, because what is to be accounted
for, is the extent of the man; that he could cre-
ate not one or two, but so manifold classes and
individuals, and each perfect. But we are quite
familiar with the expertness and power of men
of sense in every new condition, and this expe-
rience supplies us with a just analogy.
March 18.
“Beauty with the ancients was the tongue on
the balance of expression,” said Winckelmann.
What meant he? Answer: -
Beauty no other thing is than a beam
Flashed out between the middle and extreme.
HERRICK.
Hunc solem et stellas, et decedentia certis
Tempora momentis, sunt qui formidine nulla
Imbuti spectant.
HORACE.
March 19.
As I walked in the woods I felt what I often
feel, that nothing can befal me in life, no ca-


452
JOURNAL
(AGE 31
lamity, no disgrace (leaving me my eyes) to
which Nature will not offer a sweet consolation.
Standing on the bare ground with my head
bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into the
infinite space, I become happy in my universal
relations. The name of the nearest friend sounds
then foreign and accidental. I am the heir of
uncontained beauty and power. And if then I
walk with a companion, he should speak from
his Reason to my Reason; that is, both from
God. To be brothers, to be acquaintances, mas-
ter or servant, is then a trifle too insignificant
for remembrance.' O, keep this humor, (which
in your life-time may not come to you twice,)
as the apple of your eye. Set a lamp before it
in your memory which shall never be extin-
guished.
I think Taylor's poem’ is the best light we
have ever had upon the genius of Shakspear.,
! We have made a miracle of Shakspear, a haze
of light instead of a guiding torch, by accepting
unquestioned all the tavern stories about his
want of education and total unconsciousness.
The internal evidence all the time is irresistible
1 Part of this paragraph occurs in Nature, chapter i.
2 Philip Van Artevelde.


as a m
1835] SHAKSPEAR. SACRIFICE 453
that he was no such person. He was a man, like
this Taylor, of strong sense and of great culti-
vation; an excellent Latin scholar, and of exten-
sive and select reading, so as to have formed his ·
theories of many historical characters with as
much clearness as Gibbon or Niebuhr or Goethe.
He wrote for intelligent persons, and wrote with
intention. He had Taylor's strong good sense,
and added to it his own wonderful facility of
execution which aerates and sublimes all lan-
guage the moment he uses it, or, more truly,
animates every word.
n
V
I ought to have said in my wood-thoughts
just now, that there the mind integrates itself
again. The attention, which had been distracted
into parts, is reunited, reinsphered. The whole
of nature addresses itself to the whole man. We
are reassured. It is more than a medicine. It is
health.
In talking, weeks ago, with M. M. E. I was
ready to say that a severest truth would forbid
me to say that ever I had made a sacrifice. That
which we are in healthy times seems so great
that nothing can be taken from us that seems
much. I loved Ellen, and love her with an affec-


454
JOURNAL
(AGE 31
tion that would ask nothing but its indulgence
to make me blessed. Yet when she was taken
from me, the air was still sweet, the sun was not
taken down from my firmament, and however
sore was that particular loss, I still felt that it
was particular, that the universe remained to
us both, that the universe abode in its light
and in its power to replenish the heart with
hope.
Distress never, trifles never abate my trust.
Only this Lethean stream that washed through
us, that gives sometimes a film or haze of unre-
ality, a suggestion that, as C. said of Concord
society, “we are on the way back to Annihila-
tion,” — only this threatens my trust. But not
that would certify me that I had ever suffered.
Praise ! Praise and Wonder! And oft we feel
so wistful and babe-like that we cannot help
thinking that a correspondent sentiment of
paternal pleasantry must exist over us in the
bosom of God.
March 19.
“ Spare the poor emmet, rich in hoarded grain;
He lives with pleasure, and he dies with pain.”
At Waltham they have 11,000 spindles ; at
Lowell, 200,000.


1835] ARGUMENT. ACT TRUTH 455
“The road that Luxury levels for the coach,
Industry may travel with his cart.”
E. B. E.
Through Nature's ample range in thought to stroll,
And start at man, the single mourner there.
Young.
Heaven kindly gives our blood a moral flow.
Young.
Landor writes that “no man ever argued so
fairly as he might have done.” And in a re-
flecting, highly cultivated society it seems as if
no man could ever be in a passion, or act with
a negligent, self-forgetting greatness. Can Web-
ster in the American Senate, for any conceivable
public outrage, scream with real passion? The
reporters say he did the other day. They did
not think so when they wrote it, and nobody
believes it was anything else than a fine, wise,
oratorical scream.
was
Never utter the truism, but live it among men
and by your fireside.
This rebellious Understanding is the incorri-
gible liar; convict him of perfidy, and he answers
you with a new fib. No man speaks the truth
or lives a true life two minutes together.
nswers


456
JOURNAL (Age 31
March 23.
There is no greater lie than a voluptuous book
like Boccaccio. Forit represents the pleasures of
appetite, which only at rare intervals, a few times
in a life-time, are intense, and to whose acme con-
tinence is essential, as frequent, habitual, and
belonging to the incontinent. ...
Settle it in your own mind that you must
choose between your own suffrage and other
people's. I used to think, all men use to think,
that you can have both; but you cannot. Se-
cure your own, and you shall be assured of others,
twenty years hence, but you must part with them
so long. Before this Reason with bright eternal
eyes, even merits that seem pure and saint-like
compared with practices and reputations of the
mob, are seen to be vulgar and vile. There are
merits calculated on shorter and longer periods;
better than those of the hour are the Benthamite
and the Calvinist, who keep the law all their life
for pay; but these dwindle before the incalculable
eternity which the lover of virtue embraces in
the present moment.
The virtue of the intellect consists in prefer-
ring work to trade. Brougham, Canning, Ev-
erett, convert their genius into a shop, and turn


1835] COMMON CONVERSATION 457
every faculty upside down that they may sell
well. Allston, Wordsworth, Carlyle, are smit
with the divine desire of creation, and scorn the
auctioneers. Now what you do for the shop is so
much taken from science.
R.' cannot eat sponge cake without a ram-
rod.
There is almost no earnest conversation, so
much of display enters into it. Put two people
of good condition together, the talk on one or
both parts will probably be merely defensive;
that is, they are not thinking how they may learn
something, but how they may come off well.
Change your parties, and perhaps you excite
the ambition of each speaker to say something
brilliant, to leave a good opinion of himself.
Ordinarily men do not exchange thoughts and
converse in method, that is, advancing. One
goes East, the other West. The preacher goes
among his people, the professor among his
scholars, and finds an universal admiration of his
sermons or lessons; but the first word they speak
on the general subject shows him that these dis-
courses never penetrated farther than the ears.
1 Dr. Ripley, who always refused it without this adjunct.


458
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
They have a sort of instinctive respect for his train
of thought and the profession which belongs to
it, but they live in another train of thought that
in particulars flatly contradicts his. And when
he thinks a perfect understanding is obtained, he
finds the whole battle remains to be fought. Did
you ever take part in a conversation which ad-
vanced? Commonly it is merely pastime. They
circulate round point-no-point. Each remains
fast in his own aura and not once do they com-
municate.
re
Dr. H., Mr.B., Mr. S., Mr. I., the most power-
ful men in our community, have no theory of
business that can stand scrutiny, but only bubble
built on bubble without end. They skate so fast
over a film of ice that it does not break under
them. It seems, when you see their dexterity in
particulars, as if you could not overestimate the
resources of good sense, and when you find how
utterly void they are of all remote aims, as if
you could not underestimate their philosophy.
Cannot a man contemplate his true good so
steadily as to be willing to renounce all thirst for
display, and make all his doings tentative, im-
perfect, because aiming ever at truth and perfec-
tion lying out of himself; instead of tricking out


1835) SECTS. ORACLES
459
what trifles he has picked up and disposing them
to advantage in little popular poems or conver-
sations or books? I think he had better live in
the country, and see little society, and make him-
self of no reputation.
Sects fatten on each other's faults. How many
people get a living in New England by calling
the Unitarians prayerless, or by showing the
Calvinists to be bigots. Hallett feeds on the
Masons, and McGavin on the Catholics. The
poor man that only sees faults in himself will
die in his sins. Charles thinks the Unitarians
pursue a low, conservative policy. The high, the
generous, the self-devoted sect will always in-
struct and command mankind.
Ivin
ose
It is because I am such a bigot to my own
whims, that I distrust the ability of a man who
insists much on the advantage to be derived from
literary conversazione. Alone is wisdom. Alone
is happiness. Society nowadays makes us low
spirited, hopeless. Alone is heaven.
March 26.
The wild delight runs through the man, in
spite of real sorrows. Nature says, He is my
creature, and spite of all his impertinent griefs


460
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
he shall be glad with me. Almost I fear to think
how glad I am.
I went by him in the night. Who can tell the
moment when the pine outgrew the whortleberry
that shaded its first sprout. It went by in the
night.
March 27.
He who writes should seek not to say what
may be said, but what has not been said that is
yet true. I will read and write. Why not? All
the snow is shovelled away, all the corn planted,
and the children and the creatures on the planet
taken care of without my help. But if I do not
read, nobody will. Yet am I not without my own
fears. Captain Franklin after six weeks' travel-
ling to the North Pole on the ice, found himself
two hundred miles south of the spot he set out
from: the ice had floated. And I sometimes start
to think I am looking out the same vocables in
the Dictionary, spelling out the same sentences,
solving the same problems. — My ice may float
also.
March 28.
If life were long enough, among my thousand
and one works should be a book of nature
whereof Howitt's Seasons should be not so


n-
1835] A BOOK OF NATURE 461
much the model as the parody. It should con-
tain the natural history of the woods around my
shifting camp for every month in the year. It
should tie their astronomy, botany, physiology,
meteorology, picturesque, and poetry together.
No bird, no bug, no bud, should be forgotten
on his day and hour. To-day the chickadees,
the robins, bluebirds and song-sparrows sang to
me. I dissected the buds of the birch and the
oak; in every one of the last is a star. The crow
sat above as idle as I below. The river flowed
brimful, and I philosophised upon this compo-
site, collective beauty which refuses to be ana-
lysed. Nothing is beautiful alone. Nothing but
is beautiful in the whole. Learn the history of
a craneberry. Mark the day when the pine cones
and acorns fall.
A wonderful sight is the inverted landscape.
Look at the prospect from a high hill through
your legs, and it gives the world a most picto-
rial appearance.
Saturn, they say, devoured his children,
thereby presignifying the man who thought, and
instantly turned round to see how his thoughts
were made: the hen that eats the egg.


462
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
March 29.
Certainly a man would be glad to do his
country service, but he cannot cram his service
down its throat. It is time enough if he come
when he is called. It is enough for him if he has
eyes to see, that he is infinite spectator, without
hurrying, uncalled, to be infinite doer. Let him
brood on his immortality, —
« For every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath."
He cannot look to work directly on men, but
obliquely. Few men bring more than one or
two points into contact with society at once ;
they must be content to influence it thereby.
Hereafter they may find more purchase.
We live and grow by use. If you sit down
to write, with weak eyes, and awaken your im-
agination to the topic, you will find your eyes
strong.
March 31.
The tree is a congeries of living vegetables ;
so it often seems as if man was a congeries of
living spirits, according to Goethe's monadism.
One of them looks to see what another does.
Many dissimilar things are done with like ear-
nestness.


1835] DREAMS. THE ROOM-MATE 463
The robin hóps about in the field as if he was
waiting for somebody — hop, hop, hop — and
then stops again.
ce
The dreams of an idealist have a poetic in-
tegrity and truth. Their extravagance from na-
ture is yet within a higher nature, and terrible
hints are thrown to him out of a quite unknown
intelligence. I have been startled two or three
times by the justice as well as the significance
of the intimations of this phantasmagoria. Once
or twice the conscious fetters of the Spirit have
been unlocked and a freer utterance seemed
attained.
April 10.
I fretted the other night at the hotel at the
stranger who broke into my chamber after mid-
night, claiming to share it. But after his lamp
had smoked the chamber full and I had turned
round to the wall in despair, the man blew out
his lamp, knelt down at his bedside, and made
in low whisper a long earnest prayer. Then was
the relation entirely changed between us. I
fretted no more, but respected and liked him.
Coleridge said it was no decisive mark of
poetic genius that a man should write well con-


464
JOURNAL
(AGE 31
cerning himself. Is it not because the true
genius, the Shakspeare and Goethe, sees the tree
and sky and man as they are, enters into them;
whilst the inferior writer dwells evermore with
himself, “ twinkling restlessly”?
A man is seldom in the upright position two
moments together, but when he is, let him re-
cord his observations and they shall be fit for
“ the Spiritual Inquirer.”
Le Baron Russell has visited me and shown
me the stars. Hither came G.,'as usual appearing
as if bestridden by a restless and invisible rider.
II
April 11.
Glad to hear music in the village last evening
under the fine yellow moon; it sounds like cul-
tivation, domestication. In America, where all
are on wheels, one is glad to meet with a sign of
adorning our own town. It is a consecration, a
beautifying of our place. A bugle, clarionet and
flute are to us a momentary Homer and Milton.
Music is sensuous poetry.
1 Dr. Le Baron Russell of Plymouth, later of Boston, a
friend of Mr. Emerson's through life. G. is Mr. George P.
Bradford.


1835] IDEA OF GOD CHANGES 465
April 12.
The gods make those men very bad who talk
much about them, says Landor's Cyrus. It must
be owned that the Idea of God in the human
mind is a very changing luminary. Sometimes
seen; never quite unremembered; often quite
hidden, to the degree that the Spirit asks, Is there
any? But the moral sentiments are immutable.
Was there ever a moment in your life when you
doubted the existence of the Divine Person? Yes.
Was there ever a moment in your life when you
doubted the duty of speaking the truth? No.
Then is one mutable, the other immutable.
[Here follows the passage on the dark hours
of life, found in the opening paragraph of“ The
Tragic,” first printed in the Dial (see Natural
History of Intellect).]
A man feels that his time is too precious, the
objects within reach of his spirit too beautiful,
than that his attention should stoop to such dis-
figurements, as Antimasonry, or Convent Riots,
or General Jackson and the Globe. Yet welcome
would be to him the principle out of which these
proceed, for all the laws of his being are beauti-
ful. This Translation the wise is ever making.


466
JOURNAL
(AGE 31
• “Already my opinion has gained infinitely in
force when another has adopted it.” This is the
reason why a writer appears ever to so much
more advantage in the pages of another man's
book than in his own. Coleridge, Wordsworth,
Schelling are conclusive, when Channing or
Carlyle or Everett quotes them, but if you take
up their own books, then instantly they become,
not lawgivers, but modest, peccable candidates
for your approbation.
LANGUAGE OF NATURE
No man ever grew so learned as to exhaust
the significance of any part of nature. Nature
never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flow-
ers, the animals, the mountains reflected all the
wisdom of his best hour as much as they had
delighted the simplicity of his childhood.
April 14.
“ Ne te," etc. Every man is a wonder until
you learn his studies, his associates, his early
acts and the floating opinions of his times, and
then he developes himself as naturally fro
point as a river is made from rills. Burke's
tions are but the combination of the An
i Ne te quæsiveris extra.


m
1835] IDEALIZE BRAVELY 467
Register, which he edited, with the “Inquiry.on
the Sublime and Beautiful,” which he wrote at
the same time. Swedenborg is unriddled by
learning the theology and philosophy of Con-
tinental Europe in his youth. Each great doc-
trine is then received by the mind as a tally of
an Idea in its own reason, and not as news.
Rev.Dr. F. consoled my father on his death-
bed by telling him he had not outlived his teeth,
etc., and bid my mother expect now to be neg-
lected by society.
April 16.
This “snow in summer,” which falls so fast
to-day, is like a wound from a friend. Dr. Rip-
ley calls it “robin-snow.”
Why must always the philosopher mince his
words and fatigue us with explanation ? He
speaks from the Reason, and being, of course,
contradicted word for word by the Understand-
ing, he stops like a cog-wheel at every notch to
explain. Let him say, I idealize, and let that be
once for all; or, I sensualize, and then the Ra-
tionalist may stop his ears. Empedocles said
bravely, “I am God; I am immortal; I con-
temn human affairs ”; and all men hated him.


