Essays By Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 12

[Footnote 15: Observe the brisk movement of these sentences. How they catch and hold the attention, giving a new impulse to the reader's interest!]

[Footnote 16: Nature abhors a vacuum.]

[Footnote 17: Noxious. Harmful.]

[Footnote 18: John Locke (1632-1704), an English philosopher whose work was of especial significance in the development of modern philosophy. The work he is best known by is the exhaustive "Essay on the Human Understanding," in which he combated the theory of Descartes, that every man has certain "innate ideas." The innate-idea theory was first proved by the philosopher Descartes in this way.

Descartes began his speculations from a standpoint of absolute doubt.

Then he said, "I think, therefore I am," and from this formula he built up a number of ideas innate to the human mind, ideas which we cannot but hold. Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding" did much to discredit Descartes' innate ideas, which had been very generally accepted in Europe before.]

[Footnote 19: Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount Saint Alban's (1561-1626), a famous English statesman and philosopher. He occupied high public offices, but in 1621 was convicted of taking bribes in his office of Lord Chancellor. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to imprisonment and a fine of forty thousand pounds. Both these sentences were remitted, however. In the seventeenth century, judicial corruption was so common that Bacon's offence was not considered so gross as it would now be. As a philosopher Bacon's rank has been much disputed. While some claim that to his improved method of studying nature are chiefly to be attributed the prodigious strides taken by modern science, others deny him all merit in this respect. His best known works are: "The Novum Organum," a philosophical treatise; "The Advancement of Learning," a remarkable argument in favor of scholarship; and the short essays on subjects of common interest, usually printed under the simple t.i.tle "Bacon's Essays."]

[Footnote 20: Third Estate. The thirteenth century was the age when the national a.s.semblies of most European countries were putting on their definite shape. In most of them the system of _estates_ prevailed. These in most countries were three--n.o.bles, clergy, and commons, the commons being the third estate. During the French Revolution the Third Estate, or Tiers Etat, a.s.serted its rights and became a powerful factor in French politics, choosing its own leaders and effecting the downfall of its oppressors.]

[Footnote 21: Restorers of readings. Men who spend their lives trying to improve and correct the texts of cla.s.sical authors, by comparing the old editions with each other and picking out the version which seem most in accordance with the authors' original work.]

[Footnote 22: Emendators. The same as restorers of readings.]

[Footnote 23: Bibliomaniacs. Men with a mania for collecting rare and beautiful books. Not a bad sort of mania, though Emerson never had any sympathy for it.]

[Footnote 24: To many readers Emerson's own works richly fulfill this obligation. He himself lived continually in such a lofty mental atmosphere that no one can come within the circle of his influence without being stimulated and elevated.]

[Footnote 25: Genius, the possession of a thoroughly active soul, ought not to be the special privilege of favorites of fortune, but the right of every sound man.]

[Footnote 26: They stunt my mental growth. A man should not accept another man's conclusions, but merely use them as steps on his upward path.]

[Footnote 27: If you do not employ such talent as you have in original labor, in bearing the mental fruit of which you are capable, then you do not vindicate your claim to a share in the divine nature.]

[Footnote 28: Disservice. Injury.]

[Footnote 29: In original composition of any sort our efforts naturally flow in the channels worn for us by the first dominating streams of early genius. The conventional is the continual foe of all true art.]

[Footnote 30: Emerson is continually stimulating us to look at things in new ways. Here, for instance, at once the thought comes: "Is it not perhaps possible that the transcendent genius of Shakespeare has been rather noxious than beneficent in its influence on the mind of the world? Has not the all-pervading Shakespearian influence flooded and drowned out a great deal of original genius?"]

[Footnote 31: That is,--when in his clear, seeing moments he can distil some drops of truth from the world about him, let him not waste his time in studying other men's records of what they have seen.]

[Footnote 32: While Emerson's verse is frequently unmusical, in his prose we often find pa.s.sages like this instinct with the fairest poetry.]

[Footnote 33: Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400). The father of English poetry. Chaucer's chief work is the "Canterbury Tales," a series of stories told by pilgrims traveling in company to Canterbury.

Coleridge, the poet, wrote of Chaucer: "I take unceasing delight in Chaucer; his manly cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my old age. How exquisitely tender he is, yet how free from the least touch of sickly melancholy or morbid drooping." Chaucer's poetry is above all things fresh. It breathes of the morning of literature. Like Homer he had at his command all the riches of a new language undefiled by usage from which to choose.

"Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled."

