Essays By Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 26

[Footnote 623: Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready, famous British actors of the Shakespearian parts.]

[Footnote 624: The Hamlet of a famed performer, etc. Macready. Emerson said to a friend: "I see you are one of the happy mortals who are capable of being carried away by an actor of Shakespeare. Now, whenever I visit the theater to witness the performance of one of his dramas, I am carried away by the poet."]

[Footnote 625: What may this mean, etc. _Hamlet_, I. 4.]

[Footnote 626: Midsummer Night's Dream. One of Shakespeare's plays.]

[Footnote 627: The forest of Arden. In which is laid, the scene of Shakespeare's play, _As You Like It_.]

[Footnote 628: The nimble air of Scone Castle. It was of the air of Inverness, not of Scone, that "the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses."--_Macbeth_, I. 6.]

[Footnote 629: Portia's villa. See the moonlight scene, _Merchant of Venice_, V. 1.]

[Footnote 630: The antres vost, etc. See _Oth.e.l.lo_, I. 3. "Antres" is an old word, meaning caves, caverns.]

[Footnote 631: Cyclopean architecture. In Greek mythology, the Cyclops were a race of giants. The term 'Cyclopean' is applied here to the architecture of Egypt and India, because of the majestic size of the buildings, and the immense size of the stones used, as if it would require giants to perform such works.]

[Footnote 632: Phidian sculpture. Phidias was a famous Greek sculptor who lived in the age of Pericles and beautified Athens with his works.]

[Footnote 633: Gothic minsters. Churches or cathedrals, built in the Gothic, or pointed, style of architecture which prevailed during the Middle Ages; it owed nothing to the Goths, and this term was originally used in reproach, in the sense of "barbarous."]

[Footnote 634: The Italian painting. In Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries pictorial art was carried to a degree of perfection unknown in any other time or country.]

[Footnote 635: Ballads of Spain and Scotland. The old ballads of these countries are noted for beauty and spirit.]

[Footnote 636: Tripod. Define this word, and explain its appropriateness here.]

[Footnote 637: Aubrey. John Aubrey, an English antiquarian of the seventeenth century.]

[Footnote 638: Rowe. Nicholas Rowe, an English author of the seventeenth century, who wrote a biography of Shakespeare.]

[Footnote 639: Timon. See note on _Gifts_, 466.]

[Footnote 640: Warwick. An English politician and commander of the fifteenth century, called "the King Maker." He appears in Shakespeare's plays, _Henry IV._, _V._, and _VI._]

[Footnote 641: Antonio. The Venetian Merchant in Shakespeare's play, _The Merchant of Venice_.]

[Footnote 642: Talma. Francois Joseph Talma was a French tragic actor, to whom Napoleon showed favor.]

[Footnote 643: An omnipresent humanity, etc. See what Carlyle has to say on this subject in his _Hero as Poet_.]

[Footnote 644: Daguerre. Louis Jacques Daguerre, a French painter, one of the inventors of the daguerreotype process, by means of which an image is fixed on a metal plate by the chemical action of light.]

[Footnote 645: Euphuism. The word here has rather the force of euphemism, an entirely different word. Euphuism was an affected ornate style of expression, so called from _Euphues_, by John Lyly, a sixteenth century master of that style.]

[Footnote 646: Epicurus. A Greek philosopher of the third century before Christ. He was the founder of the Epicurean school of philosophy which taught that pleasure should be man's chief aim and that the highest pleasure is freedom.]

[Footnote 647: Dante. (See note 258.)]

[Footnote 648: Master of the revels, etc. Emerson always expressed thankfulness for "the spirit of joy which Shakespeare had shed over the universe." See what Carlyle says in _The Hero as Poet_, about Shakespeare's "mirthfulness and love of laughter."]

[Footnote 649: Koran. The Sacred book of the Mohammedans.]

[Footnote 650: Twelfth Night, etc. The names of three bright, merry, or serene plays by Shakespeare.]

[Footnote 651: Egyptian verdict. Emerson used Egyptian probably in the sense of "gipsy." He compares such opinions to the fortunes told by the gipsies.]

[Footnote 652: Ta.s.so. An Italian poet of the sixteenth century.]

[Footnote 653: Cervantes. A Spanish poet and romancer of the sixteenth century, the author of _Don Quixote_.]

[Footnote 654: Israelite. Such Hebrew prophets as Isaiah and Jeremiah.]

[Footnote 655: German. Such as Luther.]

[Footnote 656: Swede. Such as Swedenborg, the mystic philosopher of the eighteenth century of whom Emerson had already written in _Representative Men_.]

[Footnote 657: A pilgrim's progress. As described by John Bunyan, the English writer, in his famous _Pilgrim's Progress_.]

[Footnote 658: Doleful histories of Adam's fall, etc. The subject of _Paradise Lost,_ the great poem by John Milton.]

[Footnote 659: With doomsdays and purgatorial, etc. As described by Dante in his _Divine Commedia_, an epic about h.e.l.l, purgatory, and paradise.]

PRUDENCE

[Footnote 660: The essay on _Prudence_ was given as a lecture in the course on _Human Culture_, in the winter of 1837-8. It was published in the first series of _Essays_, which appeared in 1841.]

[Footnote 661: Lubricity. The word means literally the state or quality of being slippery; Emerson uses it several times, in its derived sense of "instability."]

[Footnote 662: Love and Friendship. The subjects of the two essays preceding _Prudence_, in the volume of 1841.]

[Footnote 663: The world is filled with the proverbs, etc. Compare with this pa.s.sage Emerson's words in _Compensation_ on "the flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as that of birds and flies."]

[Footnote 664: A good wheel or pin. That is, a part of a machine.]

[Footnote 665: The law of polarity. Having two opposite poles, the properties of the one of which are the opposite of the other.]

[Footnote 666: Summer will have its flies. Emerson discoursed with philosophic calm about the impediments and disagreeableness which beset every path; he also accepted them with serenity when he encountered them in his daily life.]

[Footnote 667: The inhabitants of the climates, etc. As a northerner, Emerson naturally felt that the advantage and superiority were with his own section. He expressed in his poems _Voluntaries_ and _Mayday_ views similar to those declared here.]

[Footnote 668: Peninsular campaign. Emerson here refers to the military operations carried on from 1808 to 1814 in Portugal, Spain, and southern France against the French, by the British, Spanish, and Portuguese forces commanded by Wellington. What was the "Peninsular campaign" in American history?]

[Footnote 669: Dr. Johnson is reported to have said, etc. Dr.

Samuel Johnson was an eminent English scholar of the eighteenth century. In this, as in many other instances, Emerson quotes from his memory instead of from the book. The words of Dr. Johnson, as reported by his biographer Boswell, are: "Accustom your children constantly to this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say it happened at another, do not let it pa.s.s, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."]

[Footnote 670: Rifle. A local name in England and New England for an instrument, on the order of a whetstone, used for sharpening scythes; it is made of wood, covered with fine sand or emery.]