468
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
Yet every one of the same men had had his re-
ligious hour when he said the same thing.
Fable avoids the difficulty, is at once exo-
teric and esoteric, and is clapped by both sides.
Plato and Jesus used it. And History is such
a fable.
Plato had a secret doctrine, — had he? What
secret can he conceal from the eyes of Mon-
taigne, of Bacon, of Kant?
Let the imaginative man deny himself and
stick by facts. As a man must not bring his
children into company naked, and must not
bring more children into the world than he can
clothe, so the idealist must retain his thoughts
until they embody themselves in fit outward
illustrations.
A court house is a good place to learn the
limits of man. The best counsel are not orators,
but very slovenly speakers; to use Mr. War-
ren's fine apology for Baylies, “they spread
their ability over the whole argument, and have
not strong points.” The interminable sentences
of Mr. H., clause growing out of clause “like
the prickly pear,” as Charles said, reminded me


1835) ABOLITION ELOQUENCE 469
of nothing so much as certain vestry prælections.
But in the court house the worth of a man is
gauged.'
sore
An advantage shines on the Abolition side,
that these philanthropists really feel no clog,
no check from authority — no discord, no sore
place in their own body which they must keep
out of sight or tenderly touch. People just out
of the village, or the shop, reason and plead like
practised orators, such scope the subject gives
them, and such stimulus to their affections. The
Reason is glad to find a question which is not,
like Religion or Politics, bound around with so
many traditions and usages that every man is
forced to argue unfairly, but one on which he
may exhaust his whole love of truth, — his
heart and his mind. This is one of those causes
which will make a man. Never is a good cause
in facts long at loss for an ideal equipment."
i Concord was a shire-town until 1858, when the courts
were transferred to Lowell, and the sessions of the Supreme
Court once a year, and of the Court of Common Pleas three
times a year, drew a large attendance from the neighborhood
to hear the leaders of the Bar.
2 Mr. Emerson used to say (or quote), “ Eloquence is dog-
cheap at an Antislavery Chapel.”


470
JOURNAL (AGE 31
It was alarming to see the lines of sloth in so
many faces in the court house; the flame of life
burns very dim. The most active lives have so
much routine as to preclude progress almost
equally with the most inactive.
“Je défie un cœur comme le vôtre d'oser
mal penser du mien,” writes Rousseau to Dide-
rot.
April 19.
It is a happy talent to know how to play.
Some men must always work if they would be
respectable; for the moment they trifle, they
are silly. Others show most talent when they
trifle. Be it said of W. that his excess of rever-
ence made it impossible for him to realize ever
that he was a man; he never assumed equality
with strangers, but still esteemed them older
than himself, though they were of his own age
or younger. He went through life postponing
his maturity and died in his error.'
April 22.
I have made no record of Everett's fine Eu-
logy at Lexington on the 20th, but he is all art,
and I find in him nowadays, maugre all his gifts
i This passage seems to be a veiled allusion to himself.


1835) EVERETT AND WEBSTER 471
and great merits, more to blame than praise. He
is not content to be Edward Everett, but would
be Daniel Webster. This is his mortal distem-
per. Why should such a genius waste itself?
Have we any to spare? ... Daniel Webster,
Nature's own child, sat there all day and drew
all eyes. Poor Everett ! for this was it that you
left your own work, your exceeding great and
peculiar vocation, the desire of all eyes, the
gratitude of all ingenuous scholars - to stray
away hither and mimic this Man, that here and
everywhere in your best and (for work) unsur-
passed exertions, you might still be mere sec-
ondary and satellite to him, and for him hold a
candle?
Webster spoke at the table few and simple
words, but from the old immoveable basis of
simplicity and common natural emotion to which
he instinctively and consciously adheres.
“We only row; we're steered by fate.”
The involuntary education is all. See how we
are mastered. With the desire of dogmatising,
here we sit chatting. With desire of poetic repu-
tation, we still prose. We would be Teachers,
but in spite of us we are kept out of the pul-
pit, and thrust into the pew. Who doth it? No


472
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
man: only Lethe, only Time; only negatives ;
indisposition ; delay; nothing.
On the same auspicious morning I received a
letter from Carlyle the wise, the brave, and his
intimations of a visit to America, which purpose
may God prosper and consummate !
Better a great deal have friends full grown
before they are made acquainted, like Moody
and Webster; they have the pleasant surprise of
the bare result; a man meets a man. What fact
is more valuable than the difference of our
power alone and with others.'
April 23.
The order of things consents to virtue. Such
scenes as luxurious poets and novelists often
paint, where temptation has a quite overcom-
ing force, never or very rarely occur in real
life.
It is very hard to know what to do if you
have great desires for benefitting mankind; but
a very plain thing is your duty. It may be sus-
pected then that the depth of wisdom and the
height of glory is there. Self-Union, - never
risk that. Neither lie, nor steal, nor betray,
1 Here follows the passage on the happy flow of a letter to
a friend. See first page of " Friendship,” Essay I.
scenes
a
us-


1835) RICHTER. MAGIC MANTLE 473
for you violate consciousness. Nothing is self-
evident but the commandments of conscious-
ness.
“The limbs of my buried ones,” etc. I dislike
the bad taste of almost everything I have read
of Jean Paul; this scrap forinstance: Shakspear
never said these hard artificial things.
We think we are approaching a star. I fear it
is a nebula. At least individual aims are very
nebulous.
May 1.
Cloudy and cold: is not May morning sure
to be?
May 9.
Spin out your web to the end of your yarn.
Ten rivers stream from your finger ends.
A frost this morn.
If what you have read in newspapers you had
read in good books, how much would you know?
May 11.
A foolish German fairy tale, The Short Man-
tle, which I read in English long years ago,
made my cheeks glow again and almost the
gracious drops fall at the triumph of the chaste


474
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
and gentle Genelas.' Very docile we are to such
pretty tales, but to verify them in our own
chaste life and simple spiritual excellence very
slow indeed.
It is a fine flattery to tell your friend he is a
singular mind, an incalculable person.
I am disqualified by hearing this strife con-
cerning Goethe from judging truly of his genius.
He is that which the intelligent hermit supposes
him to be, and can neither be talked up nor
talked down.
We are all wise for other people, none for
himself. That wise Fessenden told me never to
have two related ideas without putting them on
paper.
Genius seems to consist merely in trueness
of sight, in using such words as show that the
man was an eye-witness, and not a repeater of
what was told. Thus, the girl who said “the
1 This story is found in many forms. In the Fabliau du
Mantel Mal Taillé, the hero's name is Venelas. See also
“ The Boy and the Mantle” in Percy's Reliques and Child's
collection of Ballads.


1835] HARD TIMES. PREACHER 475
earth was a-gee;" Lord Bacon when he speaks of
exploding gunpowder as “a fiery wind blowing
with that expansive force,” etc.— these are poets.
car
Hard Times. In this contradictory world of
truth the hard times come when the good times
are in the world of commerce; namely, sleep,
full eating, plenty of money, care of it, and lei-
sure; these are the hard times. Nothing is doing,
and we lose every day.
The young preacher is discouraged by learn-
ing the motives that brought his great congre-
gation to church. Scarcely ten came to hear his
sermon. But singing, or a new pelisse, or Cousin
William, or the Sunday School, or a proprietors'
meeting after church, or the merest anility in
Hanover Street, were the beadles that brought
and the bolts that hold his silent assembly in the
church. Never mind how they came, my friend,
never mind who or what brought them, any
more than you do who or what set you down in
Boston in 1835. Here they are, real men and
women, - fools, I grant, but potentially divine,
every one of them convertible. Every ear is
yours to gain. Every heart will be glad and
proud and thankful for a master.
a
1


476
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
There where you are, serve them and they must
serve you. They care nothing for you, but be to
them a Plato; be to them a Christ, and they shall
all be Platos, and all be Christs.
May 13.
Do believe so far in your doctrine of Com-
pensation as to trust that greatness cannot be
cheaply procured. Self-denial and persisting self-
respect can alone secure their proper fruits.
Act naturally, act from within, not once or
twice, but from month to month, without mis-
giving, without deviation, from year to year,
and you shall reap the costly advantages of
moral accomplishments. Make haste to re-
concile you to yourself, and the whole world
shall leap and run to be of your opinion. Im-
prison that stammering tongue within its white
fence until you have a necessary sentiment or a
useful fact to utter, and that said, be dumb
again. Then your words will weigh something,
- two tons, like St. John's.
What a benefit if a rule could be given whereby
the mind could at any moment East itself, and
find the sun. But long after we have thought we
were recovered and sane, light breaks in upon us
and we find we have yet had no sane moment.
Another morn rises on mid-noon.


1835) TRUE MEN. ADVANCE 477
Who is capable of a manly friendship? Very
few. Charles thinks he can count five persons
of character; and that Shakspear and the other
writers of the first class infused their character
into their works and hence their rank. We feel an
interest in a robust healthful mind, an Alfred,
Chaucer, Dante, which Goethe never inspires.
The truest state of mind, rested in, becomes
false. Thought is the manna which cannot be
stored. It will be sour if kept, and to-morrow
must be gathered anew. Perpetually must we
East ourselves, or we get into irrecoverable error,
starting from the plainest truth and keeping as
we think the straightest road of logic. It is by
magnifying God, that men become Pantheists ;
it is by piously personifying him, that they be-
come idolaters.
As the world signified with the Greek, Beauty,
so skepticism, alas! signifies sight. Not in his
goals but in his transition man is great.
DCC
See the second aphorism of the Novum Orga-
num, that neither the hand nor the mind of man can
accomplish much without tools, etc., etc. : “nec
intellectus sibi permissus, multum valet.” This
is the defence of written or premeditated preach-


478
JOURNAL
[AGE 31
ing, of the written book, of the composed poem.
No human wit unaided is equal to the pro-
duction at one time of such a result as the
Hamlet or Lear, but by a multitude of trials
and a thousand rejections and the using and
perusing of what was already written, one of
those tragedies is at last completed — a poem
made that shall thrill the world by the mere
juxtaposition and interaction of lines and sen-
tences that singly would have been of little
worth and short date. Rightly is this art named
Composition, and the composition has manifold
the effect of the component parts. The orator
is nowise equal to the evoking on a new sub-
ject of this brilliant chain of sentiments, facts,
illustrations, whereby he now fires himself and
you. Every link in this living chain he found
separate; one, ten years ago; one, last week;
some of them he found in his father's house, or
at school when a boy; some of them by his
losses; some of them by his sickness; some by
his sins. The Webster with whom you talk ad-
mires the oration almost as much as you do, and
knows himself to be nowise equal, unarmed, that
is, without this tool of Synthesis, to the splendid
effect which he is yet well pleased you should
impute to him.


479
1835)
COMPOSITION
No hands could make a watch. The hands
brought dry sticks together, and struck the flint
with iron, or rubbed sticks for fire, and melted
the ore, and with stones made crowbar and ham-
mer; these again helped to make chisel and file,
rasp and saw, piston and boiler, and so the
watch and the steam-engine are made, which the
hands could never have produced, and these
again are new tools to make still more recondite
and prolific instruments. So do the collated
thoughts beget more, and the artificially com-
bined individuals have in addition to their own
a quite new collective power. The main is made
up of many islands, the state of many men, the
poem of many thoughts, each of which, in its
turn, filled the whole sky of the poet, was day
and Being to him.
May 14.
There is hardly a surer way to incur the cen-
sure of infidelity and irreligion than sincere faith
and an entire devotion. For to the common eye,
pews, vestries, family prayer, sanctimonious
looks and words constitute religion, which the
devout man would find hindrances. And so we
go, trying always to weld the finite and infinite,
the absolute and the seeming, together. On the
contrary, the manner in which religion is most


480
(AGE 31
JOURNAL
e
positively affirmed by men of the world is
bare-faced skepticism. When I write a book
on spiritual things I think I will advertise the
reader that I am a very wicked man, and that
consistency is nowise to be expected of me.
When will you mend Montaigne? When will
you take the hint of nature? Where are your
Essays? Can you not express your one con-
viction that moral laws hold? Have you not
thoughts and illustrations that are your own;
the parable of geometry and matter; the reason
why the atmosphere is transparent; the power
of composition in nature and in man's thought;
the uses and uselessness of travelling; the law
of Compensation; the transcendent excellence
of truth in character, in rhetoric, in things; the
sublimity of self-reliance; and the rewards of
perseverance in the best opinion? Have you
not a testimony to give for Shakspear, for Mil-
ton? one sentence of real praise of Jesus, is worth
a century of legendary Christianity. Can you
not write as though you wrote to yourself, and
drop the token, assured that a wise hand will
pick it up?
I recorded worse things in my Italian Jour-
nal than one I omitted ; that a lady in Palermo


1835] STRANGE COURTESY 481
invited me to come and ride out with her in her
barouche, which I did, though the day was rainy
and so the coach was covered. She did not in-
vite me to dine, so I made my obeisance, when
on our return I had waited upon her into the
house; then I walked home through a drench-
ing rain in a city where I was an entire stran-
ger, but not until I had paid her coachman my
half dollar who way laid me on the stairs. To as
fat an understanding as mine I cannot but think
it might have occurred, that, to send the guest
home or to pay one's servants, would really be
a finer compliment. But it is a good specimen
of the misery of finery.
Address your rede to the young American,
and know that you hook to you all like minds
far or near, whether you shall know them or
not. And remember Brutus.
Im
“Pberecydes Syrus primus dixit animos hominum
esse sempiternos.” Cicero, Tusc. Quest. lib. 1, c. 16.
The chapter on Optical Delusions in our life-
time is very large. How many times have we
resolved not to be again deceived by one and
the same!


482
[AGE 31
JOURNAL
1 Commerce, which vulgarises great things, will
x never quite degrade for the poet the miracle of the
letter which floats round the globe in a pine ship
and comes safe to the eye for which it was writ.'
se
rs 0
Good story Squire Adams told here of coun-
tryman travelling between day and sunrise, and
seeing the locomotive and its train of cars on
the railroad. He saw the smoke and the wheels,
his horse was frightened, ran, turned over the
wagon, and broke it; and he crawled to a house
for help. They asked him what had happened.
He could not well tell what, but that it looked
like hell in harness.
Trifles move us more than laws. Why am I
more curious to know the reason why the star
form is so oft repeated in botany, why the num-
ber five is such a favorite with Nature, than to
understand the circulation of the sap and the
formation of buds?? Those two wonders of
electro-magnetism and the polarisation of light
have also a peculiar interest.
i See “ Prudence” in Essays I, p. 236, Centenary Ed.
2 Why Nature loves the number five
And why the star-form she repeats.
Poems, “Woodnotes I."