[Footnote 34: Andrew Marvell (1620-1678). An eminent English patriot and satirist. As a writer he is chiefly known by his "Rehearsal Transposed," written in answer to a fanatical defender of absolute power. When a young man he was a.s.sistant to the poet Milton, who was then Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell. Marvell's wit and distinguished abilities rendered him formidable to the corrupt administration of Charles II., who attempted without success to buy his friendship. Emerson's literary perspective is a bit unusual when he speaks of Marvell as "one of the great English poets." Marvell hardly ranks with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton.]

[Footnote 35: John Dryden (1631-1700). A celebrated English poet.

Early in life he wrote almost entirely for the stage and achieved great success. In the latter part of his life, however, according to Macaulay, he "turned his powers in a new direction with success the most splendid and decisive. The first rank in poetry was beyond his reach, but he secured the most honorable place in the second.... With him died the secret of the old poetical diction of England,--the art of producing rich effects by familiar words."]

[Footnote 36: Plato (429-347 B.C.). One of the most ill.u.s.trious philosophers of all time. Probably no other philosopher has contributed so much as Plato to the moral and intellectual training of the human race. This pre-eminence is due not solely to his transcendent intellect, but also in no small measure to his poetic power and to that unrivaled grace of style which led the ancients to say that if Jove should speak Greek he would speak like Plato. He was a remarkable example of that universal culture of body and mind which characterized the last period of ancient Greece. He was proficient in every branch of art and learning and was such a brilliant athlete that he contended in the Isthmian and Pythian games.]

[Footnote 37: Gowns. The black gown worn occasionally in America and always in England at the universities; the distinctive academic dress is a cap and gown.]

[Footnote 38: Pecuniary foundations. Gifts of money for the support of inst.i.tutions of learning.]

[Footnote 39: Wit is here used in its early sense of intellect, good understanding.]

[Footnote 40: Valetudinarian. A person of a weak, sickly const.i.tution.]

[Footnote 41: Mincing. Affected.]

[Footnote 42: Preamble. A preface or introduction.]

[Footnote 43: Dumb abyss. That vast immensity of the universe about us which we can never understand.]

[Footnote 44: I comprehend its laws; I lose my fear of it.]

[Footnote 45: Silkworms feed on mulberry-leaves. Emerson describes what science calls "unconscious cerebration."]

[Footnote 46: Ripe fruit. Emerson's ripe fruit found its way into his diary, where it lay until he needed it in the preparation of some lecture or essay.]

[Footnote 47: I. Corinthians xv. 53.]

[Footnote 48: Empyrean. The region of pure light and fire; the ninth heaven of ancient astronomy.

"The deep-domed empyrean Rings to the roar of an angel onset."

[Footnote 49: Ferules. According to the methods of education fifty years ago, it was quite customary for the teacher to punish a school-child with his ferule or ruler.]

[Footnote 50: Oliver Wendell Holmes cites this last sentence as the most extreme development of the distinctively Emersonian style. Such things must be read not too literally but rapidly, with alert attention to what the previous train of thought has been.]

[Footnote 51: Savoyards. The people of Savoy, south of Lake Geneva in Switzerland.]

[Footnote 52: Emerson's style is characterized by the frequent use of pithy epigrams like this.]

[Footnote 53: Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). A great English philosopher and mathematician. He is famous as having discovered the law of gravitation.]

[Footnote 54: Unhandselled. Uncultivated, without natural advantages.

A handsel is a gift.]

[Footnote 55: Druids. The ancient priesthood of the Britons in Caesar's time. They had immense power among these primitive peoples. They were the judges as well as the priests and decided all questions. It is believed that they made human sacrifices to their G.o.ds in the depths of the primeval forest, but not much is known of their rites.]

[Footnote 56: Berserkers. Berserker was a redoubtable hero in Scandinavian mythology, the grandson of the eight-handed Starkodder and the beautiful Alfhilde. He had twelve sons who inherited the wild-battle frenzy, or berserker rage. The sagas, the great Scandinavian epics, are full of stories of heroes who are seized with this fierce longing for battle, murder, and sudden death. The name means bear-shirt and has been connected with the old _were-wolf_ tradition, the myth that certain people were able to change into man-devouring wolves with a wolfish mad desire to rend and kill.]

[Footnote 57: Alfred, surnamed the Great (848-901), king of the West Saxons in England. When he ascended the throne his country was in a deplorable condition from the repeated inroads of northern invaders.

He eventually drove them out and established a secure government.

England owes much to the efforts of Alfred. He not only fought his country's battles, but also founded schools, translated Latin books into his native tongue, and did much for the intellectual improvement of his people.]