The Ralph Waldo Emerson Journals Digital Archive Volume 4

183 Pages·2006·1.27 MB·English

by  Richard Geldard

The Ralph Waldo Emerson Journals Digital Archive
Volume 4
[
From the 1904-14 Edition, Edward Emerson, General Editor]
presented by
The Ralph Waldo Emerson Institute and RWE.org
Board of Directors
James Manley, Chairman and Webmaster
Alexander Forbes Emerson, Vice-Chairman
Richard G. Geldard, PhD, Secretary, Archive Editor
Susan Imholz, PhD, Treasurer
Barbara Soloway
David Beardsley

All Rights Reserved
In Cooperation with Lightning Source, Inc.
© Copyright Ralph Waldo Emerson Institute, 2006
The Digital Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson
An Introduction
Welcome to the Digital Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, an archive provided by The
Ralph Waldo Emerson Institute for the use and convenience of interested students of the life and
works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The source of these digital Journals is the ten-volume Edward
Emerson edition, originally published in Boston by Houghton Mifflin from 1904 through 1914, and
comprising over 5,000 pages of material.
We learn in the Introduction to Volume 1 that Emerson’s son Edward was asked in 1902 by
Houghton Mifflin for permission to publish the Complete Journals. The Emerson family, now
represented by The Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association, gave permission, and Edward,
with support and assistance from his nephew Waldo Emerson Forbes, undertook the task of
selecting material from the 230 manuscripts that make up the collection. We in turn thank the
Memorial Association for their support in making these digitized journals available to interested
scholars and serious readers of the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The subsequent ten-volume edition of the Journals as originally published by Houghton
Mifflin represents Edward Emerson’s personal editing of the entire corpus of hand-written journals
now housed at the Houghton Rare Book Library of Harvard University. Edward’s cautionary
editing left some material unpublished, as befitted a son, a citizen of Concord, and the taste of
Nineteenth Century New England. In other words, some material deemed too personal or offensive
to some was edited out.

Subsequently, starting in 1960, the Belknap Press of Harvard University began its own
authoritative edition of the Journals, which was completed with Volume XVI in 1982, in time for the
Centennial of Emerson’s death. This edition (hereafter cited as the JMN) includes all of Emerson’s
journal entries, plus detailed notes and commentary. It should be noted, therefore, that users of this
Digital Journal Archive should always consult the JMN to authenticate material gleaned from the
digital files before publishing journal material. It is unfortunate that Harvard University Press has
consistently refused to relinquish the Digital Rights to the Journals, nor does it have any intention
of digitizing the JMN in the near future. However, most libraries in America have the JMN on their
shelves and many of the volumes are still for sale from the Press, although they are very expensive.
The main advantages of the Digital Journal Archive over the printed volumes are the search
and/or find features available in Acrobat Reader. Users can search for names, dates, places, and,
most important, words and ideas in a relative instant. Emerson used his journals as his “savings
bank,” as he called them, to record and then use thoughts and facts for later use in essays, lectures
and sermons. Therefore, we often find the seed of an entire essay in the journals, but we also find
more private candid remarks and personal observations which did not find their way into the
Complete Works. In all, the Journals are a fascinating and valuable record of a lifetime of
inspiration and insight.
Users will note that the formatting of the Journals mirrors the printed texts as closely as
possible, maintaining pagination as well as Emerson’s original spelling and abbreviations. We have
chosen not to use the traditional (sic) designation whenever a variant spelling occurs, thinking that
such editing is intrusive. In the case of foreign words and passages, we have not provided
translation, except where Edward Emerson does. Users who wish to have such translations should
consult the JMN.
Richard G Geldard, PhD,
General Editor
January, 2006
([email protected])
The Emerson Digital Journal Archive - Volume 4
CONTENTS
JOURNAL XXVII
1836
(From Journal B)
Miss Martineau; law of hospitality. Truth. Spartan. Profanation. Charles W. Upham. Quoted verses.
Swedenborg. The scholar's lot; facts his treasure. Cudworth. The poet must have faith.
hickler-Muskau on English dandy. Eve has no clock. Authors' pay. Sentences of Confucius. Alcott's
journals. Idealism; books, worship, friends, Nature as aids., Riddle of individuals. Talk with Charles
on motives. Coming Revival. Trust and act the God in you. Quotations from Goethe. Man a coal in
the fire. Tasks. The reflective poet. Each man's questions. Man is curbed. God finds joys for
bar-keepers. ‘, Godliness." All is in Each. The problem of three bodies. Devil's-needle day. Truth
heals. Weigh books. Miracle. The brave speaker wins. Greek Drama; Chorus. Notes on Idealism.