1835]
HERRICK
483
May 16.
Robert Herrick delights in praising Ben Jon-
son, and has many panegyrical pieces to others,
and in one copy of verses praising many, Beau-
mont and Fletcher and others, yet never drops
the name of Shakspear. 'Tis like the want of
the statues of Cassius and Brutus in the funeral
of Junia,“ Eo ipso præfulgebant, quod non vise-
bantur.” Herrick's merit is the simplicity and
manliness of his utterance, and only rarely the,
weight of his sentences. He has, and is con-
scious of having, a noble idiomatic use of his
English, a perfect plain-style from which he can
at any time soar to a fine lyric delicacy, or de-
scend to the coarsest sarcasms without losing his
firm footing. But this power of speech was ac-
companied by an assurance of fame. A similar
merit is that of the American Hillhouse, though
no approach to Herrick's wealth.
Sarcasmer of sple. As
so
c
Landor thinks that a knowledge of poetry is
reserved for some purer state of sensation and
existence.
The observation of a mere observer is more
unsuspicious than that of a theorist. I ought to
have no shame in publishing the records of one
who aimed only at the upright position, more


484
JOURNAL
(AGE 32
anxious that the thing should be truly seen than
careful what thing it was. As we exercise little
election in our landscape, but see for the most
part what God sets before us, I cannot but think
mere enumeration of the objects would be found
to be more than a catalogue, — would be a sym-
metrical picture, not designed by us, but by our
Maker, as when we first perceive the meaning
of a sentence which we have carried in the mem-
ory for years.
May 24.
Coincidences, dreams, animal magnetism,
omens, sacred lots, have great interest for some
minds.' ...
May 29.
In your Rhetoric, notice that only once or
twice in history can the words “ dire” and “tre-
mendous” fit.
He weakens who means to confirm his speech
by vehemence, feminine vehemence.
пе
“A tremendous faculty, that of thinking on
one's legs” is a newspaper description of elo-
i Here follows the long paragraph, beginning thus, in
“Demonology," originally printed in the Dial. See Lec-
tures and Biographical Sketches.


1835] PHENOMENAL SPEAKING 485
quence; and this is a tolerable use of the word
noticed above.
as
At the Sunday School meeting, G. P. B. re-
marked that his measure of a good speech was
the desire it imparted to himself to speak, and
open the suggestions of the man on the floor.
Mr. L- spoke, and the eminent propriety
of his manner answered to the audience the
same purpose as if he had said something. All
people agreed it was a good speech. Yet is not
nature cheated, for these men accomplish no-
thing. Their effect is as merely phenomenal as
their work.
Add to G. P. B.'s remark just now, our fre-
quent experience of receiving intellectual activ-
ity from an acting mind. I read, two days since,
verses of Eliot, the poet, which filled me with
desire to write, with faith in the art.
Now he will render a service to his country-
men who in these days will patiently collect
the experiences of this kind and so write rules
for the discipline of the intellect. Could you
show me how in every torpid hour I could wake
to full belief and earnest labor, O give me the
recipe. Better yet : could you point me to the
divine page of Cudworth, Plato, Bacon, Herbert,


486
JOURNAL [AGE 32
Carlyle, Michel Angelo, or of Paul, or of God
in nature, where I could find a timely restora-
tion of my reason under the insanity of pas-
sion, do that, and the joy of a Saviour shall be
yours.
Happy the wit or dunce; but hard
Is it to be half a bard.
May 30.
The ideal philosophy is much more akin to
virtue than to vice. When the mountains begin
to look unreal, the soul is in a high state, yet
in an action of justice or charity things look
solid again.
I am convinced that we are very much in-
debted to each other for stimulus, and for such
confirmation to our own thoughts that we ven-
ture to try them in practice, a step we should
have long postponed but for that seconding.
ore
June 1.
In this age of seeming, nothing can be more
important than the opening and promulgation
of the gospel of Compensations to save the land.
The men who put manner for matter at our
public meetings should learn that they have lost
their time. The man who mistakes his profes-


1835] BEING, NOT SEEMING 487
sion, the Scholar who takes his subject from dic-
tation and not from his heart, should know that
he has lost as much as he seems to have gained.
And when the vain speaker has sat down, and
the people say “what a good speech!” it still
takes an ounce to balance an ounce. Societies
as well as individuals are bubbles. But nature
cannot be cheated. That only profits which is
profitable. Life alone can impart life, and though
we burst, we can only be valued as we make our-
selves valuable.
The irresistible conclusion of your chapter on
Compensation should be, Therefore, the Devil
is an Ass.
Levi Woodbury occupies the position once
filled by Alexander Hamilton; Jackson that of
Washington ; Isaac Hill is a member of the Sen-
ate as much as Daniel Webster. But does any
one living imagine that this equal nominal stand-
ing makes the standing of these men identical?
It is perfectly well known both to Washing-
ton and to Jackson the gulf that is between them;
and likewise to Hamilton and to Woodbury;
and likewise to Webster and to Hill.
Mr. Allston would build a very plain house
and have plain furniture, because he would hold


488
[AGE 32
JOURNAL
out no bribe to any to visit him who had not
similar tastes to his own — a good ascetic.
measure
Sir Henry Wotton said of Sidney that “his
wit was the measure of congruity.”
June 4.
It seems as if every sentence should be pre-
fixed with the word True, or Apparent, to indi-
cate the writer's intention of speaking after that
which is, or that which seems. Thus, truly, our
power increases exactly in the measure that we
know how to use it, but apparently, Andrew
Jackson is more powerful than John Marshall.
In Heaven, utterance is place enough. Heaven
is the name we give to the True State, the world
of Reason, not of the Understanding; of the
Real, not the Apparent. It exists always, whether
it is ever to be separated from the Hell or not.
It is, as Coleridge said, another world, but not to
come. The world I describe is that, where only
the laws of mind are known; the only economy of
time is saying and doing nothing untrue to self.'
Knowledge is hard to get and unsatisfying
when gained. Knowledge is a pleasing provoca-
1 The passage about being the Devil's child, in “ Self-
Reliance” (Essays I) follows this.


1835) THE FIRST PHILOSOPHY 489
tion to the mind beforehand, and not cumber-
some afterwards.
Am I true to myself? then nations and ages
do guide my pen, then I perceive my commis-
sion to be coeval with the oldest causes.
an
June 1o.
Aristotle Platonizes. Cudworth is like a cow
in June which breathes of nothing but clover
and scent-grass. He has fed so entirely on an-
cient bards and sages that all his diction is redo-
lent of their books. He is a stream of Corinth-
ian brass in which gold and silver and iron are
molten together out of ancient temples.
I endeavor to announce the laws of the First
Philosophy. It is the mark of these that their
enunciation awakens the feeling of the moral
sublime, and great men are they who believe in
them. Every one of these propositions resem-
bles a great circle in astronomy. No matter in
what direction it be drawn, it contains the whole
sphere. So each of these seems to imply all truth.
Compare a page of Bacon with Swift, Chester-
field, Lacon,' and see the difference of great and
1 A book of maxims, by Charles Caleb Colton, 1820.


490
[AGE 32
JOURNAL
less circles. These are gleams of a world in which
we do not live: they astonish the understanding.
са
June 16.
Books. Blessed art and blessed instruments
of pen, ink and paper that hold fast the repre-
sentatives of the related thoughts. Here logic
holds, and between the major and minor of a syl-
logism cannot the mind whisk away because a
thrush flies out of a bush, or a smart Golden Se-
necio catches the eye, or an elegant lupine lifts
its blue spires in the path.
June 20.
The advantage in Education is always with
those children who slip up into life without be-
ing objects of notice. Happy then those who
are members of large families.
Literature. I asked in the woods, What I
would know of Homer, if the Edipus were
ready to reply. We would know whether in the
mind of his age were any radical differences from
ours? Whether they had an equivalent for our
organized morale? Whether we have lost by
Civilization any force, by Christianity any vir-
tue? Machinery encumbers. Homer is to us
nothing personal, merely the representative of


491
S
1835)
LANGUAGE
his time. I believe that to be his sincerest use
and worth. The most abstract questions are
really operating actively on men, though they
know it not, and the real interest that effervesces
in this love of literary gossip is a wise curiosity
in the human soul to know if our fellow is our
counterpart. I suppose we would most anxiously
know what is his moral sentiment, and not so
curiously inquire, whether he managed better
than we, with our fellow-beings — the sea, and
the land, the plants, the animals, fire, and light.
When we read a book in a foreign language,
we suppose that an English version of it would
be a transfusion of it into our own consciousness.
But take Coleridge or Bacon, or many an English
book besides, and you immediately feel that the
English is a language also, and that a book writ
in that tongue is yet very far from you, — [from]
being transfused into your own consciousness.
There is every degree of remoteness from the
line of things in the line of words. By and by
comes a word true and closely embracing the
thing. That is not Latin, nor English, nor any
language but thought. The aim of the author
is not to tell truth that he cannot do, but to
suggest it. He has only approximated it himself


492
[AGE 32
JOURNAL
CIS
many
and hence his cumbrous, embarrassed speech:
he uses many words, hoping that one, if not
another, will bring you as near to the fact as he
is. For language itself is young and unformed.
In heaven it will be, as Sampson Reed said, “one
with things.” Now, there are many things that
refuse to be recorded,- perhaps the larger half.
The unsaid part is the best of every discourse.
The good of publishing one's thoughts is
that of hooking to you like-minded men, and of
giving to men whom you value, such as Words-
worth or Landor, one hour of stimulated thought.
Yet, how few! Who in Concord cares for the
first philosophy in a book? The woman whose
child is to be suckled? The man at Nine-acre-
Corner who is to cart sixty loads of gravel on
his meadow? the stageman? the gunsmith? Oh,
no! Who then?
June 21.
Poetry preceded prose, as the form of sus-
tained thought, as Reason, whose vehicle poetry
is, precedes the Understanding. When you as-
sume the rhythm of verse and the analogy of
nature, it is making proclamation, “I am now
freed from the trammels of the Apparent; I
speak from the Mind.”


1835) WITTY SPEECH
493
June 22.
It is unpleasing to meet with those anomalous
wits who say brilliant things and yet have no
proportioned strength of mind; Chalmers, Ed-
ward Irving, Brougham, Randolph, or, more
frequently, talkers who impose upon us by the
vivacity or weight of single remarks, and when
you better know the speaker, ..
“ You wonder how the devil they got there.”
The more genius, usually, the more conformity
there is to the general model. But these seem
hybrids.
I wrote L.' that this speechmaking seems to
turn the man out of doors, to turn his timber
into flowers, and make him like unto Apicius
who sold his house, but kept the balcony to see
and be seen in.
IS
allore
U Aunt saith, “ The finest wits have their sedi-
ment.”
Some persons in Rhode Island saying to
George Fox, that, if they had money enough,
they would hire him to be their minister, he
1 Miss Jackson, to whom he was now engaged.


494
JOURNAL
[AGE 32
said, “Then it was time for him to be gone, for
if their eye was to him, or to any of them, then
would they never come to their own teacher."
June 24.
“Three silent revolutions in England; first,
when the professions fell from the church.
2. When literature fell from the professions.
3. When the press fell from literature.” COLE-
RIDGE.
m
.
In
I remembered to Charles to-night the Eng.
lish gentleman whom I saw in the cold hostelrie
at Simplon at the top of the mountain, and whose
manners so satisfied my eye. He met there un-
expectedly an acquaintance, and conversed with
him with great ease and affectionateness, and as
if totally unconscious of the presence of any other
company, yet with highbred air.
The self-existency of the gentleman is his best
mark. He is to be a man first, with original per-
ceptions of the true and the beautiful, and thence
should grow his grace and dignity. Then he is
God's gentleman and a new argument to the stoic.
“When I am purified by the light of heaven
my soul will become the mirror of the world, in


1835] UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE 495
which I shall discern all abstruse secrets." War-
ton quotes this, he says, from an ancient Turk-
ish poet. — History of English Poetry.
Books are not writ in the style of conversa-
tion. One might say they are not addressed to
the same beings as gossip and cheat in the street.
Neither are speeches, orations, sermons, aca-
demic discourse, on the same key of thought,
or addressed to the same beings. The man that
just now chatted at your side of trifles, rises in
the assembly to speak, and speaks to them col-
lectively in a tone and with a series of thoughts
he would never think of assuming to any one
of them alone. Because man's universal nature
is his inmost nature.
Idealism is not so much prejudiced by danger
as by inconvenience. In our speculative habits
we sometimes expect that the too solid earth will
melt. Then we cross the ocean sweltering, sea-
sick, reeling, week after week, with tar, harness-
tub, and bilge, and, as an ingenious friend says,
it is carrying the joke too far.
June 26.
If you would know what nobody knows, read
what every body reads, just one year afterwards,


496
(AGE 32
JOURNAL
and you shall be a fund of new and unheard-of
speculations.
The mystery of Humility is treated of by
Jesus, by Dante, by Chaucer in his Griselda,
by Milton and by Sampson Reed; or listen to
the discourse of a wise man to a crowd in a per-
fect conviction that nobody hears it but you.
June 27.
I wrote Hedge that good society seemed an
optical illusion that ought to be classed with
Bacon's Idols of the Cave. Carlyle affirms it has
ceased to exist. C. C. E. affirms that it has just
begun— Greek and Roman knew it not. To
me it seems that it is so steadily and universally
thwarted by death, sickness, removal, unfitness,
ceremony, or what not, that a design to hinder
it must be suspected. Every person is indulged
with an opportunity or two of equal and hearty
communication enough to show him his poten-
tial heaven. But between cultivated minds the
first interview is the best, and it is surprising in
how few hours the results of years are exhausted.
Besides, though it seem ungrateful to friends
whom the heart knoweth by name, yet the value
of the conversation is not measured according


1835] HISTORICAL DISCOURSE 497
to the wisdom of the company, but by quite other
and indefinable causes, the fortunate moods. 1
think we owe the most recreation and most mem-
orable thoughts to very unpromising gossips.
(I copied the above from memory.)
June 29.
George Fox's chosen expression for the God
manifest in the mind is the Seed. He means
that seed of which the Beauty of the world is the
Flower, and Goodness is the Fruit.
I replied this morning to the Committee that
I would do what I could to prepare a Histori-
cal Discourse for the Town Anniversary.' Yet
why notice it? Centuries pass unnoticed. The
Saxon king was told that man's life was like the
swallow that flew in at one window, fluttered
around, and flew out at another. So is this pop-
ulation of the spot of God's earth called Con-
cord. For a moment they fish in this river, plow
furrows in the banks, build houses on the fields,
mow the grass. But hold on to hill or tree never
so fast, they must disappear in a trice.?
1 The occasion was the celebration of the two hundredth
birthday of Concord, September 12, 1835.
2 Compare “Hamatreya” in Poems. The paragraph in


498
[AGE 32
JOURNAL
The contemplation of Nature is all that is fine.
Who can tell me how many thousand years,
every day, the clouds have shaded these fields
with their purple awning. The little river by
whose banks most of us were born, every win-
ter for ages has spread its crust of ice over the
great meadows which in ages it has formed. The
countless families that follow or precede man,
keep no jubilee, mark no era; the fly and the
moth in burnished armor, these little emigrants
travel fast, they have no baggage-wagon, all night
they creep; the ant has no provision for sleep.
The trees that surround us grew up in the days
of Peter Bulkeley. This first celebration from
that everlasting Past. The oaks that were then
acorns wave their branches in this morning's
wind. The little flower that at this season stars
the woods and roadsides with its profuse blooms
won the eye of the stern pilgrim with its humble
beauty. The maple grew red in the early frost
over those houseless men burrowing in the sand.
the journal which immediately follows occurs in the opening
passage of the “ Historical Address," but it is given here for
its beauty, and because the Discourse, though printed as a
pamphlet for the use of the citizens that year, was not in-
cluded in the Works until after Mr. Emerson's death. It is
found in the Miscellanies, Riverside and Centenary Editions.


