FullReads

[Footnote 26: They stunt my mental growth. A man should not accept another man’s conclusions, but merely use them as steps on his upward path.]

[Footnote 27: If you do not employ such talent as you have in original labor, in bearing the mental fruit of which you are capable, then you do not vindicate your claim to a share in the divine nature.]

[Footnote 28: Disservice. Injury.]

[Footnote 29: In original composition of any sort our efforts naturally flow in the channels worn for us by the first dominating streams of early genius. The conventional is the continual foe of all true art.]

[Footnote 30: Emerson is continually stimulating us to look at things in new ways. Here, for instance, at once the thought comes: “Is it not perhaps possible that the transcendent genius of Shakespeare has been rather noxious than beneficent in its influence on the mind of the world? Has not the all-pervading Shakespearian influence flooded and drowned out a great deal of original genius?”]

[Footnote 31: That is,–when in his clear, seeing moments he can distil some drops of truth from the world about him, let him not waste his time in studying other men’s records of what they have seen.]

[Footnote 32: While Emerson’s verse is frequently unmusical, in his prose we often find passages like this instinct with the fairest poetry.]

[Footnote 33: Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400). The father of English poetry. Chaucer’s chief work is the “Canterbury Tales,” a series of stories told by pilgrims traveling in company to Canterbury. Coleridge, the poet, wrote of Chaucer: “I take unceasing delight in Chaucer; his manly cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my old age. How exquisitely tender he is, yet how free from the least touch of sickly melancholy or morbid drooping.” Chaucer’s poetry is above all things fresh. It breathes of the morning of literature. Like Homer he had at his command all the riches of a new language undefiled by usage from which to choose.

“Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,
On Fame’s eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.” ]

[Footnote 34: Andrew Marvell (1620-1678). An eminent English patriot and satirist. As a writer he is chiefly known by his “Rehearsal Transposed,” written in answer to a fanatical defender of absolute power. When a young man he was assistant to the poet Milton, who was then Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell. Marvell’s wit and distinguished abilities rendered him formidable to the corrupt administration of Charles II., who attempted without success to buy his friendship. Emerson’s literary perspective is a bit unusual when he speaks of Marvell as “one of the great English poets.” Marvell hardly ranks with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton.]

[Footnote 35: John Dryden (1631-1700). A celebrated English poet. Early in life he wrote almost entirely for the stage and achieved great success. In the latter part of his life, however, according to Macaulay, he “turned his powers in a new direction with success the most splendid and decisive. The first rank in poetry was beyond his reach, but he secured the most honorable place in the second…. With him died the secret of the old poetical diction of England,–the art of producing rich effects by familiar words.”]

[Footnote 36: Plato (429-347 B.C.). One of the most illustrious philosophers of all time. Probably no other philosopher has contributed so much as Plato to the moral and intellectual training of the human race. This pre-eminence is due not solely to his transcendent intellect, but also in no small measure to his poetic power and to that unrivaled grace of style which led the ancients to say that if Jove should speak Greek he would speak like Plato. He was a remarkable example of that universal culture of body and mind which characterized the last period of ancient Greece. He was proficient in every branch of art and learning and was such a brilliant athlete that he contended in the Isthmian and Pythian games.]