Essays By Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 16

[Footnote 176: Of the bench, of an impartial judge.]

[Footnote 177: Bound their eyes with ... handkerchief, in this game of blindman's-buff.]

[Footnote 178: "Pin thy faith to no man's sleeve; hast thou not two eyes of thy own?"--CARLYLE.]

[Footnote 179: Give examples of men who have been made to feel the displeasure of the world for their nonconformity.]

[Footnote 180: "Nihil tam incertum nec tam inaestimabile est quam animi mult.i.tudinis."--LIVY, x.x.xi. 34.

"Mobile mutatur semper c.u.m principe vulgus."

CLAUDIa.n.u.s, _De IV. Consul. Honorii_, 302.

[Footnote 181: _The other terror._ The first, conformity, has just been treated.]

[Footnote 182: Consistency. Compare, on the other hand, the well-known saying, "Consistency, thou art a jewel."]

[Footnote 183: Orbit, course in life.]

[Footnote 184: Somewhat, something.]

[Footnote 185: See _Genesis_, x.x.xix. 12.]

[Footnote 186: Pythagoras (fl. about 520 B.C.), a Greek philosopher.

His society was scattered and persecuted by the fury of the populace.]

[Footnote 187: Socrates (470?-399 B.C.), the great Athenian philosopher, whose teachings are the subject of most of Plato's writings, was accused of corrupting the youth, and condemned to drink hemlock.]

[Footnote 188: Martin Luther (1483-1546) preached against certain abuses of the Roman Catholic Church and was excommunicated by the Pope. He became the leader of the Protestant Reformation.]

[Footnote 189: Copernicus (1473-1543) discovered the error of the old Ptolemaic system of astronomy and showed that the sun is the centre of our planetary system. Fearing the persecution of the church, he hesitated long to publish his discovery, and it was many years after his death before the world accepted his theory.]

[Footnote 190: Galileo (1564-1642), the famous Italian astronomer and physicist, discoverer of the satellites of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, was thrown into prison by the Inquisition.]

[Footnote 191: Sir Isaac Newton. (See note 53.)]

[Footnote 192: Andes, the great mountain system of South America.]

[Footnote 193: Himmaleh, Himalaya, the great mountain system of Asia.]

[Footnote 194: Alexandrian stanza. The Alexandrian line consists of twelve syllables (iambic hexameter). Neither the acrostic nor the Alexandrine has the property a.s.signed to it here. A palindrame reads the same forward as backward, as:

"Madam, I'm Adam"; "Signa te signa; temere me tangis et angis";

or the inscription on the church of St. Sophia, Constantinople:

[Greek: "Nipson anomemata me monan opsin,"]

[Footnote 195: The reference is to sailing vessels, of course.]

[Footnote 196: Scorn eyes, scorn observers.]

[Footnote 197: Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), this distinguished statesman and orator. He became very popular as a statesman and was known as "The Great Commoner."]

[Footnote 198: Adams. The reference is presumably to Samuel Adams (1722-1803), a popular leader and orator in the cause of American freedom. He was a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Emerson may have in mind, however, John Adams (1735-1826), second president of the United States.]

[Footnote 199: Spartan. The ancient Spartans were noted for their courage and fort.i.tude.]

[Footnote 200: Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.), the great Roman general, statesman, orator, and author.]

[Footnote 201: St. Anthony (251-356), Egyptian founder of monachism, the system of monastic seclusion.]

[Footnote 202: George Fox (1624-1691), English founder of the Society of Friends or Quakers.]

[Footnote 203: John Wesley (1703-1791), English founder of the religious sect known as Methodists.]

[Footnote 204: Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846), English philanthropist and abolitionist.]

[Footnote 205: Scipio (235-184 B.C.), the great Roman general who defeated Hannibal and decided the fate of Carthage. The quotation is from _Paradise Lost_, Book IX., line 610.]

[Footnote 206: In the story of _Abou Ha.s.san_ or _The Sleeper Awakened_ in the _Arabian Nights_ Abou Ha.s.san awakes and finds himself treated in every respect as the Caliph Haroun Al-raschid. Shakespeare has made use of a similar trick in _Taming of the Shrew_, where Christopher Sly is put to bed drunk in the lord's room and on awaking is treated as a lord.]

[Footnote 207: Alfred the Great (849-901), King of the West Saxons. He was a wise king, a great scholar, and a patron of learning.]

[Footnote 208: Scanderbeg, George Castriota (1404-1467), an Albanian chief who embraced Christianity and carried on a successful war against the Turks.]

[Footnote 209: Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632), King of Sweden, the hero of Protestantism in the Thirty Years' War.]

[Footnote 210: Hieroglyphic, a character in the picture-writing of the ancient Egyptian priests; hence, hidden sign.]

[Footnote 211: Parallax, an angle used in astronomy in calculating the distance of a heavenly body. The parallax decreases as the distance of the body increases.]

[Footnote 212: The child has the advantage of the experience of all his ancestors. Compare Tennyson's line in _Locksley Hall_:

"I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time."

[Footnote 213: "Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also."--EMERSON, _Introd. to Nature, Addresses, etc._]

[Footnote 214: Explain the thought in this sentence.]

[Footnote 215: Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.]

[Footnote 216: Agent, active, acting.]