1835] CONCORD'S BIRTHDAY 499
The mighty pine, yet untouched, towered into
the frosty air. And yet another kind of perma-
nence has also been permitted. Here are still
the names of the first fifty years. Here is Blood,
Willard, Flint, Wood, Barrett, Heywood, Hunt,
Wheeler, Jones, Buttrick. And if the name of
Bulkeley is wanting, the honor you have done
me this day shows your kindness for his blood.'
SS
July 1.
A windmill, so soon as it is far enough in the
landscape to look like a toy, is picturesque;
nearer it is disagreeable. The robin, like the
geranium family, wears sober colors. Charles
says that painting the vans red is adding insult
to injury."
“ There is scarce truth enough alive to make
societies secure,” says Shakspear in Measure
for Measure.
In the memory of the disembodied soul the
i Rev. Joseph Emerson, minister of Milton and after-
wards of Mendon, married Elizabeth, granddaughter of Peter
Bulkeley.
2 There was a windmill on the hill behind the Court
House on the road to the Manse.


500
JOURNAL [Age 32
days or hours of pure Reason will shine with a
steady light as the life of life, and all the other
days and weeks will appear but as hyphens which
served to join these.
July 2.
The distinction of science objective and sub-
jective I find in Norris's Ideal World.
Admirable passages quoted from St. Augus-
tine's De Libero Arbitrio, lib. ii : “And yet as
rich as thy furniture is, O City of God, thy
gates stand always open, free to all comers. For
thy immoveable wealth needs no guard, the
Exchequer of Light and Truth is secure against
all thievish attempts, and the treasures of wis-
dom, though common to all, can yet be rifled -
or carried away by none."
Norris's first volume was an unexpected de-
light this afternoon. He fights the battles and
affirms the facts I had proposed to myself to do.
But he falls, I so think, into the common error
of the first philosophers, that of attempting to
fight for Reason with the weapons of the Un-
derstanding. All this polemics and syllogism
and definition is so much waste paper, and Mon-
taigne is almost the only man who has never
lost sight of this fact.
IDOT


1835] LOCKE. ALCOTT. ART 501
1. Fuly 4.
Talked last eve. with George Bradford of
Locke, who, I maintained, had given me little.
I am much more indebted to persons of far less
name. I believe his service was to popularize
metaphysics, allure men of the world to its study,
if that indeed be a service. George gave a good
account of his friend Alcott, who is a consistent
spiritualist, and so expects the influence of Chris-
tianity into trade, government and arts.'
The arts languish now because all their scope
is exhibition; when they originated, it was to
serve the gods. ... The Catholic Religion has
turned them to continual account in its service.
Now they are mere flourishes. Is it strange they
perish? Poetry, to be sterling, must be more v
than a show; must have, or be, an earnest mean-
ing. Chaucer, Wordsworth; per contra Moore
and Byron.
I study the art of solitude: I yield me as
gracefully as I can to my destiny. Why cannot
one get the good of his doom, and since it is
from eternity a settled thing that he and society
shall be nothing to each other, why need he blush
1 The first mention of this valued friend.


502
(AGE 32
JOURNAL
so, and make wry faces and labor to keep up a
poor beginner's place, a freshman's seat in the
fine world?
One of the good effects of hearing the man
of genius is that he shows the world of thought
to be infinite again, which you had supposed
exhausted.
July 15.
Why do I still go to pasture where I never
find grass; to these actors without a purpose,
unless a poor mechanical one, these talkers with-
out method, and reasoners without an idea? At
the Divinity School this morning I heard what
was called the best performance, but it was
founded on nothing and led to nothing, and I
wondered at the patience of the people. This
afternoon the king of the House of Seem spoke,
and made as if he was in earnest with pathetic
tones and gesture, and the most approved ex-
pressions, and all about nothing; and he was
answered by others with equal apparent earnest-
ness, and still it was all nothing. The building
seemed to grudge its rent, if the assembly did
not their time. Stetson,' who jokes, seems the
only wise man. It is a pity three hundred men
i Rev. Caleb Stetson, a classmate of Emerson's.
seem


as
1835) REAL LIFE AND SPEECH 503
should meet to make believe or play Debate.
They are all so solemn and vehement, that I
listen with all my ears, and for my life can't find
any idea at the foundation of their zeal.
I forgive desultoriness, trifling, vice even, in
a young man, so long as I believe that he has
a closet of secret thoughts to which he retires as
to his home, and which have a sort of parents'
interest in him wherever he is. At sight of them
he bows. But if he is not in earnest about any-
thing, if all his interest is good breeding and
imitation, I had as lief not be as be him.
Great pudder make my philanthropic friends
about the children. I should be glad to be con-
vinced they have taught one child one thing.
G- and B- , no doubt, teach them just
as much as the minister did before, not a jot
more; for the children don't understand any-
thing they say.
QUOTATION
Coleridge loses by De Quincey, but more by
his own concealing, uncandid acknowledgment
of debt to Schelling. Why could not he have
said generously, like Goethe, I owe all? As soon
as one gets so far above pride, as to say all truth
that might come from him, and that now does


504
JOURNAL
[AGE 32
come from him, as truth and not as his truth,
as soon as he acknowledges that all is sugges-
tion, then he may be indebted without shame,
to all.
I see that the young men like to speak at
public meetings just as they would take exhil-
arating gas, 'tis so pretty an intoxication. Oh,
for the days of the Locrian halters again."
The wit of man is more elastic than the air
our bodies breathe. A whole nation will subsist
for centuries on one thought, and then every
individual man will be oppressed by the rush of
his conceptions, and always a plenum with one
grain or sixty atmospheres.
Let not the voluptuary dare to judge of lit-
erary, far less of philosophical questions. Let
him wait until the blindness that belongs to pol-
lution has passed from his eyes.
We all have an instinct that a good man, good
and wise, shall be able to say intuitively, i. e.,
from God, what is true and great and beautiful.
1 A story of Plutarch's. The Locrians had halters around
the necks of the speakers so that they could shut off their dis-
course.


OEGGER'S MESSIAH
505
Never numbers, but the simple and wise shall
judge. Not the Wartons and Drakes, but some
divine savage, like Webster, Wordsworth, and
Reed, whom neither the town or the college
ever made, shall say that we shall all believe.
How we thirst for a natural thinker!
I find good things in this manuscript of Oeg-
ger,' and I am taken with the design of his
work. But it seems as if everybody was insane
on one side, and the Bible makes them as crazy
as Bentham or Spurzheim or politics. The eth-
ical doctrines of these theosophists are true and
exalting, but straightway they run upon their
Divine Transformation, the Death of God, etc.,
and become horn-mad. To that point they speak
reason, then they begin to babble, and so this
man cries out, Wo to them that do not believe,
etc., etc. This obstinate Orientalism that God
is a petty Asiatic king and will be very angry
i Guillaume Caspar Lencroy Oegger, professor of philo-
sophy, and vicar of Notre Dame in Paris. The work referred
to is The True Messiah, or The Old and New Testaments ex-
amined according to the Principles of the Language of Nature.
A translation of a part of it was published later in Boston,
by Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody. It may have been her manu-
script that Mr. Emerson had.


506
(AGE 32
JOURNAL
if you do not prostrate yourself, they cannot
get rid of.
But now and then outbreaks the sublimity
of truth. ..
“We shall pass to the future existence as we
enter into an agreeable dream: all nature will
accompany us there."
cason
Much that is best is hid by being next to us.
Who in Christendom knows the beauty and
grandeur of the Lord's Prayer?
July 24.
the first age of the world, by reason of
the number of their days, their memories served
instead of books.” (Hooker.) There is no
book like a memory, and none that hath such
a perfect index and that of every kind, alpha-
betical, systematic, and arranged by names of
persons and all manner of associations.
“I say three persons,” ingenuously confessed
St. Augustine (on the Trinity: v. 9), “not that
I may say something, but that I may not say
nothing.” (Apud Oegger.)
Most persons exist to us merely or chiefly
in relations of time and space. Those whom we


1835] CONCORD FIGHT 507
love, whom we venerate, or whom we serve,
exist to us independently of their relations.
0 Thou who drawest good out of the fury
of devils, save me.
Yesterday I visited Jonas Buttrick' and Abel
Davis; the former aged seventy, the latter sev-
enty-nine years. Both were present at Concord
fight. Davis was one of the militia under com-
mand of — Jonas Buttrick remembers Major
Hosmer and Captain Davis going back and for-
ward often, and said of Captain Davis that “his
face was red as a piece of broadcloth — red
as a beet. He looked very much worried.” I
asked, “Worried with fear?” “No.” Both agree
that Captain Davis had the right of the com-
panies, but know not why. Jonas Buttrick thinks
1 Son of Major John Buttrick, who led the attack on the
British at the North Bridge. Jonas was then eleven years old,
and so, of course, was only an eager spectator of the action,
which took place partly on his father's farm.
2 Joseph Hosmer, whose spirited question to his superiors,
“ Are you going to let them burn the town?” seems to have
influenced the attack, was at that time lieutenant acting as adju-
tant. Mr. Emerson's informants call him by his later title of
Major. Captain Isaac Davis of Acton, who with his company
led the column by Buttrick's side, fell dead at the first volley.


508
(AGE 32
JOURNAL
that he did not come up from Acton until after
the consultation of the officers and the conclu-
sion to fight, and that he took the right because
that was the side on which he most conveniently
joined the troops. Abel Davis thinks that Major
[Buttrick] having given up his company to
- Captain Davis had the right in virtue of
his rank.'
Dr. Palfrey remarked at Cambridge, when we
talked of the manners of Wordsworth and Cole-
ridge, that there seemed to be no such thing as
a conventional manner among the eminent men
of England, for these people lived in the best
society, yet each indulged the strongest individ-
ual peculiarities.
For literature, one is ever struck with the fact
that the good once is good always. The aver-
age strength is so fixed that among thirty
jumpers the longest jump will be likely to be
the longest of three hundred, and a very long
jump will remain a very long jump a century
afterward.
Richard Hooker wrote good prose in 1580.
Here it is good prose in 1835. There have not
1 A probable reason was assigned by other survivors, namely,
that the Acton company alone had bayonets.



CONCORD BATTLEGROUND IN 1837





1835] AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 509
been forty persons of his nation from that time
to this who could write better.
The Quarterly Review toils to prove that there
is no selfish aristocracy in America, but that every
man shakes hands heartily with every other man,
and the chancellor says, “My brother, the gro-
cer.” And to fix this fact will be to stamp us
with desired infamy. I earnestly wish it could
be proved. I wish it could be shown that no
distinctions created by a contemptible pride ex-
isted here, and none but the natural ones of
talent and virtue. But I fear we do not deserve
the praise of this Reviewer's ill opinion. The
only ambition which truth allows is to be the
servant of all. The last shall be first.
I read with great delight the Record of a School."
It aims all the time to show the symbolical
character of all things to the children, and it is
alleged, and I doubt not, truly, that the chil-
dren take the thought with delight. It is remark-
able that all poets, orators and philosophers
1 This remarkable book is the Journal of Mr. Amos Bron-
son Alcott's private school in Boston, kept by Miss Elizabeth
P. Peabody, his assistant, later well known for her philan-
thropic life.


510
[ACE 32
JOURNAL
have been those who could most sharply see
and most happily present emblems, parables,
figures. Good writing and brilliant conversation
are perpetual allegories. “My fortunes are in
the moult,” says Philip van Artevelde. Webster
is such a poet in every speech. “You cannot
keep out of politics more than you can keep
out of frost,” he said to Clifford. “No matter
for the baggage, so long as the troop is safe,”
he said when he lost his trunk. “Waves lash
the shore,” etc.; Indians' whole speech. “Back
of the hand,” was Crockett's expression. All the
memorable words of the world are these figura-
tive expressions. Light and heat have passed
into all speech for knowledge and love. The
river is nothing but as it typifies the flux of time.
Many of these signs seem very arbitrary and
historical. I should gladly know what gave such
universal acceptance to Cupid's arrow for the
passion of love; and more meanly, the horn for
the shame of cuckoldom.
em
Ephraim Stow, says the newspaper, was born
on the last day of the year, which gave occasion
to a parish wit to remark that “he came near
not being born at all.”


1835] MULTIPLE LIVES su
1. Fuly 27.
“One of those crystal days which are neither
hot nor cold.”
Mrs. R. cited a well-known character to show
that trick and pretension impose on nobody, but
that my friend is reverenced for his liberality.
Everybody leads two or three lives, has two
or three consciousnesses which he nimbly alter-
nates. Here am I daily lending my voice, and
that with heat often, to opinions and practices
opposite to my own. Here is M. M. E. always
fighting in conversation against the very prin-
ciples which have governed and govern her.
Very good remark saw I in the very good
Record of a School, concerning unity reproduced
by the mind out of severed parts. Yes, all men
have thoughts, images, facts, by thousands and
thousands, but only one of many can crystal-
lize these into a symmetrical one by means of
the nucleus of an Idea.
Humphrey Heywood showed me his fine
toy-cart which his father made for him. I see
nothing of the farmer but his plain dealing and
hard work; yet there are finer parts which, but


512
JOURNAL
[AGE 32
for this child, would remain latent; his love and
the taste which makes a fanciful child's wagon
for its manifestation.
A good example of that prosopopæia I wrote
of, is Thompson's '“ Come to nurse our bant-
ling in the Cradle of Liberty. Yet I do not
know whether that is right. Methinks he has
grown so great that if we should rock him in
Faneuil Hall his feet would dangle out the door.”
... One of the best examples of this sort is
Burke's “shearing the wolf.”
[Here follow many pages of extracts from
Oegger's True Messiah, or The Old and New Tes-
taments examined according to the Principles of the
Language of Nature; a few of these are given.]
“People suppose that when God produced
our visible world the choice that he made of
forms and colors for animals, plants and min-
erals was entirely arbitrary on his part. This is
false. Man may sometimes act from whim; God
never can. The visible creation then cannot,
must not (if we may use such expressions), be
i George Thompson, the English Abolitionist, who faced
insult and violence in his crusade, at this time, against slavery
in the United States.


en en
1835] OEGGER'S MESSIAH 513
anything but the exterior circumference of the in-1
visible and metaphysical world, and material ob-
jects are necessarily kinds of scoriæ of the sub-
stantial thoughts of the Creator.'... For God to
create is only to show. The universe in its mi-
nutest details existed for God as really before the
creation, as after it; because it existed in him sub-
stantially, as when the statue exists in the block
of marble from which the sculptor extracts it.
“By the creation, we only have been en-
abled to perceive a portion of the infinite
riches eternally buried in the Divine Essence.
The perfect especially must have always thus
existed in God. The imperfect alone can have
received a kind of creation by means of man, a
free agent, though under the influence of a Pro-
vidence which never loses sight of him.
“Neither the form nor the color of any object
in nature can have been chosen without a reason.
Everything that we see, touch, smell, — every-
thing from the sun to a grain of sand, . . . has
flowed forth by a supreme reason from that world
where all is spirit and life. No fibre in the ani-
mal, no blade of grass in the vegetable, no form
of crystallization in inanimate matter, is without
i This sentence is quoted in Nature, p. 35, Centenary
Edition.
Car


514
(AGE 32
JOURNAL
its clear and well-determined correspondence in
the moral and metaphysical world. And if this
is true of colors and forms, it must, by a still
stronger reason, be true of instincts of animals,
and the far more astonishing faculties of man.
Consequently, the most imperceptible thoughts
and affections which we imagine we have con-
ceived by our own power; the compositions which
we consider our own in philosophy and litera-
ture; the inventions which we believe we have
made in the arts and sciences; the monuments
that we think we are erecting; the customs that
we fancy we establish in the things which men
consider great, as in the most insignificant trans-
actions of civil and animal life, — all this existed
before us; all this is simply given to us, and
given with a supreme reason, according to our
different wants. An infinitely little degree of con-
sent to receive, which forms our moral liberty,
is the only thing that we have for our own. ...
And indeed, but for all these emblems of life
which creation offers, there would be no appre-
ciable moral idea or moral sentiment, no pos-
sible means — we fear not to say it—for God
to communicate a thought, and affection to
his creature, any more than for one feeling crea-
ture to communicate it to another. ...


