Society and solitude: Twelve chapters

Name: Society and solitude: Twelve chapters
Author: Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

American essays -- 19th century

Meantime we cannot enumerate the incidents and agents of the farm
without reverting to their influence on the farmer. He carries out
this cumulative preparation of means to their last effect. This crust
of soil which ages have refined he refines again for the feeding
of a civil and instructed people. The great elements with which he
deals cannot leave him unaffected, or unconscious of his ministry;
but their influence somewhat resembles that which the same Nature has
on the child,--of subduing and silencing him. We see the farmer with
pleasure and respect, when we think what powers and utilities are
so meekly worn. He knows every secret of labor: he changes the face
of the landscape. Put him on a new planet, and he would know where
to begin; yet there is no arrogance in his bearing, but a perfect
gentleness. The farmer stands well on the world. Plain in manners as
in dress, he would not shine in palaces; he is absolutely unknown and
inadmissible therein; living or dying, he never shall be heard of in
them; yet the drawing-room heroes put down beside him would shrivel in
his presence,--he solid and unexpressive, they expressed to gold-leaf.
But he stands well on the world,--as Adam did, as an Indian does, as
Homer’s heroes, Agamemnon or Achilles, do. He is a person whom a poet
of any clime--Milton, Firdusi, or Cervantes--would appreciate as being
really a piece of the old Nature, comparable to sun and moon, rainbow
and flood; because he is, as all natural persons are, representative of
Nature as much as these.

That uncorrupted behavior which we admire in animals and in young
children belongs to him, to the hunter, the sailor,--the man who
lives in the presence of Nature. Cities force growth, and make men
talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial. What
possesses interest for us is the _naturel_ of each, his constitutional
excellence. This is forever a surprise, engaging and lovely; we cannot
be satiated with knowing it, and about it; and it is this which the
conversation with Nature cherishes and guards.




WORKS AND DAYS.




WORKS AND DAYS.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Society and solitude: Twelve chaptersEmerson, Ralph Waldo

Philosophy

Society and solitude: Twelve chapters

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

American essays -- 19th century

Meantime we cannot enumerate the incidents and agents of the farm
without reverting to their influence on the farmer. He carries out
this cumulative preparation of means to their last effect. This crust
of soil which ages have refined he refines again for the feeding
of a civil and instructed people. The great elements with which he
deals cannot leave him unaffected, or unconscious of his ministry;
but their influence somewhat resembles that which the same Nature has
on the child,--of subduing and silencing him. We see the farmer with
pleasure and respect, when we think what powers and utilities are
so meekly worn. He knows every secret of labor: he changes the face
of the landscape. Put him on a new planet, and he would know where
to begin; yet there is no arrogance in his bearing, but a perfect
gentleness. The farmer stands well on the world. Plain in manners as
in dress, he would not shine in palaces; he is absolutely unknown and
inadmissible therein; living or dying, he never shall be heard of in
them; yet the drawing-room heroes put down beside him would shrivel in
his presence,--he solid and unexpressive, they expressed to gold-leaf.
But he stands well on the world,--as Adam did, as an Indian does, as
Homer’s heroes, Agamemnon or Achilles, do. He is a person whom a poet
of any clime--Milton, Firdusi, or Cervantes--would appreciate as being
really a piece of the old Nature, comparable to sun and moon, rainbow
and flood; because he is, as all natural persons are, representative of
Nature as much as these.

That uncorrupted behavior which we admire in animals and in young
children belongs to him, to the hunter, the sailor,--the man who
lives in the presence of Nature. Cities force growth, and make men
talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial. What
possesses interest for us is the _naturel_ of each, his constitutional
excellence. This is forever a surprise, engaging and lovely; we cannot
be satiated with knowing it, and about it; and it is this which the
conversation with Nature cherishes and guards.




WORKS AND DAYS.




WORKS AND DAYS.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Society and solitude: Twelve chapters

Society and solitude: Twelve chapters

No reviews yet