Miscellanies : $b embracing Nature, addresses, and lecturesEmerson, Ralph Waldo
Philosophy
Miscellanies : $b embracing Nature, addresses, and lectures
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
American essays -- 19th century; Philosophy of nature; Transcendentalism (New England)
This picture would serve for our times. Religion was not invited to eat
or drink or sleep with us, or to make or divide an estate, but was a
holiday guest. Such omissions judge the church; as the compromise made
with the slaveholder, not much noticed at first, every day appears more
flagrant mischief to the American constitution. But now the purists are
looking into all these matters. The more intelligent are growing uneasy
on the subject of Marriage. They wish to see the character represented
also in that covenant. There shall be nothing brutal in it, but it shall
honor the man and the woman, as much as the most diffusive and universal
action. Grimly the same spirit looks into the law of Property, and
accuses men of driving a trade in the great boundless providence which
had given the air, the water, and the land to men, to use and not to
fence in and monopolize. It casts its eye on Trade, and Day Labor, and
so it goes up and down, paving the earth with eyes, destroying privacy
and making thorough-lights. Is all this for nothing? Do you suppose that
the reformers, which are preparing, will be as superficial as those we
know?
By the books it reads and translates, judge what books it will presently
print. A great deal of the profoundest thinking of antiquity, which had
become as good as obsolete for us, is now re-appearing in extracts and
allusions, and in twenty years will get all printed anew. See how daring
is the reading, the speculation, the experimenting of the time. If now
some genius shall arise who could unite these scattered rays! And always
such a genius does embody the ideas of each time. Here is great variety
and richness of mysticism, each part of which now only disgusts, whilst
it forms the sole thought of some poor Perfectionist or “Comer out,”
yet, when it shall be taken up as the garniture of some profound and
all-reconciling thinker, will appear the rich and appropriate decoration
of his robes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account