[666] Summer will have its flies. Emerson discoursed with philosophic calm about the impediments and disagreeableness which beset every path; he also accepted them with serenity when he encountered them in his daily life.
[667] The inhabitants of the climates, etc. As a northerner, Emerson naturally felt that the advantage and superiority were with his own section. He expressed in his poems Voluntaries and Mayday views similar to those declared here.
[668] Peninsular campaign. Emerson here refers to the military operations carried on from 1808 to 1814 in Portugal, Spain, and southern France against the French, by the British, Spanish, and Portuguese forces commanded by Wellington. What was the "Peninsular campaign" in American history?
[669] Dr. Johnson is reported to have said, etc. Dr. Samuel Johnson was an eminent English scholar of the eighteenth century. In this, as in many other instances, Emerson quotes from his memory instead of from the book. The words of Dr. Johnson, as reported by his biographer Boswell, are: "Accustom your children constantly to this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."
[670] Rifle. A local name in England and New England for an instrument, on the order of a whetstone, used for sharpening scythes; it is made of wood, covered with fine sand or emery.
[671] Last grand duke of Weimar. Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach is a grand duchy of Germany. The grand duke referred to was Charles Augustus, who died in 1828. He was the friend and patron of the great German authors, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland.
[672] The Raphael in the Dresden gallery. The Sistine Madonna, the most famous picture of the great Italian artist, Raphael.
[673] Call a spade a spade. Plutarch, the Greek historian, said, "These Macedonians ... call a spade a spade."
[674] Parts. A favorite eighteenth century term for abilities, talents.
[675] We have found out, etc. Emerson always insisted that morals and intellect should be united. He urged that power and insight are lessened by shortcomings in morals.