1835)
OEGGER
515
“Had there been no father, could you know
anything of tenderness? Had there never been
a generous man, could you know what is gener-
osity? Love; maladies; defilements; the per-
secutions show what is atrocity, etc., etc. The
necessity of indicating moral distinctions alone
explains monstrosities and disgusting images
unworthy of the Creator, which nature offers
to the eye of degraded man. The abyss of our
being cannot be revealed but by the appreciable
phenomena of life. ..."
“ Man and the serpent form the right angle:
other animals fill the whole quadrant, and any
other kind of beings is geometrically impos-
sible.”
“ Jehovah addresses himself to all his intelli-
gent creation, and each being finds in his words
what is appropriate to himself. The pure spirits
who act on the human race must necessarily
be always in advance of it in knowledge of the
oracles of the most High, the perfect accom-
plishment of which oracles they concur to pro-
duce, spite of the united efforts of all degraded
spirits,” etc.
S-
Every man must live upon a principle and
move according to its will, as in the vehicu-


516
[AGE 32
JOURNAL
lar state every soul rides upon its ray. I have
seen the adoption of a principle transform a
proser into an orator. Every transgression that
it makes of routine makes man's being some-
thing worth.
X Humility is a great time-saver. The whole
business must wait whenever each individual of
the company has some personal recollection,
some apology or explanation to make. All sit
impatiently deferring till his impertinent vanity
is adjusted and then go on. I, who know the
supreme folly of the thing, can collect instances,
not only from last night's conversation, but
from my own sayings two nights ago at Dr.
Willard's.
July 30.
It is affecting to see the old man's, Thaddeus
Blood's, memory taxed for facts occurring sixty
years ago at Concord fight. “It is hard to bring
them up,” he says; "the truth never will be
known.” The Doctor [Ripley), like a keen
hunter, unrelenting follows him up and down,
barricading him with questions; yet cares little
for the facts the man can tell, but much for the
confirmation of the printed History. “ Leave
me, leave me to repose."


1835) PRINCIPLE. EVERETT 517
Every principle is an eye to see with. Facts
in thousands of the most interesting character
are slipping by me every day unobserved, for I
see not their bearing, I see not their connexion.
I see not what they prove. By and by I shall
mourn in ashes their irreparable loss.
mou
No distinction in principle can be broader
than that taken by the abolitionist against Ev-
erett. Everett said that in case of a servile war,
though a man of peace, he would buckle on his
knapsack to defend the planter. The Philan-
thropist who was here this morning' says that
he is a man of peace, but, if forced to fight on
either side, he should fight for the slave against
his tyrant.
I know nothing of the source of my being,
but I will not soil my nest. I know much of it
after a high, negative way, but nothing after the
understanding. God himself contradicts through
me and all his creatures the miserable babble of
Kneeland and his crew; but if they set me to
affirm in propositions his character and provi-
i Perhaps George Thompson.
2 Abner Kneeland who, a short time before, had been sent
to jail for publications held by the Court to be blasphemy.


518
[AGE 32
JOURNAL
dence, as I would describe a mountain or an
Indian, I am dumb. Oft I have doubted of his
person, never that truth is divine.
You affirm that the moral development con-
tains all the intellectual, and that Jesus was the
perfect man. I bow in reverence unfeigned be-
fore that benign man. I know more, hope more,
am more, because he has lived. But, if you tell
me that in your opinion he has fulfilled all the
conditions of man's existence, carried out to the
utmost, at least by implication, all man's powers,
I suspend my assent. I do not see in him cheer-
fulness: I do not see in him the love of natural
science: I see in him no kindness for art; I see
in him nothing of Socrates, of Laplace, of Shak-
spear. The perfect man should remind us of
all great men. Do you ask me if I would rather
resemble Jesus than any other man? If I should
say Yes, I should suspect myself of superstition.
Ages hence, books that cannot now be writ-
ten may be possible. For instance, a cumulative
moral and intellectual science. If I would know
something of the elements and process of the
moral sublime, where shall I now seek the anal-
ysis? If I would know the elementary distinc-


1835) BOOKS OF THE FUTURE 519
tion of spiritual and intellectual, where shall I
inquire? A sentence showing a tendency is all
that a century contributes to psychology. Where
shall I find the result of phrenology? of animal
magnetism? of extacy? By and by, books of
condensed wisdom may be writ by the concen-
trated lights of thousands [of]centuries which
shall cast Bacon and Aristotle into gloom. As
the American Encyclopædia said of Astronomy,
“How many centuries of observation were neces-
sary to make the motion of the earth sus-
pected!”
July 31.
Every day's doubt is whether to seek for
Ideas, or to collect facts; for all successful study
is the marriage of thoughts and things. A con-
tinual reaction of the thought classifying the
facts, and of facts suggesting the thought.
When shall I be tired of reading? When the
moon is tired of waxing and waning, when the
sea is tired of ebbing and flowing, when the
grass is weary of growing, when the planets are
tired of going.
The act of duty that might have been omitted,
but that was inserted in a past day, pleases, in


520
JOURNAL
(AGE 32
remembering the contingency, with a better sat-
isfaction than that with which we see the mail
stage roll off in its cloud of dust, if, breathless
with haste, we have arrived just in time to get
our letter in.
I wrote yesterday that these orators of a prin-
ciple owed everything to it, and our good friend
Samuel J. May may instruct us in many things.
He goes everywhere and sees the leaders of
society everywhere, his cause being his ticket
of admission, and talks on his topic with no in-
telligent person who does not furnish some new
light, some unturned side, some happy expres-
sion, or strike off some false view or expression,
of the philanthropist. In this way his views are
enlarged and cleated and he is always attain-
ing to the best expressions. As when he said
the question between the Colonization and the
Abolition men was “whether you should remove
them (the negroes] from the prejudice, or the
prejudice from them.”
It is, my God, an antidote to every fear, the
conviction twice recently forced on me, that
men reverence virtue never by the appearance,
but accurately according to its weight. Nothing


1835] HAPPY EYE AND TONGUE 521
but an ounce will balance an ounce. Thus alone
is the will strong; thus He whose right it is to
reign shall reign. Spit at consequences; launch
boldly forth into the pure element, and that which
you think will down you, shall buoy you up.
[Here follows the last part of the passage on
the stars in the first page of Nature.]
n
Men believe that some of their fellows are
more happily constituted than themselves after
the pattern of themselves. They have in for-
tunate hours had the eye opened, whereby the
world was newly seen, as if then first seen, and
which seemed to say that all prior life, however
loud and pretending, was but death or sleep.
They believe that some men add to this Eye a
Tongue to tell their vision, and a certain degree
of control over these faculties; that the spirits
of the prophets are subject to the prophets;
and they wish such men to take the chronicle
of their parish, or their age, and in the auspi-
cious hour let the facts pass through their mind
and see if they will not take the form of picture
and song.
When I cast my look inward and look upon
God as mine, I may well defy the future, and


522
JOURNAL [AGE 32
looking upon all the rough weather ahead as
exercises to try the faith of the combatants, I
may merrily predict a victory.
The Reason has her victories. $15,000 were
subscribed in a very short time in New York
by these Abolitionists, $2,000 at one meeting
in Boston, and $5,000 at another, and forthwith
paid. So put that against the burning convent
and the Julien Hall.
My two facts referred to on the last page
were the bountiful E. R. [Ezra Ripley?] and
the Christian Sam May, who both pass for that
they are in things to praise and things to
blame.
For Christ made no cathedrals
Ne with him was no Cardinals.
CHAUCER.
Once in a while we meet with poetry which
is also music,—“high and passionate thoughts
to their own music chaunted.” The following
lines of John Barbour (1365) remind me of
the music I heard lately :-
This was in the moneth of May
When birdis singis in ilk spray,
Melland their notes with seemly soun,
For softness of the sweet seasoun,


1835) HISTORY OF WIT
523
And levis of the branchis spred,
And bloomis bright beside them bred,
And fields are strovit with flowris
Well sawer and of ser colouris.
Me it pleases well to skip the minuter desig-
nation of the plants, and to slight also the
chronicles of kings, so that I can learn some-
what of the history of wit in this world of men;
to know what have been the entertainments of
the human spirit from age to age, what are the
best things that it hath said, and who and what
they were who said them. Yet the beauty that
drew us to one or another pursuit, as botany,
medicine, history of poetry, and the like, is
presently lost sight of in the details of the study
itself, and none the less poetical than the herb-
alist, the doctor, the critic.
A system-grinder hates the truth. To make
a step into the world of thought is given to but
few men; to make a second step beyond his
first, only one in a country can do; but to carry
the thought out to three steps marks a great
Teacher. Aladdin's Palace, with its one unfin-
ished window which all the gems in the royal
treasury cannot finish in the style of the mean-
est of the profusion of jewelled windows that


524
JOURNAL
(AGE 32
were built by the genie in a night, is but too
true a picture of the efforts of Talent to add a
scene to Shakspear's play or a verse to Shak-
spear's songs.
August 1.
A sparrow or a deer knows much more of Na-
ture's secrets than a man, but is less able to utter
them. And those men who know the most can
say the least.
Jacob Behme is the best helper to a theory
of Isaiah and Jeremiah. You are sure he was in
earnest, and, could you get into his point of view,
the world would be what he describes. He is all
imagination. — “Aurora, i. e. the Dayspring or
Dawning of the Day in the Orient, or Morning
Redness in the Rising of the Sun; i.e., the Root
or Mother of Philosophy, Astrology and The-
ology from the True Ground,” etc., etc., by
J. Behme. Written in Gerlitz in Germany, A. D.
1612, ætatis suæ 37. London, 1656.
“O world, where is thy humility, where is thy
angelical love? At that very instant when the
mouth says ‘God save thee,' then, if the heart
were seen, it might be said, 'Beware, look to thy-
self, for it bids the Devil take thee.'” BEHME.
“O thou excellent, angelical kingdom, how
comely dressed and adorned wert thou once! how


1835) SPHINX. IMAGINATION
525
hath the devil turned thee into a murderous den.
Dost thou suppose thou standest now in the
flower of thy beauty and glory? No! Thou
standest in the midst of hell; if thine eyes were
opened, thou wouldst see it. Or dost thou think
that the Spirit is drunken and doth not see
thee?" BEHME.
There sits the Sphinx from age to age, in the
road, Charles says, and every wise man that
comes by has a crack with her.' But this Oeg-
ger's plan and scope argue great boldness and
manhood, to depart thus widely from all routine
and seek to put his hands, like Atlas, under
Nature, and heave her from her rest. Why the
world exists, and that it exists for a language or
medium whereby God may speak to man, this
is his query, this his answer.
Saturday eve.
The distinction of Fancy and Imagination
seems to me a distinction in kind. The Fancy ag-
gregates; the Imagination animates. The Fancy
takes the world as it stands and selects pleasing
groups by apparent relations. The Imagination
is Vision, regards the world as symbolical, and
i See Nature, p. 34.


526
JOURNAL
[AGE 32
pierces the emblem for the real sense. Sees all
external objects as types. A fine example is the
[account] of the execution of Lord Russell.
(Anecdotes (Spence?], p. 11.)
XT
God hides the stars in a deluge of light. That
is his chosen curtain. So he hides the great truths
in the simplicity of the common consciousness.
I am struck with the contrast, which I have re-
peatedly noted before, between the positiveness
with which we can speak of certain laws — an
evidence equal to that of consciousness — and
the depth of obscurity in which the Person of
God is hid. From month to month, from year
to year, I come never nearer to definite speaking
of him. He hideth himself. I cannot speak of
him without faltering. I unsay as fast as I say
my words. He is, for I am. Say rather, He is.
But in the depth inaccessible of his being he
refuses to be defined or personified.
neare
After thirty, a man wakes up sad every morn-
ing, excepting perhaps five or six, until the day
of his death. It was strange after supposing for
years that my respected friend was the heart of
the county and blended thoroughly with the
people, to find him wholly isolated, more even


1835) SAMUEL HOAR. SYMBOLS 527
than I, walking among them with these “monu-
mental” manners unable to get within gunshot
of any neighbor except professionally. Yet the
fulness of his respect for every man and his self-
respect at the same time have their reward, and
after sitting all these years on his plain wooden
bench with eternal patience, Honor comes and
sits down by him.'
August 3.
Charles wonders that I don't become sick at
the stomach over my poor journal. Yet is ob-
durate habit callous even to contempt. I must
scribble on, if it were only to say in confirmation
of Oegger's doctrine that I believe I never take
a step in thought when engaged in conversation
without some material symbol of my proposi-
tion figuring itself incipiently at the same time.
My sentence often ends in babble from a vain
effort to represent that picture in words. How
much has a figure, an illustration, availed every
sect. As when the reabsorption of the soul into
God was figured by a phial of water broken in
the sea. This morn, I would have said that a
man sees in the gross of the acts of his life the
domination of his instincts or genius over all
other causes. His Wilfulness may determine the
1 Evidently Hon. Samuel Hoar.
a


528
JOURNAL
(Age 32
a mas
character of moments, but his Will determines
that of years.
While I thus talked, I saw some crude symbols
of the thought with the mind's eye, — as it were,
a mass of grass or weeds in a stream, of which
the spears or blades shot out from the mass in
every direction, but were immediately curved
round to float all in one direction. When pre-
sently the conversation changed to the subject
of Thomas à Kempis's popularity, and how Aris-
totle and Plato come safely down, as if God
brought them in his hand (though at no time
are there more than five or six men who read
them), and of the Natural Academy by which
the exact value of every book is determined,
maugre all hindrance or furtherance; then saw
I, as I spoke, the old pail in the Summer Street
kitchen with potatoes swimming in it, some at
the top, some in the midst, and some lying at
the bottom; and I spoiled my fine thought by
saying that books take their place according to
their specific gravity “as surely as potatoes in a
tub. ..."
It occurred with regard to à Kempis that it
is pleasant to have a book come down to us of
which the author has, like Homer, lost his in-
dividual distinctness, is almost a fabulous per-
SS


1835) LANGUAGE. JESTS 529
sonage, so that the book seems to come rather
out of the spirit of humanity and to have the
sanction of human nature than to totter on the
two legs of any poor Ego.
For language of nature, Ichabod Morton
uses no other; Peter Hunt, Crockett, and the
Vermont drover. So, in the 17th century, it ap-
peared in every book, “And to put finger in
the eye and to renew their repentance, they think
this is weakness.” Thos. SHEPARD, 1645, New
England's Lamentation.
I suspect that wit, humor, and jests admit a
more accurate classification by the light of the dis-
tinction of the Reason and the Understanding.
Nothing is so cheap as jests of the sort that fill
Byron's “Heaven and Earth.” They might be
manufactured by the thousand. All the dinner
wit that assails Swedenborg and his church is cut
off the same piece.
“Heshall be as a god to me,” said Plato, “who
can rightly define and divide.”
Who can make a good sentence can make a
good book. Ex ungue leonem. If you find a good
thing in the writing of a mediocre man, be sure
he stole it.