A Day, a child; their significance. Ideas. Goethe quoted. Edward's superiority. Look for symbols and
learn. Do not waste time on woes. Goethe; Time's verdict on him. Religion must come through the
heart. Fragrant piety. Stand for the ideal, respect matter. Man the analogist. Unsafe advantages.
Expression; imitative writing unsound. Nature
vi CONTENTS
prompts worship. Self-control. Wisdom manifold; Duty. Express the life of your day. Charles's
death;
his life, thought, and letters................................................................................................... 3-50
Helpers in life; your, Parnassus. The One Mind; the generic soul. A friend's conscience. Talk of
persons; elegance ofim personality in science and ethics. Theism. Wordsworth. Natural education.
The odd is transient. Landor. Scholars should be happy and brave. God the servant. The carpenter.
Use Nature's help. Parable, the urn and fountain. House painters. The humanity of science; study
humanly. Mind is one. Alcott's writing. Communion with God consoles. Faces. Mind has room for
books. Your duty, or others'? Estate untaxed. Man creates his world. William Emerson. Uneasiness
in society. Writers do not go to Nature; her lesson of power. Bereavement. Alcott's school. Poetry
in humblest facts. One in All. Alcott's thought, his limitations. Pan. Divine seed. Understanding and
Reason. Alcott's school conversations. Problem of Nature. Boccaccio. Flaxman's Dante. Friendships.
Your own Bible. Man. Secrets. The mind's walls. Personal impression. Margaret Fuller's visit.
Fathers. The moon. Women's minds. Philisterei. Proof-sheets of Nature; sentences; selling thought.
The great poets humble. Commencement Day. Harvard's Jubilee; ghosts and boys. Progress. Suum
Cuique. The Symposium"; feminine genius, art proper to the age; return to Nature. Position.
American thought; its obstacles, property and imitation of Europe. Reason's hours few. Science and
Literature, the old and new; European writers; new
CONTENTS vii
questions ; democracy. Religion changes ; the demoniacal force; virtue; no concealment;
conscience. Judgment; the ancient sculpture. Want and Have. Beauty in common life; classification.
All in Each; the world's will. Curiosity as to other faiths. Art and Architecture; Reason makes them.
Marriage, its gradual unfolding. Problem of hospitality. Universal laws. Political Economy; sure
taxes. Arts in America pause; an Age of reflection. Judgment Days; obstacles. Harmony of the
world. Moral sentiment must act; Goodness smiles. Gruff village manners have their use; Common
sense against doctrinaires or dreamers.
Soul in science .....................................................................................................................51-113
Symposium at Alcott's. Transcendentalism defined. Preaching at Waltham; the hearers. The mind
seeks unity; Goethe; Newton; Lamarck, monad to man. Poet and savant. Goose Pond. Plan of
lectures; unity. Self-trust. In teaching omit tradition; go to the Most High. The gifts of man. The God
in man; individual and universal; myriad-handed Nature. Time. Nature's surprises. Inexorable
thoughts. The soul's speech. Letter to Warren Burton; bereavement. Civil History. Teachers'
meeting; spirit endures; Christ a fellow worshipper. Man's construction. Modern study of organic
remains; reading Nature's record; her workshop. Plagiarism due to common Mind. Every man's axis.
Reading for a task. Composition; human chemistry. Birth of a son; father, mother and child. Sect
begets sect. Man and Nature. Winter. The Age; speculation' in America; all races come. Memories
of Charles. George B. Emerson. Passages from Plu-
viii CONTENTS
tarch's Morals. The hemlocks. Sleep. Preaching down. The Greek genius. Nature still undescribed.
Price of wood. Language clothes Nature. Xenophon. Nursery music. Human joys. Falling stars.
November election. Alcott; large thought; Man between God and the mob. Verdict of the ages.
Bentley's scholarship. Newton's epitaph. Coleridge a churchman. Philosophic history. Orphic words.
Otherism. Edward Taylor, his power and charm instinctive. True use of history. Individuals
progress, the race not. Colburn. Character, not chance, tells. Moore's Sheridan. Liberia. Superlative.
The spirit behind disguises. Historians do not portray man; Soul in history. Frozen Walden.
Shackford; Brownson; Good normal, evil not; Christianity misrepresented. Truth stands alone.
Wood-thought. Rhetoric. Composition like architecture. Ecclesiastical manners. The Antique. Speak
to men as souls. Webster. George Herbert. Harmonies. Reading..................................... 114-175
JOURNAL XXVIII
1837
(From Journal C)
The poem, the sentence, a mirror; ephemeral or lasting work. Carlyle. Courtesy; influence. A family.
Prevailing virtue. Great men. Education by facts. The Plymouth freed-woman. God not a person.
Numbers do not count. Warnings. Shakspear. Country blessings. The dead-alive. Party lies.
Troublesome wit.
