Introduction
Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes
biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and
nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an
original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and
philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us,
and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods
of life stream around and through us, and invite us, by the powers they supply,
to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of
the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded
wardrobe? The sun shines today also. There is more wool and flax in the fields.
There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us
demand our own works and laws and worship.
...
Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul.
Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which
Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is , both nature and art, all
other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE.
...
Chapter One
To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from
society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me.
But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from
those heavenly worlds will separate between him and what he touches. One might
think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give the man, in
the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets
of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a
thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many
generations the remembrance of the city of
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are
inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind
is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does
the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her
perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the
animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they
had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.
When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical
sense in the mind. We mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural
objects. It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter
from the tree of the poet.
...
To
speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun.
At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye
of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of
nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each
other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His
intercourse with heaven and earth becomes part of his daily food. In the
presence of nature a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real
sorrows. Nature says, -- he is my creature...
...
Standing
on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into
infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I
am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through
me; I am part or parcel of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then
foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover
of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more
dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and
especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as
beautiful as his own nature.
Chapter Four
Who
looks upon a river in a meditative hour and is not reminded of the flux of all
things? Throw a stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate
themselves are the beautiful type of all influence. Man is conscious of a
universal soul within or behind his individual life, wherein, as in a
firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, Freedom, arise and shine. This
universal soul he calls Reason: it is not mine, or thine,
or his, but we are its; we are its property and men. And the blue sky in which
the private earth is buried, the sky with its eternal calm, and full of
everlasting orbs, is the type of Reason. That which intellectually considered
we call Reason, considered in relation to nature, we call Spirit. Spirit is the
Creator. Spirit hath life in itself. And man in all ages and countries
embodies it in his language as the Father. … the
universe becomes transparent, and the light of higher laws than its own shines through
it.
1.
Why does Emerson lament that "our age is retrospective”? What does he
think we lack?
2.
According to Emerson, what binds us all together?
3.
What experience does Emerson think that a man ought to cultivate when in
solitude? Why?
4.
What does Emerson mean when he says that "Nature never became a
toy to a wise spirit"?
5.
What is Emerson trying to awaken his readers to when he "distinguishes the
stick of timber of the wood-cutter from the tree of the poet"?
6.
What figurative meaning is implied in Emerson's statement, "To speak
truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons
do not see the sun"?
7.
How does the love of nature develop a human being?
8.
Write about a similar experience that you have had of nature or the world
around you after reading the following excerpt (paragraph form please):
Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by
the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes.
I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the
Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God. The name of
the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be
acquaintances, master or servant, is then a trifle and
a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the
wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages.
In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon,
man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.
9. What does Emerson mean when he speaks about a "universal soul"? How is it related to "Reason"?