Essays By Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 23

[Footnote 477: I go with my friend, etc. With Henry Th.o.r.eau, the lover of Nature.]

[Footnote 478: Our little river. The Concord river.]

[Footnote 479: Novitiate and probation. Explain the meaning of these words, in the Roman Catholic Church. What does Emerson mean by them here?]

[Footnote 480: Villegiatura. The Italian name for a season spent in country pleasures.]

[Footnote 481: Hanging gardens. The hanging gardens of Babylon were one of the seven wonders of the world.]

[Footnote 482: Versailles. A royal residence near Paris, with beautiful formal gardens.]

[Footnote 483: Paphos. A beautiful city on the island of Cyprus, where was situated a temple of Astarte, or Venus.]

[Footnote 484: Ctesiphon. One of the chief cities of ancient Persia, the site of a magnificent royal palace.]

[Footnote 485: Notch Mountains. Probably the White Mountains near Crawford Notch, a deep, narrow valley which is often called "The Notch."]

[Footnote 486: aeolian harp. A stringed instrument from which sound is drawn by the pa.s.sing of the wind over its strings. It was named for aeolus, the G.o.d of the winds, in Greek mythology.]

[Footnote 487: Dorian. Dorus was one of the four divisions of Greece: the word is here used in a general sense for Grecian.]

[Footnote 488: Apollo. In Greek and Roman mythology, the sun G.o.d, who presided over music, poetry, and healing.]

[Footnote 489: Diana. In Roman mythology, the G.o.ddess of the moon devoted to the chase.]

[Footnote 490: Edens. Beautiful, sinless places,--like the garden of Eden.]

[Footnote 491: Tempes. Places like the lovely valley of Tempe in Thessaly, Greece.]

[Footnote 492: Como Lake. A lake of northern Italy, celebrated for its beauty.]

[Footnote 493: Madeira Islands. Where are these islands, famous for picturesque beauty and balmy atmosphere?]

[Footnote 494: Common. What is a common?]

[Footnote 495: Campagna. The plain near Rome.]

[Footnote 496: Dilettantism. Define this word and explain its use here.]

[Footnote 497: "Wreaths" and "Flora's Chaplets." About the time that Emerson was writing his essays, volumes of formal, artificial verses were very fashionable, more as parlor ornaments than as literature.

Two such volumes were _A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England_ and _The Floral Offering_ by Mrs. Frances Osgood, a New England writer.]

[Footnote 498: Pan. In Greek mythology, the G.o.d of woods, fields, flocks, and shepherds.]

[Footnote 499: The mult.i.tude of false cherubs, etc. Explain the meaning of this sentence. If true money were valueless, would people make false money?]

[Footnote 500: Proteus. In Greek mythology, a sea G.o.d who had the power of a.s.suming different shapes. If caught and held fast, however, he was forced to a.s.sume his own shape and answer the questions put to him.]

[Footnote 501: Mosaic ... Schemes. The conception of the world as given in Genesis on which the law of Moses, the great Hebrew lawgiver, was founded.]

[Footnote 502: Ptolemaic schemes. The system of geography and astronomy taught in the second century by Ptolemy of Alexandria; it was accepted till the sixteenth century, when the Copernican system was established. Ptolemy believed that the sun, planets, and stars revolve around the earth; Copernicus taught that the planets revolve around the sun.]

[Footnote 503: Flora. In Roman mythology, the G.o.ddess of the spring and of flowers.]

[Footnote 504: Fauna. In Roman mythology, the G.o.ddess of fields and shepherds; she represents the fruitfulness of the earth.]

[Footnote 505: Ceres. The Roman G.o.ddess of grain and harvest, corresponding to the Greek G.o.ddess, Demeter.]

[Footnote 506: Pomona. The Roman G.o.ddess of fruit trees and gardens.]

[Footnote 507: All duly arrive. Emerson deducts from nature the doctrine of evolution. What is its teaching?]

[Footnote 508: Plato. (See note 36.)]

[Footnote 509: Himalaya Mountain chains. (See note 193.)]

[Footnote 510: Franklin. Give an account of Benjamin Franklin, the famous American scientist and patriot. What did he prove about lightening?]

[Footnote 511: Dalton. John Dalton was an English chemist who, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, perfected the atomic theory, that is, the theory that all chemical combinations take place in certain ways between the atoms, or ultimate particles, of bodies.]

[Footnote 512: Davy. (See note 69.)]

[Footnote 513: Black. Joseph Black, a Scotch chemist who made valuable discoveries about latent heat and carbon dioxide, or carbonic acid gas.]

[Footnote 514: The astronomers said, etc. Beginning with this pa.s.sage, several pages of this essay was published in 1844, under the t.i.tle of _Tantalus_, in the next to the last number of _The Dial_, which Emerson edited.]

[Footnote 515: Centrifugal, centripetal. Define these words.]

[Footnote 516: Stoics. See "Stoicism," 331.]

[Footnote 517: Luther. (See note 188.)]

[Footnote 518: Jacob Behmen. A German mystic of the sixteenth century; his name is usually written Boehme.]

[Footnote 519: George Fox. (See note 202.)]

[Footnote 520: James Naylor. An English religious enthusiast of the seventeenth century; he was first a Puritan and later a Quaker.]

[Footnote 521: Operose. Laborious.]

[Footnote 522: Outskirt and far-off reflection, etc. Compare with this pa.s.sage Emerson's poem, _The Forerunners_.]

[Footnote 523: Oedipus. In Greek mythology, the King of Thebes who solved the riddle of the Sphinx, a fabled monster.]

[Footnote 524: Prunella. A widely scattered plant, called self-heal, because a decoction of its leaves and stems was, and to some extent is, valued as an application to wounds. An editor comments on the fact that during the last years of Emerson's life "the little blue self-heal crept into the gra.s.s before his study window."]

SHAKESPEARE; OR, THE POET