530
(AGE 32
JOURNAL
Edw. Bagshaw wrote (1662) “an answer to
all that Roger L'Estrange intends to write.”
We have little control of our thoughts. We
are pensioners upon Ideas.' ...
aro
oner
I wrote to Miss Peabody [on Swedenborg]
that I should certainly not have denied, awake,
that the spiritual contains the intellectual nature,
or that the moral is prior, in God's order, to the
intellectual; which I believe. The two attributes
of wisdom and goodness always face and always
approach each other. Each when perfect becomes
the other. Yet to the moral nature belongs sover-
eignty, and so we have an instinctive faith that to
it all things shall be added, that the moral nature
being righted, the circulations of the universe take
effect through the man as a member in its place,
and so he learns the sciences after a natural or
divine way. A good deed conspires with all na-
ture, as the hand sang with the voice in the angels'
concert; but there is a kind of falsehood in the
enunciation of a chemical or astronomical law by
an unprincipled savant. But whilst all consid-
erate persons incline, I suppose, to this general
i Here follows a passage on “ prisoners of Ideas.” (See
“ Intellect," Essays I, pp. 328, 329, Cent. Ed.)


1835) SWEDENBORG
531
confession, there still stand the uncontested facts
that in our experience is almost no proportioned
cultivation. The blacksmith has a strong arm,
the dancer a strong foot; great proficiency in the
mathematics may coexist with extreme moral in-
sensibility, and the splendors of holiness with
a contempt for learning ; - such lobsided, one-
eyed half-men are we now, and such a yawning
difference between our esse and our posse.
I am content to find these differences, I am
content to wait long before many refractory facts.
A great tendency I like better than a small
revelation, and I hate to be imprisoned in pre-
mature theories. I have no appetite such as
Sir Thomas Browne avows for difficultest mys-
teries, that my faith may have exercise; but I
had rather not understand in God's world than
understand through and through in Bentham's
and Spurzheim's.
I like what you say of your aversion at being
confined to Swedenborg's associations, and I con-
firm myself with similar declarations whenever
my critical acumen, with which you make your-
self so merry, is at fault in the great Life. You
have studied much the character of Jesus, and I
read with pleasure every considered expression
of praise of him. But perfect, in the sense of


532
[AGE 32
JOURNAL
es mo
complete man, he seems not to me to be, but
a very exclusive and partial development of the
moral element, such as the great Compensation
that balances the universe provides to repair
accumulated depravity. The weight of his eth-
ical sentences deserves more than all the consid-
eration they have, and his life is one original pure
beam of truth, but a perfect man should exhibit
all the traits of humanity and should expressly
recognize intellectual nature. Socrates I call a
complete, universal man, fulfilling all the con-
ditions of man's existence. Sublime as he is, I
compare him not as an ethical teacher to Christ,
but his life is more humane.
Ah, Homer! Ah, Chaucer ! Ah, Shakspear!
But we live in the age of propriety. Their ele-
gance is intrinsic, ours super-added ; their clean-
ness is sunshine, ours painting and gilding.'
Classification. A thought comes single, like
a foreign traveller, but if you can find out its
name, you shall find it related to a powerful and
numerous family.
i Mr. Emerson during this month gave an address before
the American Institute of Education « On the Best Mode of
Inspiring a Correct Taste in English Literature.” (See Cabot's
Memoir, vol, ii, Appendix F.)


1835] THE FIRST THOUGHT 533
August 5.
Our summer, Charles says, is a galloping con-
sumption, and the hectic rises as the year ap-
proaches its end.
Wordsworth’s “ Ode to Duty” singeth, —
There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth;
Glad hearts ! without reproach or blot,
Who do thy work and know it not.
Happy they and their counterparts in the intel-
lectual kingdom, who sit down to write and lend
themselves to the first thought and are carried
whithersoever it takes them, and solve the prob-
lem proposed in a way they could not have pre-
dicted, and are not now conscious of their own
action. Merely they held the pen. The problem,
whilst they pondered it, confounded them.
The birds fly from us, and we do not under-
stand their music. The squirrel, the musquash,
the insect have no significance to our blind eyes;
such is now the discord betwixt man and nature.
Yet it is strange that all our life is accompanied
by Dreams on one side, and by the Animals on


534
(AGE 32
JOURNAL
the other, as monuments of our ignorance, or
Hints to set us on the right road of inquiry.
The life of a contemplator is that of a reporter.
He has three or four books before him and now
writes in this, now in that other, what is incon-
tinuously said by one or the other of his classes
of thought.
It is a good trait of the manners of the times
that Thaddeus Blood told me this morning that
he (then twenty years old) and Mr. Ball (fifty)
were set out to guard Lieutenant Potter, the
British Officer taken at Lexington, 19 April,'75;
and, whilst staying at Reuben Brown's, Potter
invited them both to dine with him. He, Lieu-
tenant Potter, asked a blessing, and after dinner
asked Mr. Ball to dismiss the table, “which he
did very well for an old farmer.” Lieutenant
Potter then poured out a glass of wine to each
and they left the table. Presently came by a com-
pany from Groton, and Lieutenant Potter was
alarmed for his own safety. They bolted the
doors, etc., etc.
Bateman, he thinks, could not have made the
deposition in Dr. R’s History. A ball passed
through his cap and he cried, “A miss is as


1835) WORDSWORTH
535
good as a mile.” Immediately another ball
struck his ear and passed out at the side of his
mouth, knocking out two teeth. He lived about
three weeks, and his wounds stunk intolerably.
It was probably Carr's or Starr's deposition.'
The powers of the poetical genius seem quite
local, and to give no felicity in any other work
transcending the strait limits of that vein.
Wordsworth writes the verses of a great, origi-
nal bard, but he writes ill, weakly, concerning
his poetry, talks ill of it, and even writes other
poetry that is very poor.
True love watched every word and gesture
of her shepherd and believed in her heart that
things he did and thought not of were beauti-
ful. Faint love talked of her affection, but cared
i The depositions of many participants in the action of the
19th of April were taken by order of the Provincial Congress
shortly afterwards, and published also by their order in a
pamphlet entitled Narrative of the Excursion and Ravages of
the King's Troops under the Command of General Gage, on
the Nineteenth of April, 1775, together with the Depositions
taken by Congress to Support the Truth of it. Dr. Ripley,
however, irritated by a pamphlet published in Lexington in
1825, wrote, in 1827, A History of the Fight at Concord,
etc., containing the depositions.


536
[AGE 32
JOURNAL
only for those words and deeds of the swain
that respected herself. What else, though it
were more wise and good, she noted never.
If you read much at a time, you have a bet-
ter sight of the plan and connexion of the book,
but you have less lively attention. If you read
little, fine things catch your eye and you read
accurately, but all proportion and ulterior pur-
pose are at an end.
Charles doubts whether all truth is not occa-
sional; not designed to be stored for contem-
plation, but alive only in action.
Make much of your own place. The stars
and celestial awning that overhang our simple
Concord walks and discourses are as brave as
those that were visible to Coleridge as he talked,
or Dryden, or Ben Jonson and Shakspear, or
Chaucer and Petrarch and Boccaccio when they
met.
For the history of Psalm - singing in our
churches, see Warton, History of English Poetry,
volume iii, p. 447.
Hurra when next it rains (in the private
sky) for Miss Fanny Kemble's Journal, and
Lyell's Geology!


1835] MIND'S FAR FOCUS 537
The human mind seems a lens formed to
concentrate the rays of the Divine laws to a v
focus, which shall be the personality of God.
But that focus falls so far into the infinite that
the form or person of God is not within the
ken of the mind. Yet must that ever be the
effort of a good mind, because the avowal of our
sincere doubts leaves us in a less favorable
mood for action, and the statement of our best
thoughts, or those of our convictions that make
most for theism, induces new courage and force.
August 6.
I think I may undertake, one of these days,
to write a chapter on Literary Ethics, or the
Duty and Discipline of a Scholar. The camel
and his four stomachs shall be one of his
emblems.
In Dunbar of Saltoun's Golden Targe (Warton,
History of English Poetry, volume iii, p. 102)
one of the dramatis persona is New-Acquaint-
ance, who“ embraces him a while, but soon takes
her leave and is never seen afterwards.”
I suppose a reason why one man apprehends
physical science better than another is that his


538
(AGE 32
JOURNAL
er
fancy is stronger, so that he can comply with
the prescribed conditions of the problem long
enough for the full apprehension of the law; as
in learning the Precession of the Equinoxes he
can keep the picture of the sun where he ought
in his mind, and figure to himself the nutation
of the axis of the earth, etc., etc. But I, alas,
write my diagrams in water.
In 1542 Robert Wyer printed the Scole
Howse, in which the writer is thus merciless
to women. His name is unknown. I fear it was
a private revenge.
Trewely some men there be
That live alway in great horroure,
And say it goeth by destinye
To hang or wed, both hath one hour;
And whether it be, I am well sure
Hanging is better of the twayne,
Sooner done and shorter payne.
Warton, History of English Poetry,
volume iii, p. 426.
Augus' "
Yesterday I delighted myself with Mic
| Montaigne. With all my heart I embra :
grand old sloven. He pricks and sting its
sense of virtue in me — the wild Gentile ::-*.


1835] MONTAIGNE. SCOTT 539
I mean, for he has no Grace. But his panegyric
of Cato, and of Socrates in his essay of Cruelty
(volume ii) do wind up again for us the spent
springs and make virtue possible without the
discipline of Christianity, or rather do shame her
of her eye-service and put her upon her honor.
I read the Essays in Defence of Seneca and Plu-
tarch; on Books; on Drunkenness; and on
Cruelty. And at some fortunate line which I
cannot now recal, the spirit of some Plutarch
hero or sage touched mine with such thrill as
the war-trump makes in Talbot's ear and blood.
I know no truer poetry in modern verse than
Scott's line,
“ And sun himself in Ellen's eyes.”
Every fact studied by the Understanding is
not only solitary but desart. But if the iron lids
of Reason's eye can be once raised, the fact is
classified immediately and seen to be related to
our nursery reading and our profoundest science.
August 13.
Add to what was said August 6 concerning
Literary Ethics, that no doubt another age will
have such sermons duly preached, and immor-
tality will be proved from the implication of the


540
JOURNAL
(Age 32
intellect. For who can read an analysis of the
faculties by any acute psychologist like Cole-
ridge, without becoming aware that this is pro-
per study for him and that he must live ages to
learn anything of so secular a science ?
August 14.
We would call up him who left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
but the great contemporary just now laid in the
dust no man remembers; no man asks for him
who broke off in the first sentences the Analysis
of the Imagination, on the warning of a friend
that the public would not read the chapter. No
man asks, Where is the Chapter?'
August 15.
I bought my house and two acres six rods of
land of John T. Coolidge for 3,500 dollars.
Mr.J.T. Coolidge of Boston had the house
built for his son, about 1825. It faced on the Cam-
bridge Turnpike just where it leaves the “Great
Road” where the stages passed to and from
Boston. The main house was of an L shape, but
Mr. Emerson soon had the square completed
by a parlor behind his study, with a chamber
i Coleridge died in July, 1834.



SA
THE EMERSON HOME





ri
1835) THE NEW HOME 541
above. The prolongation towards the flower-
garden and brook beyond was part of the origi-
nal house and contained kitchen, servants' cham-
bers, and wood-shed. Although on low land in a
river-town, these disadvantages were met by the
sandy soil and the mile-long southward slope of
the opposite tableland, which gave the region a
different climate in cold weather from the rest of
Concord Plain, shutting off the north, and stor-
ing sun-heat by day to neutralize the night damp.
The excellent cellar was always dry and light.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Emerson had had threat-
enings in their lungs before they came there, but
both lived well beyond threescore and ten. The
trees did not overshadow the house, and the
southeast yard and orchard, and garden on the
south, were sunny and sheltered.
The fire in 1872 only burned off the roof of
the main house and part of the top of the walls,
though smoke and water did great damage below.
The general appearance of the house when
Mr. Emerson brought his wife thither was about
as shown in the illustration (made about 1852),
except that some trees were smaller and others
not yet planted. The study faced north and west,
and its windows only show in perspective to-
wards the right in the picture.
C
e.


542
JOURNAL (AGE 32
In a letter telling his brothers of the purchase,
Mr. Emerson said of the house, “It is in a mean
place and cannot be fine until trees and flowers
give it a character of its own. But we shall crowd
so many books and papers and, if possible, wise
friends into it, that it shall have as much wit as
it can carry.”]
August 25.
Visited Miss Harriet Martineau at Cambridge
to-day;' a pleasant, unpretending lady whom it
would be agreeable to talk with when [not?)
tired and at ease; but she is too weary of society
to shine, if ever she does. She betrayed by her
facile admiration of books and friends her speedy
limits. The ear-trumpet acts as chain as well as
medium, making Siameses of the two interlocu-
tors. Henry Reeve, Henry Taylor of Man-
chester, John S. Mill, and W. J. Fox, she re-
garded as the ablest young men in England.
What pleased me most of her communications
was that W. J. Fox, though of no nerve, timid
as a woman, yet had the greatest moral courage.
1 Miss Martineau visited Mr. and Mrs. Emerson later, and
in her Retrospect of American Travel gives a pleasant account
of the visit. Mr. Cabot quotes in his Memoir (vol. i, p. 296)
her sketch of Mr. Emerson.


18351
TAYLOR. MARRIAGE
543
As Charles said at my commentary, “Go and be
hanged, but blush if spoken to on the tumbril.”
August 31.
Use of Harvard College to clear the head
of much nonsense that gathers in the inferior
colleges.
It shall be a rule in my Rhetoric, - Before
you urge a duty, be sure it is one. Try Patriot-
ism, for example.
Edward Taylor came to see us. Dr. Ripley
showed him the battle-field. “Why put it on
this bank?” he asked. “You must write on the
monument, 'Here is the place where the Yan-
kees made the British show the back seam of
their stockings.'” He said he had been fishing
at Groton and the fishes were as snappish as
the people; that he looked to see if the scales
were not turned the wrong side, etc.
September 14.
I was married to Lydia Jackson.'
i The marriage took place at the Winslow House, a fine
old colonial mansion framed in England, which still stands,
though much altered, on North Street in Plymouth. Mrs.
Emerson's father and mother had died some years before,


544
JOURNAL
(Age 32
October 2.
The woods are all in a glow.
Charles thinks never was great man quite
destitute of imagination.
“The fading virtues of later times were a
cause of grief to his father, Archidamus, who
again had listened to the same regrets from his
own venerable sire,” said Agis. PLUTARCH,
“Apophthegms,” Lacon, 17.
Where is the ballad of Tamlane, from which
the fine editor of Warton borrows these lines? -
“Our shape and size we can convert
To either large or small;
An old nutshell's the same to us
As is the lofty hall.”
These lines, by the way, I would put into the
mouth of the Orators, as parallel to Isocrates'
account of eloquence.
October 5.
I like that poetry which, without aiming to
be allegorical, is so. Which, sticking close to its
subject, and that perhaps trivial, can yet be ap-
plied to the life of man and the government of
God and be found to hold.
and this house was her home. Mr. Emerson and his bride
drove in a chaise to Concord the next day.


