Night - dreams trace on Memory’s wall Shadows of the thoughts of day, And thy fortunes as they fall The bias of thy will betray. In the chamber, on the stairs, Lurking dumb, Go and come Lemurs and Lars. [From the course of lectures on “Human Life,” read in Boston, 1839-40. Published in the North American Review, 1877.] The name Demonology covers dreams, omens, coincidences, luck, sortilege, magic, and other experiences which shun rather than court inquiry, and deserve notice chiefly because ever

But if thou do thy best, Without remission, without rest, And invite the sunbeam, And abhor to feign or seem Even to those who thee should love And thy behavior approve; If thou go in thine own likeness, — Be it health or be it sickness, — If thou go as thy father’s son, If thou wear no mask or lie, Dealing purely and nakedly, — … [First read as a lecture — in England — in 1848; here printed with additions from other papers.] There is an attractive topic, which never goes out of vogue and is imp

“More servants wait on man Than he ‘ll take notice of.” George Herbert Ever the Rock of Ages melts Into the mineral air, To be the quarry whence is built Thought and its mansions fair. [Reprinted from the North American Review, No. 125, 1877.] The hero in the fairy tales has a servant who can eat granite rocks, another who can hear the grass grow, and a third who can run a hundred leagues in half an hour; so man in nature is surrounded by a gang of friendly giants who can accept harder stints th

Shun passion, fold the hands of thrift, Sit still, and Truth is near; Suddenly it will uplift Your eyelids to the sphere: Wait a little, you shall see The portraiture of things to be. For what need I of book or priest Or Sibyl from the mummied East When every star is Bethlehem Star, — I count as many as there are Cinquefoils or violets in the grass, So many saints and saviours, So many high behaviours. [Reprinted from the North American Review of April, 1866.] Morals respects what men call goodn

With the key of the secret he marches faster From strength to strength, and for night brings day, While classes or tribes too weak to master The flowing conditions of life, give way. A new degree of intellectual power seems cheap at any price. The use of the world is that man may learn its laws. And the human race have wisely signified their sense of this, by calling wealth, means, — Man being the end. Language is always wise. Therefore I praise New England because it is the country in the world

When wrath and terror changed Jove’s regal port And the rash-leaping thunderbolt fell short. For Art, for Music overthrilled, The wine-cup shakes, the wine is spilled. [Reprinted from the Century of February, 1882.] The doctrine of temperance is one of many degrees. It is usually taught on a low platform, but one of great necessity, — that of meats and drinks, and its importance cannot be denied and hardly exaggerated. But it is a long way from the Maine Law to the heights of absolute self-comma

These rules were writ in human heart By Him who built the day; The columns of the universe Not firmer based than they. Thou shalt not try To plant thy shrivelled pedantry On the shoulders of the sky [Reprinted from the North American Review, of May, 1878.] Since the discovery of Oersted that galvanism and electricity and magnetism are only forms of one and the same force, and convertible each into the other, we have continually suggested to us a larger generalization: that each of the great depa

Ascending thorough just degrees To a consummate holiness, As angel blind to trespass done, And bleaching all souls like the sun. [Originally written as a parlor lecture to some Divinity students, in 1867; afterwards enlarged from earlier writings, and read in its present form at the Divinity Chapel, Cambridge, May 5th, 1879. Reprinted from the Unitarian Review for January, 1880.] In the history of opinion, the pinch of falsehood shows itself first, not in argument and formal protest, but in insi

On bravely through the sunshine and the showers, Time hath his work to do, and we have ours. So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man; When Duty whispers low ‘Thou must,’ The youth replies, ‘I can.’ AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF WATERVILLE COLLEGE, 1863. Gentlemen of the Literary Societies: Some of you are to-day saying your farewells to each other, and to-morrow will receive the parting honors of the College. You go to be teachers, to become physicians, law

For thought, and not praise, Thought is the wages For which I sell days, Will gladly sell ages And willing grow old, Deaf and dumb, blind and cold, Melting matter into dreams, Panoramas which I saw, And whatever glows or seems Into substance, into Law. The sun and moon shall fall amain Like sowers’ seeds into his brain, There quickened to be born again AN ORATION DELIVERED BEFORE THE WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON SOCIETIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 28TH JUNE, 1876. Gentlemen: The Athenians took