CONTENTS ix
Be guest in your house. Lecturing. Stamp of the Old and New on all. Edward Taylor's eloquence and
happiness; his similes. Trust the genius. Stage passengers. Taste. Experiments on living. Carlyle's
wide genius; his strength-worship; his style. The Antique. The baby. Shelley quoted. Providences.
In writing, trust the people. Slavery. Life tentative. Eckermann. Education at Harvard.
Language-study. George Minot. The market-wagon procession. Glances. Retzsch. Attack on Alcott.
Camper, Merck, Tischbein. New England's factories. Progress. Culture, German and English.
Polarity. The financial crisis. What and How. The good villager. Trust the common mind.
Occasional Poems." Indulgence and command. Judgment of Goethe. Jesus. Spring and hard times.
Gifts. Our strange lot. Vivian Gray. Paradise Lost and Inferno. The merchant. Goethe's estimates.
Plotinus on Art quoted. Goethe on Seneca and Tycho Brahe. Forlorn pride; affectation. Character
above intellect; Daimonisches. Jonathan Phillips on behavior. German lessons from Margaret Fuller.
Tides. The gift of a grove. Original action and thought. Heroic manners. Hourly conversion. My
trees. Acts and emotions common.....................................................................................179-228
Doom of solitude. Advantages in boyhood of a pious ancestry: their traditions. Waldo's baptism.
Starving souls; real sermons : John Quincy Adams. Dr. Ripley's solid facts. Engagement. The baby
cousins. The humble-bee. Visits of William, Dr. Hedge, Dr. Channing„ Jonathan Phillips; ceremony
baulks. Hard times; sleep, gardening and nature the medicine.
x CONTENTS
Alcott's vision. Imperfect union with friends.> Boys on a farm. Repulsions. Live toward insight. Men
are appendages. Symbols, their use. Peevishness. Hard times show failure of "the real " ; their stern
revelations. Poverty the wise man's ornament; yet pity the common man. Symbolism. Help, or mind
your business. Cant; Wordsworth. Composition justified. The Individual; God in us; dualism; the
male and female principle; light returns. Nature the thin screen of unity. Symposium; talk with
Hedge; over-deference; Nancy's apology. May days. Manfred and Beppo. Sickness; reading
Johnson's Life, and his books. Donne's verse on unity. Genius the creator. Cowley and Donne
proverbs. Visit to Plymouth; the baby. Weeding and laughing. Reading gives vocabulary for ideas.
Letter to Margaret Fuller; the period ofunrest. Courage. Crabbe. The Athenaeum Library; books or
nature. Carlyle's desired companionship. The scholar's office. Pope, Johnson, Addison never knew
nature. Thirty years. Beauty of night. Hospitality to unbidden guests. Aunt Mary's watcher. Subjects.
Clarendon on Falkland. Afternoon by Walden. Language. The splendid sentences of Pindar, Plato,
Heraclitus. Miss Martineau's book. Dishonest pride. Drill or creation ? Shakspear ; Clarendon. In
talk or writing always suppose God; Effect sundered from Cause worthless in education; we are
porous to principles. Gardening. Calm. Dr. Frothingham. Carlyle's nobility; his acceptance. The
scholar's investment. South and North. Foolish war. Life gives language. Preaching words. Message
of Jesus. Morals balance.
CONTENTS xi
Pride. Damascene writing. The philosophers' visit. Society. Beauty of infancy...............229-279
(Eillade. The Scholar's office; freedom from authors, masters; everything teaches. The tool-room
in the barn; children's delights. Genius. Quotations from Plutarch's Morals. Early terrors from
Calvinism. Dreams. Adam's fall. The soul's expansion. Golden September. Due sympathy. The
horizon feeds us. The heavenward view. Symposium. The American wood-god. Applause. The
insect battle. "The foolish face of praise." The old-time soldier. Two faces. The hand. Impersonal
talk. Aesthetic Club. Spontaneity. The afternoon man. Tabooed subjects. Must not remember.
Postpone your system. Charles Henry Warren's toast. Each man a centre. The democratic aunt.
Allston's verses. Your native spot; travel. Strength of Peace. Phrenology. New England proud to
serve. The child out of doors. Property a test. Women love appearances. Preaching from memory.
Instinct or zeal ? Each day a step. Servants of convention. The slave-trade. Beauty. Law of mind.
Analogy's hints. Bancroft's History. Strong English speech. In preaching " Truth will out." Unspoken
kindness. Composition of forces. Progress of species. Plotinus quoted. Thought-givers. Symbol of
food from above. Keep to principles. Ships' names. Stand your ground; defeat may be gain. Yield
to the housewife. Trade. Accept your day and deal with it. Animal magnetism. Southern students.
