[76] By the Classic age is generally meant the age of Greece and Rome; and by the Romantic is meant the middle ages.
[77] Introversion. Introspection is the more usual word to express the analytic self-searching so common in these days.
[78] Second thoughts. Emerson uses the word here in the same sense as the French arrière-pensée, a mental reservation.
"And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."
Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 1.
[80] Movement. The French Revolution.
[81] Let every common object be credited with the diviner attributes which will class it among others of the same importance.
[82] Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774). An eminent English poet and writer. He is best known by the comedy "She Stoops to Conquer," the poem "The Deserted Village," and the "Vicar of Wakefield." "Of all romances in miniature," says Schlegel, the great German critic, "the 'Vicar of Wakefield' is the most exquisite." It is probably the most popular English work of fiction in Germany.
[83] Robert Burns (1759-1796). A celebrated Scottish poet. The most striking characteristics of Burns' poetry are simplicity and intensity, in which he is scarcely, if at all, inferior to any of the greatest poets that have ever lived.