An Emerson Alphabet.
All right activity is amiable. I never feel that any man occupies my place, but that the reason why I do not have what I wish is, that I want the faculty which entitles. All spiritual or real power makes its own place.—Aristocracy.
By right or wrong,
Lands and goods go to the strong,
Property will brutely draw
Still to the proprietor;
Silver to silver creep and wind,
And kind to kind.
The Celestial Love.
Come see the northwind’s masonry:
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof.
The Snow-storm.
Do not spare to put novels into the hands of young people as an occasional holiday and experiment; but, above all, good poetry in all kinds, epic, tragedy, lyric.—Education.
Europe has always owed to Oriental genius its divine impulses. What those holy bards said, all sane men found agreeable and true.—Address to Divinity Students.
For Nature ever faithful is
To such as trust her faithfulness.
Woodnotes.
Gentle pilgrim, if thou know
The gamut old of Pan,
And how the hills began,
The frank blessings of the hill
Fall on thee, as fall they will.
Monadnoc.
He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base—and that is the one base thing in the universe—to receive favors and render none.—Compensation.
Insect lover of the sun,
Joy of thy dominion;
Sailor of the atmosphere,
Swimmer through the waves of air.
The Humble-bee.
Jesus astonishes and overpowers sensual people. They cannot unite Him to history, or reconcile Him with themselves.—History.
Knowest thou that wove yon wood-bird’s nest
Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?
Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,
Painting with morn each annual shell?
The Problem.
Let a man control the habit of expense. Let him see that as much wisdom may be expended on a private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom be drawn from it.—Prudence.
Man was made of solid earth,
Child and brother from his birth;
Tethered by a liquid cord
Of blood through veins of kindred poured.
The Celestial Love.
No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however near to his eyes is the object. A chemist may tell his most precious secrets to a carpenter, and he shall never be the wiser.—Spiritual Laws.
One harvest from thy field
Homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield
Which I gather in a song.
The Apology.
People say sometimes, “See what I have overcome; see how cheerful I am; see how completely I have triumphed over these black events.” Not if they still remind me of the black event.—Circles.
Queen of things! I dare not die
In Being’s deeps past ear and eye;
Lest there I find the same deceiver
And be the sport of Fate forever.
Ode to Beauty.
River and rose and crag and bird,
Frost and sun and eldest night,
To me their aid preferred,
To me their comfort plight.
Hermione.
Spartans, stoics, heroes, saints, and gods use a short and positive speech. They are never off their centers. As soon as they swell and paint and find truth not enough for them, softening of the brain has already begun.—The Superlative.
Teach me your mood, O patient stars!
Who climb each night the ancient sky,
Leaving on space no shade, no scars,
No trace of age, no fear to die.
The Poet.
Upborne and surrounded as we are by this all-creating nature, soft and fluid as a cloud or the air, why should we be such hard pedants and magnify a few forms?—History.
Virtue runs before the Muse,
And defies her skill;
She is rapt, and doth refuse
To wait a painters will.
Loss and Gain.
Wise, cultivated, genial conversation is the last flower of civilization, and the best result which life has to offer us,—a cup for gods, which has no repentance. Conversation is our account of ourselves.—Woman.