The soul Shall have society of its own rank: Be great, be true, and all the Scipios, The Catos, the wise patriots of Rome, Shall flock to you and tarry by your side And comfort you with their high company. For Joy and Beauty planted it With faerie gardens cheered, And boding Fancy haunted it With men and women weird. [This paper was originally printed as an introduction to Plutarch’s Morals, edited by Professor William W. Goodwin, and published, in 1871, by Messrs. Little, Brown & Co, through wh

“Of old things all are over old, Of good things none are good enough; — We’ll show that we can help to frame A world of other stuff.” The ancient manners were giving way. There grew a certain tenderness on the people, not before remarked. Children had been repressed and kept in the background; now they were considered, cosseted and pampered. I recall the remark of a witty physician who remembered the hardships of his own youth; he said, “It was a misfortune to have been born when children were n

[The Dial, vol. iii., p. 100.] In the month of November, 1840, a Convention of Friends of Universal Reform assembled in the Chardon Street Chapel in Boston, in obedience to a call in the newspapers, signed by a few individuals, inviting all persons to a public discussion of the institutions of the Sabbath, the Church and the Ministry. The Convention organized itself by the choice of Edmund Quincy as Moderator, spent three days in the consideration of the Sabbath, and adjourned to a day in March

We love the venerable house Our fathers built to God: In Heaven are kept their grateful vows, Their dust endears the sod. From humble tenements around Came up the pensive train And in the church a blessing found That filled their homes again. [This sketch was written for the Social Circle, a club in Concord now more than a century old, and said to be the lineal descendant of the Committee of Safety in the Revolution. Mr. Emerson was a member for many years and greatly valued its weekly evening m

The yesterday doth never smile, To-day goes drudging through the while, Yet in the name of Godhead, I The morrow front and can defy; Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed, Cannot withhold his conquering aid. Ah me! it was my childhood’s thought, If He should make my web a blot On life’s fair picture of delight, My heart’s content would find it right. But O, these waves and leaves, — When happy, stoic Nature grieves, — No human speech so beautiful As their murmurs mine to lull. On this altar God

“Magno se judice quisque tuetur; Victrix causa deis placuit sed victa Catoni.” A year ago, how often did we meet Beneath these elms, once more in sober bloom, Thy tall, sad figure pacing down the street, And now the robin sings above thy tomb! Thy name on other shores may ne’er be known, Though Rome austere no graver consul knew, But Massachusetts her true son shall own; Out of her soil thy hardy virtues grew. She loves the man that chose the conquered cause, With upright soul that bowed to God

A Queen rejoices in her peers, And wary Nature knows her own, By court and city, dale and down, And like a lover volunteers. And to her son will treasures more, And more to purpose, freely pour In one wood walk, than learned men Will find with glass in ten times ten. It seemed as if the breezes brought him, It seemed as if the sparrows taught him, As if by secret sign he knew Where in far fields the orchis grew. [Part of this paper was the Address delivered by Mr. Emerson at the funeral of Mr. T

Hold with the Maker, not the Made, Sit with the Cause, or grim or glad. [From a letter written soon after Mr. Emerson’s visit to Carlyle in 1848. Read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at their meeting after the death of Carlyle, February, 1881. Published in their Proceedings, and also in “Scribner’s Magazine,” May, 1881.] Thomas Carlyle is an immense talker, as extraordinary in his conversation as in his writing, — I think even more so. He is not mainly a scholar, like the most of my

“Who, when great trials come, Nor seeks nor shunnes them; but doth calmly stay Till he the thing and the example weigh: All being brought into a summe What place or person calls for he doth pay.” George Herbert. [Mr. Emerson paid this tribute to the nobility of character, and eminent services to the republic, of his friend, Major George L. Stearns, at his funeral at Medford, on the 18th of April, 1867.] We do not know how to prize good men until they depart. High virtue has such an air of nature