ESSAYS BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON Merrill's English Texts SELECTED AND EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, BY EDNA H.L. TURPIN, AUTHOR OF "STORIES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY," "CLASSIC FABLES," "FAMOUS PAINTERS," ETC. NEW YORK CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 1907 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION LIFE OF EMERSON CRITICAL OPINIONS CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PRINCIPAL WORKS THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR COMPENSATION SELF RELIANCE FRIENDSHIP HEROISM MANNERS GIFTS NATURE SHAKESPEARE; OR, THE POET PRUDENCE CIRCLES NOTES PUBLISHERS' NOTE Merrill's English Texts This series of books will include in complete editions those masterpieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the use of schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes will be chosen for their special qualifications in connection with the texts to be issued under their individual supervision, but familiarity with the practical needs of the classroom, no less than sound scholarship, will characterize the editing of every book in the series. In connection with each text, a critical and historical introduction, including a sketch of the life of the author and his relation to the thought of his time, critical opinions of the work in question chosen from the great body of English criticism, and, where possible, a portrait of the author, will be given. Ample explanatory notes of such passages in the text as call for special attention will be supplied, but irrelevant annotation and explanations of the obvious will be rigidly excluded. CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. LIFE OF EMERSON Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, May 25, 1803. He was descended from a long line of New England ministers, men of refinement and education. As a school-boy he was quiet and retiring, reading a great deal, but not paying much attention to his lessons. He entered Harvard at the early age of fourteen, but never attained a high rank there, although he took a prize for an essay on Socrates, and was made class poet after several others had declined. Next to his reserve and the faultless propriety of his conduct, his contemporaries at college seemed most impressed by the great maturity of his mind. Emerson appears never to have been really a boy. He was always serene and thoughtful, impressing all who knew him with that spirituality which was his most distinguishing characteristic.