1835] EACH MAN'S READING 545
“ Little was king Laurin, but from many a precious
gem
His wondrous strength and power and his bold
courage came.
Tall at times his stature grew with spells of gramarye,
Then to the noblest princes fellow might he be.”
I take this to be a picture of a child of nature
who draws his wisdom from the whole world,
and is great only when he has great argument.
(Quoted by Edward Warton from Little Garden
of Roses.)
I see this moral in every novel, fable, my-
thology I read. I see it in all Plutarch and
Homer, in Æsop, in the Arabian Nights, in
Ravenswood ; in Perceforest and Amadis. ...
“Never much good comes of black bead
eyes.” [Aunt Mary.]
Every man, if he lived long enough, would
make all his books for himself. He would write
his own Universal History, Natural History,
Book of Religion, of Economy, of Taste. For
in every man the facts under these topics are
only so far efficient as they are arranged after
the law of bis being. But life forbids it, and
therefore he uses Bossuet, Buffon, Westminster


546
[AGE 32
JOURNAL
Catechism as better than nothing, at least as
memoranda and badges to certify that he be-
longs to the universe, and not to his own house
only, and contents himself with arranging some
one department of life after his own way.
Our will never gave the images in our minds
the rank they now take there. Anecdotes I read
under the bench in the Latin School assume a
grandeur in the natural perspective of memory
which Roman history and Charles V, etc., have
not.
October 10.
This morning Mr. May and Mr. George
Thompson breakfasted with me. I bade them
defend their cause as a thing too sacred to be
polluted with any personal feelings. They should
adhere religiously to the fact and the principle,
and exclude every adverb that went to colour
their mathematical statement. As Josiah Quincy
said on the eve of Revolution, “The time for
declamation is now over; here is something too
serious for aught but simplest words and acts.”
So should they say. I said also, what seems
true, that if any man's opinion in the country
was valuable to them, that opinion would be
distinctly known. If Daniel Webster's or Dr.
Channing's opinion is not frankly told, it is so


1835] CULTURE. CHARLES 547
much deduction from the moral value of that
opinion, and I should say, moreover, that their
opinion is known by the very concealment. One
opinion seeks darkness. We know what opinion
that is.'
an
The oak is magnificent from the acorn up. ~
The whortleberry no pruning or training can
magnify. Who can believe in the perfectibility
of this race of man, or in the potency of Edu-
cation? Yet compare the English nation with
the Esquimaux tribe and who can underestimate
the advantages of culture?
Charles thinks there is no Christianity, and
has not been for some ages, and esteems Chris-
tianity the most wonderful thing in the history
of the world. But for that, he can arrange his
theory well enough of the history of man. It is,
according to him, the first exalting of the bestial
nature, the first allaying of clay with the divine
fire, which succeeds in a few cases, but in far the
greater part the spirit is overlaid and expired. A
few, however, under the benevolent aspect of
heaven, so coöperate with God as to work off the
slough of the beast, and give evidence of arriving
1 Eleven days later, William Lloyd Garrison was mobbed
and imprisoned in Boston for his utterances against slavery.


548
(AGE 32
JOURNAL
within the precincts of heaven. But the introduc-
tion of Christianity seems to be departure from
general laws, and interposition. Jesus seems not
to be man.
Strange, thinks he, moreover, that so sensible
a nation as the English should be content so
long to maintain that old withered idolatry of
their church ; with the history too of its whole
manufacture, piece by piece, all written out,
Thompson the abolitionist is inconvertible:
what you say, or what might be said, would
make no impress on him. He belongs, I fear,
to that great class of the Vanity-stricken. An
inordinate thirst for notice cannot be gratified
until it has found in its gropings what is called
a cause that men will bow to; tying himself fast
to that, the small man is then at liberty to con
sider all objections made to him as proofs of
folly and the devil in the objector, and, under
that screen, if he gets a rotten egg or two, yet
his name sounds through the world and he is
praised and praised.'
The minister should be to us a simple, abso-
lute man; any trick of his face that reminds us
1 Thompson was stoned in some towns.


1835)
MINISTERS
549
of his family is so much deduction, unless it
should chance that those related lineaments are
associated in our mind with genius and virtue.
But the minister in these days, - how little he
says! Who is the most decorous man? and no
longer, who speaks the most truth? Look at
the orations of Demosthenes and Burke, and
how many irrelevant things, sentences, words,
letters, are there? Not one. Go into one of our
cool churches, and begin to count the words
that might be spared, and in most places the
entire sermon will go. One sentence kept an-
other in countenance, but not one by its own
weight could have justified the saying of it. 'T is
the age of Parenthesis. You might put all we
say in brackets and it would not be missed.
Even — has come to speak in stereo-
typed phrase and scarcely originates one ex-
pression to a speech. I hope the time will come
when phrases will be gazetted as no longer cur-
rent and it will be unpardonable to say, “the
times that tried men's souls,” or anything about
“a cause,” and so forth. Now literature is no-
thing but a sum in the arithmetical rule, permu-
tation and combination.
A man to thrive in literature must trust him-
self. The voice of society sometimes, and the


550
JOURNAL
(AGE 32
writings of great geniuses always, are so noble
and prolific, that it seems justifiable to follow
and imitate. But it is better to be an independ-
ent shoemaker than to be an actor and play a
king.' ...
See the noble self-reliance of Ben Jonson.
Shun manufacture, or the introducing an arti-
ficial arrangement in your thoughts — it will
surely crack and come to nothing, — but let
alone tinkering, and wait for the natural ar-
rangement of your treasures; that shall be
chemical affinity, and is a new and permanent
substance added to the world, to be recog-
nized as genuine by every knowing person at
sight. ...
A meek self-reliance I believe to be the law
and constitution of good writing. A man is to
treat the world like children who must hear and
obey the spirit in which he speaks, but which
is not his. If he thinks he is to sing to the tune
of the times, is to be the decorous sayer of
smooth things to lull the ear of society, and to
speak of religion as the great traditional thing
to be either mutely avoided or kept at a dis-
tance by civil bows, he may make a very good
1 Here follows the passage on rejected thoughts, “Self-
Reliance,” Essays I, p. 45, Centenary Edition.


· 1835)
THE WRITER
551
workman for the booksellers, but he must lay
aside all hope to wield or so much as to touch
the bright thunderbolts of truth which it is
given to the true scholar to launch, and whose
light flashes through ages without diminution.
He must believe that the world proceeds in
order from principles. He must not guess, but
observe, without intermission, without end; and
these puissant elements he shall not pry into
who comes in fun, or in haste, or for show.
The solemn powers of faith, of love, of fear, of
custom, of conscience, are no toys to be shoved
aside, but the forces which make and change
society. They must be seen and known. You
might as well trifle with time. They keep on
their eternal way, grinding all resistance to dust.
If you will, you may read nothing but song-
books and fairy tales, all the year round, but
if you would know the literature of any culti-
vated nation, you must meet the majestic ideas.
of God, of Justice, of Freedom, of Necessity,
of War, and of Intellectual Beauty, as the sub-
ject and spirit of volumes and eras.
een
What's a book? Everything or nothing.
The eye that sees it is all. What is the heaven's
majestical roof fretted with golden fire to one


552
(AGE 32
JOURNAL
man, but a foul and pestilent congregation of
vapors? Well, a book is to a Paddy a fair page
smutted over with black marks; to a boy, a
goodly collection of words he can read; to a
half-wise man, it is a lesson which he wholly
accepts or wholly rejects; but a sage shall see
in it secrets yet unrevealed; shall weigh, as he
reads, the author's mind; shall see the pre-
dominance of ideas which the writer could not
extricate himself from, and oversee. The Bel-
fast Town and County Almanack may be read
by a sage; and, wasteful as it would be in me
to read Anti-Masonic or Jackson papers, yet
whoso pierces through them to the deep Idea
they embody, may well read them.
October 13.
Do you see what we preserve of history? a
few anecdotes of a moral quality of some mo-
mentary act or word, — the word of Canute on
the seashore, the speech of the Druid to Edwin,
the anecdote of Alfred's learning to read for
Judith's gift, the box on the ear by the herd-
man's wife, the tub of Diogenes, the gold of
Cresus, and Solon, and Cyrus, the emerald of
Polycrates; these things, reckoned insignificant
at the age of their occurrence, have floated,
Occurrer


1835) JEWELS OF HISTORY 553
whilst laws and expeditions and books and
kingdoms have sunk and are forgotten. So po-
tent is this simple element of humanity or
moral common sense.
My will never gave the images in my mind
the rank they now take there. The four college
years and the three years' course of Divinity
have not yielded me so many grand facts as
some idle books under the bench at the Latin
School.' We form no guess, at the time of re-
ceiving a thought, of its comparative value.
Man idealizes every portrait. So are the sen-
timents of every age unconsciously corrected
and pure models upheld in the worst times.
The canonizing of a good bishop or monk was
a useful preaching to several ages. They who
did it would naturally sink the faults and swell
the virtues of their friend, and so give to vir-
tuous youth an objective good.
On Party. — The aliases of the father of
William the Conqueror, who was called Robert
the Magnificent, or Robert the Devil, are a
good specimen of every man's Janus reputation.
Genius can never supply the want of know-
ledge, though even its errors may be valuable.
i This sentence occurs in “Spiritual Laws,” Essays I.


554
JOURNAL
[AGE 32
Madame de Staël tells me, in this fine book of
the Influence of Literature, that the English do
not admit much imagination into their prose,
because, such is the facility of the structure of
their blank verse, that every one reserves for
poetry all such thoughts. What shall the Eng-
lish, of whom only four or five have ever suc-
ceeded in blank verse, say to this ? Shakspear,
Milton, Young, Thomson, Cowper, Words-
worth.
October 15.
It does seem, in reading the history or the
writings of the English in the XI, XII, XIII,
XIV centuries, that their eyes were holden that
they could not see. They submit to received
views of religion and politics that a child would
deride nowadays, and exhibit, at the same time,
strong common sense in other things. What
stuff there is even in Bacon! What a baby-house
he builds of diet and domestic rules, — and
Montaigne even. The right of civil liberty, how
slowly it opens on the mind! Surely they say well
who say that God screens men from premature
ideas.
A great bump of nonsense in Bacon and in
Brown.'
i Probably Sir Thomas Browne is meant.
SC


1835] THE OVERSOUL 555
[Mr. Emerson was preparing the course of
ten lectures on “ English Literature,” which he
gave in November and December at the Ma-
sonic Temple in Boston, before the Society
for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. See
Cabot's Memoir, vol. ii, Appendix F.]
When we enter upon the domain of LAW,
we do indeed come out into light. To him who,
by God's grace, has seen that by being a mere
tunnel or pipe through which the divine Will
flows, he becomes great, and becomes a Man,
- the future wears an eternal smile, and the
Alight of time is no longer dreadful. I assure
myself always of needed help, and go to the grave
undaunted because I go not to the grave. I am
willing also to be as passive to the great forces
I acknowledge as is the thermometer or the clock,
and quite part with all will as superfluous.
Do not expect to find the books of a country
written, as an encyclopædia by a society of savants,
on system, to supply certain wants and fill up a
circle of subjects. In French literature perhaps
is something of this order of a garden, where
plat corresponds to plat and shrub with shrub.
But in the world of living genius all at first


556
(Age 32
JOURNAL
seems disorder, and incapable of methodical ar-
rangement. Yet is there a higher harmony
whereby 't is set, as in Nature the sea balances
the land, the mountain the valley and woods and
meadows; and as the eye possesses the faculty
of rounding and integrating the most disagree-
able parts into a pleasing whole.
I listened yesterday, as always, to Dr. Rip-
ley's prayer in the mourning house with tenfold
the hope, a tenfold chance, of some touch of na-
ture that should melt us, that I should have felt
in the rising of one of the Boston preachers of
proprieties — the fair house of Seem. These old
semi-savages do, from the solitude in which they
live and their remoteness from artificial society
and their inevitable daily comparing man with
beast, village with wilderness, — their inevitable
acquaintance with the outward nature of man,
and with his strict dependence on sun and rain
and wind and frost, — wood, worm, cow and bird,
get an education to the Homeric simplicity
which all the libraries of the Reviews, and the
Commentators in Boston do not countervail.
What a Tantalus cup this life is! The beauty
that shimmers on these yellow afternoons, who


1835] OUR POSSIBILITIES 557
ever could clutch it? Go forth to find it, and it is
gone; 't is only a mirage as you look from the
windows of diligence.
Charles says to read Carlyle in the North
American Review is like seeing your brother in
jail; and that Alexander Everett is the sheriff
that put him in. .
Far off, no doubt, is the perfectibility ; so far
off as to be ridiculous to all but a few. Yet wrote
I once that, God keeping a private door to each
soul, nothing transcends the bounds of reason-
able expectation from a man. Now what imper-
fect tadpoles we are ! an arm or a leg, an eye or
an antenna, is unfolded, — all the rest is yet in
the chrysalis.
Who does not feel in him budding the powers
of a Persuasion that by and by will be irresist-
ible? Already how unequally unfolded in two
men! Here is a man who can only say Yes and
No in very slight variety of forms. But to ren-
der a reason or to dissuade you by anything less
coarse than interest, he cannot and attempts not.
But Themistocles goes by and persuades you
that he whom you saw up was down, and he
whom you saw down was up.


558
JOURNAL
[AGE 32
The ancients probably saw the moral signifi-
cance of nature in the objects, without after-
thought or effort to separate the object and the
expression. They felt no wrong in esteeming
the mountain a purple picture whereon Oreads
might appear as rightly as moss, and which was
the image of stability, and whatever other mean-
ing it yielded to the wandering eye, because
they were prepared to look on it as children,
and believed the gods built it and were not far
off, and so every tree and flower and chip of
stone had a religious lustre, and might mean
anything. But when science had gained and
given the impression of the permanence, even
eternity, of nature, and of every substance, and
when on the new views which this habit im-
parted to the learned, wit, wine, derision arose,
the mountain became a pile of stones acted on
by bare blind laws of chemistry, and the poetic
sense of things was driven to the vulgar, and
an effort was made to recal the sense by the
educated, and so it was faintly uttered by the
poet and heard with a smile.
The objective religion of the Middle and
after Age is well exemplified in the spite which
heightened Luther's piety. “We cannot vex


1835)
ALCOTT'S VISIT
559
the devil more,” said Luther, “than when we
teach, preach, sing and speak of Jesus and his
humanity. Therefore I like it well when, with
loud voices and fine, long and deliberately, we
sing in the church, Et homo factus est : et verbum
caro factum est. The devil cannot endure to
hear these words, he flieth away,” etc. — Table
Talk.
October 20.
The hearing man is good. Unhappy is the
speaking man. The alternations of speaking
and hearing make our education.
October 21.
Last Saturday night came hither Mr. Alcott,
and spent the Sabbath with me. A wise man,
simple, superior to display, and drops the best
things as quietly as the least. Every man, he
said, is a Revelation, and ought to write his
Record, but few with the pen. His book is his
school, in which he writes all his thoughts. The
spiritual world should meet men everywhere;
and so the government should teach. Our life
flows out into our amusements. Need of a
drama here; how well to lash the American
follies. Every man is a system, an institu-
tion. Autobiography the best book. He thinks


560
(AGE 32
JOURNAL
Jesus a pure Deist, and says all children are
Deists.
Charles remarks upon the nimbleness and
buoyancy which the conversation of a spiritual-
ist awakens; the world begins to dislimn.
It is the comfort I have in taking up those
new poems of Wordsworth, that I am sure here
to find thoughts in harmony with the great
frame of Nature, the placid aspect of the Uni-
verse. I may find dulness and flatness, but I
shall not find meanness and error.
nes
Whence these oaths that make so many words
in English books? The sun, the moon, St.
Paul, Jesus, and God, are called upon as wit-
ness that the speaker speaks truth. I suppose
they refer to that conviction suggested by every
object that something IS, and signify, If any-
thing is, then I did so and so. Yet now they are
all obsolete. Except for the court forms, I
doubt if ever they would be used. They im-
port something separate from the will of man.
“By day and night,” “By Jupiter,” etc., “ By
St. Nicholas,” etc., i. e., my will, which inter-
feres to color and change all things, interferes
not here. This is.


