Richard Garnett: Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Great Writers,’ 1888.
E. W. Emerson: Emerson in Concord, 1889.
I
HIS LIFE
The clerical profession was in a manner hereditary in the Emerson race. With a single exception there was a minister in each of six generations descending from Thomas Emerson of Ipswich, Massachusetts. For this one lapse compensation was made; another generation furnished the colony with three ministers.
For nearly a century and a half the history of the family has centred in Concord, Massachusetts. The house known as the ‘Old Manse’ was built in 1765 by William Emerson, the young minister of the First Church. Gentle in spirit, he was an ardent patriot and in Revolutionary times won the name of the ‘fighting parson.’ He came honestly by his militant temper, being a grandson of the famous Father Moody who distinguished himself at the siege of Louisburg as a preacher, fighter, and iconoclast.
Besides the gift of eloquence, William Emerson inherited from his father (the Reverend Joseph Emerson of Maiden) a love of literature. This he apparently bequeathed to his son, William, who in turn transmitted it to his son, the author of Conduct of Life and Representative Men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston on May 25, 1803. His father, minister of the First Church of that city, was a man of vigorous intellect, fond of society, and, judging from one of his letters, endowed with a caustic wit. His mother, Ruth (Haskins) Emerson, was distinguished for her high-bred manners and tender thoughtfulness.
Severity on the part of parents was thought good for boys in that day. Ralph never forgot how his father ‘twice or thrice put me in mortal terror by forcing me into the salt water, off some wharf or bathing-house; and I still recall the fright with which, after some of these salt experiences, I heard his voice one day (as Adam that of the Lord God in the garden) summoning me to a new bath, and I vainly endeavoring to hide myself.’
Left a widow in 1811, with five boys to educate, Mrs. Emerson was forced to heroic exertions. Her sacrifices made a deep impress on the mind of the most famous of those boys.
From the Boston Latin School, Emerson went to Harvard College and was graduated in 1821 ‘with ambitions to be a professor of rhetoric and elocution.’ After a period of school-teaching, a profession towards which his attitude was unequivocal (‘Better saw wood, better sow hemp, better hang with it after it is sown, than sow the seeds of instruction’), he began his theological studies at Harvard and in due time was ‘approbated to preach.’ Ill health drove him South for a winter (1826–27), where he saw novel sights, and made the acquaintance of Achille Murat, son of the quondam King of Naples. Emerson had Murat for a fellow traveller from St. Augustine to Charleston: ‘I blessed my stars for my fine companion, and we talked incessantly.’