Society and solitude: Twelve chaptersEmerson, Ralph Waldo
Philosophy
Society and solitude: Twelve chapters
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
American essays -- 19th century
Of him we may say, that he led a life more
remote from death, and in fact lived more, than any other man.” It was
told of the Prince of Condé, “that there not being a more furious man
in the world, danger in fight never disturbs him more than just to make
him civil, and to command in words of great obligation to his officers
and men, and without any the least disturbance to his judgment or
spirit.” Each has his own courage, as his own talent; but the courage
of the tiger is one, and of the horse another. The dog that scorns to
fight, will fight for his master. The llama that will carry a load if
you caress him, will refuse food and die if he is scourged. The fury
of onset is one, and of calm endurance another. There is a courage of
the cabinet as well as a courage of the field; a courage of manners in
private assemblies, and another in public assemblies; a courage which
enables one man to speak masterly to a hostile company, whilst another
man who can easily face a cannon’s mouth dares not open his own.
There is a courage of a merchant in dealing with his trade, by which
dangerous turns of affairs are met and prevailed over. Merchants
recognize as much gallantry, well judged too, in the conduct of a wise
and upright man of business, in difficult times, as soldiers in a
soldier.
There is a courage in the treatment of every art by a master in
architecture, in sculpture, in painting, or in poetry, each cheering
the mind of the spectator or receiver as by true strokes of genius,
which yet nowise implies the presence of physical valor in the artist.
This is the courage of genius, in every kind. A certain quantity of
power belongs to a certain quantity of faculty. The beautiful voice at
church goes sounding on, and covers up in its volume, as in a cloak,
all the defects of the choir. The singers, I observe, all yield to it,
and so the fair singer indulges her instinct, and dares, and dares,
because she knows she can.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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