1835) RICH HOURS. DEATH 561
October 22.
What can be truer than the popular poetic
doctrine of a conjunction of stars? How many
things must combine to make a good word or
event? Most truly said Mme. de Staël, that
't is tradition more than invention that helps the
poet to a good fable.
e
What can be truer than the doctrine of in-
spiration? of fortunate hours? Things sail dim
and great through my head. Veins of rich ore
are in me, could I only get outlet and pipe to
draw them out. How unattainable seem to me
these wild pleasantries of Shakespeare, yet not
less so seem to me passages in old letters of my
own.
What platitudes I find in Wordsworth!
« 1, poet, bestow my verse
On this and this and this.”
Scarce has he dropped the smallest piece of an ..
egg, when he fills the barnyard with his cackle. 14
In the hours of clear vision how slight a thing
it is to die. It is so slight that one ought not
turn a corner or accept the least disgrace (so
much as skulking) to avoid it. The mob may


562
JOURNAL [AGE 32
prove as kind and easy a deliverer as a pin or a
worm. The mob seems a thing insignificant. It
has no character. It is the emblem of unrea-
son; mere muscular and nervous motion, no
thought, no spark of spiritual life in it. It is a
bad joke to call it a fruit of the love of liberty.
It is permitted, like earthquakes and freshets
and locusts, and is to be met like a blind me-
chanical force.
What of these atrocious ancestors of English-
men, the Briton, Saxon, Northman, Berserkir?
Is it not needful to make a strong nation that
there should be strong wild will? If a man de-
generates in goodness he must be grafted again
from the wild stock.
We all know how life is made up; ... [trifles]
eat up the hours. How then is any acquisition,
how is any great deed or wise and beautiful
work possible? Let it enhance the praise of
Milton, Shakspear and Laplace. These oppress
and spitefully tyrannize over me because I am
an Idealist.
The mob ought to be treated only with con-
tempt. Phocion, even Jesus, cannot otherwise
regard it in so far as it is mob. It is mere beast


- 1835] FUTURE AND PAST 563
of them that compose it; their soul is absent
from it. It is to consider it too much, to respect
it too much, to speak of its terror in any other
way than mere animal and mechanical agents.
It has no will; oh no.
Sunday, October 25.
Every intellectual acquisition is mainly pros-
pective, and hence the scholar's assurance of
eternity quite aloof from his moral convictions.
Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleas-
ing forms as clouds do far off. Even the corpse
that has lain in our chambers has added a solemn
ornament to the house.' In this my new house
no dead body was ever laid. It lacks so much
sympathy with nature.
Mr. Goodwinº preached a good sermon this
afternoon and said, “The Almighty never im-
planted in a human breast the right of doing
wrong.” As he taught, it seemed pleasant, the
tie of principle that holds as brothers all men,
so that when a stranger comes to me from the
other side the globe, Otaheitan or Chinese, to
1 This sentence occurs in the opening passage of “Spirit-
.ual Laws,” Essays I.
2 Rev. Hersey B. Goodwin, Dr. Ripley's young colleague.


564
JOURNAL (AGE 32
buy or sell with me, he shall have that measure
from me as shall fill his mind with pleasant
conviction that he has dealt with a fellow man
in the deepest and dearest sense.
A talk in the morning concerning eyes and
their spiritual and incorruptible testimony.
When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of
truth, God aids him by giving him an eye as
clear as his own heavens. . . . When you think
of a friend's character you think of his eye rather
than of form or mouth. Weston's story of the
boy that was cross-eyed whenever he lied, but
the axes of the eyes parallel when he spoke
truth.
“ In no man's path malignant stood.”
Excellent hymn of Cowper concerning “truths
which o'er the world rise but never set.”
The preacher, thought I in church, must as-
sume that man is the revelation, and that, if he
will reflect, he shall find his heart overflowing
with a divine light, and the bible shall be a mir-
ror giving back to him the refulgence of his own
mind. Let the preacher speak himself in the
same faith that we all, his hearers, are urns of
the godhead, and will surely know if any word


1835] PREACHER. EDWARD 565
of our own language is uttered to us, and will
accept it, but that all of us which is divine must
remain forever impassible to anything else. He,
the preacher, let him then acquiesce in being no-
thing that he may move mountains: let him be
the mere tongue of us all; no individual, but
a universal man, let him leave his nation, his
party, his sect, his town-connexion, even his
vanity and self-love at home, and come hither
to say what were equally fit at Paris, at Canton,
and at Thebes.
There is no wall like an idea.
I used to remark Edward's Greek petulance
disclosed in answers like that of Pyrrhus when
invited to hear one mimic the nightingale: “But
I have heard the nightingale itself.” M. M. E.
has made many such speeches. A good one of
this sort - the putting down reverend folly by
childish reason - is Hannibal's answer to Anti-
ochus saying, that “the entrails of the sacrifice
forbade the battle”; “You are for doing what
the flesh of a beast, not what the reason of a
wise man, adviseth.” Socrates also.
Webster is in a galvanized state when he makes
the Hayne Speech, and ’t is as easy to say gigantic


566
JOURNAL (AGE 32
things, to introduce from God on the world
“truths which rise but never set," as at another
hour to talk nonsense. He is caught up in the
spirit and made to utter things not his own.
October 28.
The Oriental man: Abraham and Heth, Job,
etc. Man stands on the point betwixt the in-
ward spirit and the outward matter. He sees that
the one explains, translates, the other: that the
world is the mirror of the soul. He is the priest
and interpreter of nature thereby.
'Tis a good thing for man that I am obliged
to pick my words of low trades with so much
care. In England you may say, a sweep, a black-
smith, a scavenger, as synonym for a savage in
civil life. But in this country I must look about
me. I perhaps speak to persons who occasion-
ally or regularly work at these works and yet do
take, as they ought, their place as men in places
of manly culture and entertainment.
Wacic the Caliph, who died A. D. 845, ended
his life with these words: “O thou, whose king-
dom never passes away, pity one whose dignity
1 Cowper's hymn.


1835] LIVING IMAGES 567
is so transient!” Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i,
p. 286.
[Here follow quotations from Turner, about
Alfred, and from Asser.]
October 30.
It will not do for Sharon Turner, or any man
not of Ideas, to make a System. Thus, Mr.
Turner has got into his head the notion that the
Mosaic history is a good natural history of the
world, reconcilable with geology, etc. Very well.
You see at once the length and breadth of what
you may expect, and lose all appetite to read.
But Coleridge sets out to idealize the actual, to
make an epopæa out of English institutions, and
it is replete with life.
November 6.
Burke's imagery is, much of it, got from books,
and so is a secondary formation. Webster's is!
all primary. Let a man make the woods and
fields his books; then at the hour of passion his
thoughts will invest themselves spontaneously
with natural imagery.
Plutarchiana this morn. Verses and words
served as hampers and baskets to convey the
oracle's answers from place to place. ... Then
was it that History alighted from versifying, as


568
JOURNAL (Age 32
it were from riding in chariots, and on foot dis-
tinguished truth from fable.
He speaks of the lovers of omens, etc., as
preferring rainbows and haloes to the sun and
moon.
Charles says the nap is worn off the world.
ON
ſDuring November Mr. Emerson accepted an
invitation to preach in the church at Lexington
East Village, and continued to do so, not ham-
pered in his manner of conducting the service,
for nearly three years.]
“To know that the sky is everywhere blue,
you need not travel around the world.”
November 7.
Advantage of the Spiritual man in the fact of
the identity of human nature. Draw your robe
ever so chastely round you, the surgeon sees
every muscle, every hair, every bone, every
gland; he reads you by your counterpart. So I
read the history of all men in myself. Give me
one single man, and uncover for me his plea-
sures and pains, let me minutely and in the
timbers and ground-plan study his architecture,
sures


1835]
ANTIGONE
569
and you may travel all round the world and visit
the Chinese, the Malay, the Esquimaux and the
Arab, — I travel faster than you. In my chim-
ney-corner I see more, and anticipate all your
wonders. Or do you ransack all the histories and
learn what has been done and thought, back in
time, in the XVII Century, in the middle age,
at the time of the consuls, or in the twilight of
history, and I, intent upon the principles of this
one man, will know what you shall say, and will
say that also which shall be made good ages
hence in some far-stretching revolution.
November 14.
Melancholy cleaves to the Saxon mind as
closely as to the tones of an Æolian harp.
When yesterday I read Antigone, at some
words a very different image of female loveli-
ness rose out of the clouds of the past and the
actual. That poem is just what Winckelmann
described the Greek beauty to be,—“the tongue
on the balance of expression.” It is remarkable
for nothing so much as the extreme temperance,
the abstemiousness which never offends by the
superfluous word or degree too much of emo-
tion. How slender the materials, how few the


570
JOURNAL
[AGE 32
incidents! how just the symmetry! Charles
thinks it as great a work of genius as any. Every
word writ in steel. But that other image which it
awakened for me brought with it the perception
how entirely each rational creature is dowried
with all the gifts of God. The universe— no-
thing less — is totally given to each new be-
ing.' ...
But I thought thus yesterday in regard to the
charming beauty which a few years ago shed on
me its tender and immortal light. She needed
not a historical name, nor earthly rank or wealth.
She was complete in her own perfections. She
took up all things into her and in her single self
sufficed the soul.
The way in which Plutarch and the ancients
usually quote the Poets is quite remarkable, as
it indicates a deep and universal reverence for
poetry, indicates a faith in Inspiration. They
quote Pindar, much as a pious Christian does
David or Paul. Where is that reverence now?
Fine walk this afternoon in the woods with
Charles; beautiful Gothic arches, yes, and cathe-
i Here follows the passage on the hero's being entitled to
a setting of natural beauty to his action, etc. (Nature,
“ Beauty,” pp. 20, 21, Centenary Edition.)


1835] WALK WITH CHARLES 571
dral windows, as of stained glass, formed by the
interlaced branches against the grey and gold
of the western sky. We came to a little pond
in the bosom of the hills, with echoing shores.
Charles thought much of the domesticity and
comfort there is in living with one set of men,
to wit, your contemporaries; and thought it
would be misery to shift them, and hence the
sadness of growing old. Now, every newspaper
has tidings of “kenned folk.”
I projected the discomfort of our playing over
again to-night the tragedy of Babes in the Wood.
Charles rejoiced in the serenity of Saturday
Night. It was calm as the universe. I told him
what a fool he was not to write the record of his
thoughts. He said it were an impiety. Yet he
meant to when he was old. I told him, when
Alcibiades turned author, we workies should be
out of countenance. Yet I maintained that the
Lycidas was a copy from the poet's mind printed
out in the book, notwithstanding all the me-
chanical difficulties, as clear and wild as it had
shone at first in the sky of his own thought.
We came out again into the open world and saw
the sunset, as of a divine artist, and I asked if
it were only brute light and aqueous vapor and
there was no intent in that celestial smile? An-
US


572
JOURNAL
[AGE 32
other topic of the talk was, that Lyceums-so
that people will let you say what you think-
are as good a pulpit as any other. But C. thinks
that it is only by an effort like a Berserkir a
man can work himself up to any interest in any
exertion. All active life seems an amabilis in-
sania. And when he has done anything of im-
portance he repents of it, repents of virtue as
soon as he is alone. Nor can he see any reason
why the world should not burn up to-night.
The play has been over some time.'
Peace and War. “The wounds inflicted by
iron are to be healed by iron, and not by words,”
said the elder Cancellieri, and ordered the hand
of Lore to be cut off. MÜLLER, vol. iii.
Magnanimity of Literary men. Argyropulus
and Theodore of Gaza. MÜLLER, vol. iji.
[Many quotations from Müller follow.]
In Elizabeth's time the high church was
looked upon by intelligent men as “a horse
which was still kept always saddled in readiness
for the Pope.” See Müller.
This attitude of mind was probably due to the fact that
he was already in consumption, though it was not recognized.


1835] FRIENDS. CARLYLE 573
Compensation. Charles V always dissembled
and never was believed.
December 7.
Last week Mr. Alcott spent two days here.
The wise man who talks with you seems of no
particular size, but, like the sun and moon, quite
vague and indeterminate. His characterizing of
people was very good. Hedge united strangely
the old and the new; he had imagination, but
his intellect seemed ever to contend with an arid
temperament. George Bradford was an imper-
sonation of sincerity, simplicity, and humility
without servility.
Carlyle's talent, I think, lies more in his
beautiful criticism, in seizing the idea of the
man or the time, than in original speculation,
He seems to me most limited in this chapter
or speculation in which they regard him as most
original and profound — I mean in his Religion
and immortality from the removal of Time and
Space.
He seems merely to work with a foreign
thought, not to live in it himself.
In Shakspear I actually shade my eyes as I
read for the splendor of the thoughts.


574
(AGE 32
JOURNAL
December 12.
I wrote H. Ware, Jr., that his “4th topic, the
circumstances which show a tendency toward
war's abolition, seemed to me the nearest to
mine; for I strongly feel the inhumanity or un-
manlike character of war, and should gladly
study the outward signs and exponents of that
progress which has brought us to this feeling.”
The Arts and Sciences are the only Cosmo-
polites.
AUTHORS OR BOOKS QUOTED OR REFERRED TO
IN JOURNAL FOR 1835
Asser and Alfred the Great, apud Sharon
Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons.
Richard Hooker; Dunbar of Saltoun, Golden
Targe, apud Thomas Warton's History of Eng-
lish Poetry; Robert Wyer, Scole Howse, apud
Warton, also The Little Garden of Roses and
Tamlane in the same collection ; Scottish Bal-
lads; Jacob Behmen (or Boehme), The Aurora or
Morning Redness, ... i.e., the Root or Mother
of Philosophy, Astrology and Theology from The
True Ground, etc. (Translation, London, 1656).
Dryden; Robert Hooke; Thomas Shepherd,


1835]
READING
575
New England's Lamentation ; Edward Bagshaw;
Joseph Spence, Anecdotes, &c.; Cowper, Olney
Hymns; Diderot; Voltaire ;
Jeremy Bentham; Laplace; Chatterton;
Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons ;
Spurzheim; Johannes von Müller, Universal
History; Lyell, Geology;
Abner Kneeland;
Frances Anne Kemble (Butler), Journal of
Residence in America.
Amos Bronson Alcott, Record of a School.
END OF VOLUME III


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