Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson,.

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Houghton Mifflin, 1913

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Page 56 - IF the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. Far or forgot to me is near ; Shadow and sunlight are the same ; /...,'..'. The vanished gods to me appear; And one to me are shame and fame. They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
Page 282 - Me you call great : mine is the firmer seat, The truer lance : but there is many a youth Now crescent, who will come to all I am And overcome it ; and in me there dwells No greatness, save it be some far-off touch Of greatness to know well I am not great : There is the man.
Page 241 - That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to 'remember them that are in bonds as bound with them'.
Page 7 - This climate and people are a new test for the wares of a man of letters. All his thin, watery matter freezes ; 'tis only the smallest portion of alcohol that remains good. At the lyceum, the stout Illinoian, after a short trial, walks out of the hall. The Committee tell you that the people want a hearty laugh, and Stark, and Saxe, and Park Benjamin, who give them that, are heard with joy.
Page 8 - Reynolds, the people are always right (in a sense), and that the man of letters is to say, These are the new conditions to which I must conform. The architect, who is asked to build a house to go upon the sea, must not build a Parthenon, or a square house, but a ship. And Shakspeare, or Franklin, or ^Esop, coming to Illinois, would say, I must give my wisdom a comic form...
Page 533 - Just so, it is the way of the superior man to prefer the concealment of his virtue, while it daily becomes more illustrious, and it is the way of the mean man to seek notoriety, while he daily goes more and more to ruin. It is characteristic of the superior man, appearing insipid, yet never to produce satiety ; while showing a simple negligence, yet to have his accomplishments recognized ; while seemingly plain, yet to be discriminating.
Page 557 - You cannot refine Mr. Lincoln's taste, extend his horizon, or clear his judgment ; he will not walk dignifiedly through the traditional part of the President of America, but will pop out his head at each railroad station and make a little speech, and get into an argument with Squire A. and Judge B.
Page 319 - Youth I will report no other wonder, but this; That though I lived with him, and knew him from a child, yet I never knew him other than a man: with fuch ftaiednefle of mind, lovely, and familiar gravity, as carried grace, and reverence above greater years.
Page 241 - I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done...

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