Teach women character. A coat. The higher self. Listen. Gain in loss. Woman, from Calidasa. The
LaocoOn. The Asiatic journal, Lord
xii CONTENTS
Napier. Athenmum reading-room. Delight in heroic action; Hampden, Pym, Falkland: the White
House. Expression. New eyes. Squire Hoar on just causes. Instincts of bank director and scholar.
Tombs. Dreams. Starvation library. Great poets use the positive. The past lives, though time ruins
its temples. The Circe's cup of custom; War's iron lobsters. Judge the author yourself; words must
be kings. Autumn in Sleepy Hollow. Art of Greece. The appeal to the future; your present makes
it. The kingdom of the soul. Selection. Nature harmonizes........................................... 280-330
The wild man; tame men; love may waken. Curiosity as to great men's greatness; Boswellism.
Swedenborgians. Margaret Fuller. Alcott's austerity. Medical skeptics. Events help. Pestalozzi's
method. Death. Proportion; architecture of writing, and new meanings. Woman's limitations, yet
trust. The new woman. Tears. Culture; trust entirely; the heart. The (I) B K oration in demand.
Earning a living; integrity. Dr. Bartlett's bog. Luigi Monti's mother; charity. The heroic rare; Alfieri,
Goldoni. What is death ? A reason for the parting. Sympathy but sincerity. Sacs, Foxes, and Sioux
in Boston. American edition of Carlyle's work. Write your word briefly and sincerely. Alcott's views
on a school. The reformer must go his own way; perplexities and courage; honourable poverty.
Freedom of the outcast. The state of war. The fable of the cedar-birds. Life and characters in
Concord. The daily miracle; life of earth and air and mankind. Man and writer must be one; English
authors weighed. The Bible mandate for char-
CONTENTS xiii
ity. Society a test. Darkness. Joy of the eye; its purpose. Comparative anatomy. The Faneuil Hall
Canons; Webster, Everett, Bell; eloquence. Judaea. Horace Mann's visit. Sick man's indulgence.
Puckler Muskau. Bradley's discovery. Turns. Meeting men. Tone. Music of Nature, quotations from
William Gardiner. Weakness of the self-sufficient. Culture, its manifold agents, yet human relation
more. Bunyan' s verses. Culture teaches proportion; the methods. Wise man sides with assailants;
the real skeptic. Your own call, but note others'. Lovejoy's heroic death. Highest culture's
requirements; picture of the home. Sleep; David Buttrick the market-man. Warnings from slavery.
Lesson of crisis of trade, its far-reaching causes. Church-going. Ends meet; the service of science
and of history. Waste strength. The high-minded girl. The apostle of "Understanding." Mr. Sam
Ripley's real preaching. The lie of One Idea. Idealizing girls. The intellect; its beauty; is not partisan,
observes, dissolves, reduces; beasts and man; the child; dwells
with the Cause. Reading ...................................................................................................335-383
JOURNAL XXIX
1838
(From Journal C)
Mild winter. Sleep and dreams. Superstition of knowledge; explorers needed; few thoughts in an
age. Carlyle' s.letter; the unseen friend, John Sterling. Themes for lectures. People hungry for truth;
all superiority a
CONTENTS xv
and aspiring youths. The Cherokees. Dreams. Persons or thoughts. True poetry ethical. Always pay."
Example needs time. The Cherokee ,‘ scream." Miracles. Bacon's juvenile critics. Brave farmers.
The young housewife. The first ocean steamships. Letter to Van Buren. Philanthropic meetings.
Walk with Thoreau. Surprise of piety. Waldo and his mother. The grove. Mrs. Ripley. Spontaneous
sentiment; enslaved disciples, the saving common sense. Jesus acted thought. Dualism; unity.
Anything serves genius; Dickens. Distinction; Napoleon temperament; varied genius. Forest joys.
Homer. Gifts. Apathy hard to understand. Thought and life. Problem of unprofitable company; the
wife's solution. Sleep unbecoming. Exhilarating holidays. The parish church. Goodies. The human
Jesus helpful. The reverend villagers. A great man's day. Aunt Mary on sermons. Carlyle's poverty.
Incarnated veneration and love. Bear your part of the burden. The wise cannot be rich. Use new
truths carefully. Caricatures. Influences of night. The baby. Heroes. Our common nature demands
charity. Magic of heat. A bird-while. Life and death are apparitions. Alcott the teacher. Do your
parochial duties freely. Doctors' enthusiastp. John S. Dwight. The Club; reaction from literary
discussion. Worthless preaching; the two sorts of teachers. The boastful press. Miss Sedgwick's
characters; novels. The May woods. Reality. Cheap martyrs. Foolish hostility. The hopeless
followers. High thoughts. Obstructive criticism. Happy the Janus-faced preacher............421-461
xiv CONTENTS
surprise. Greatness simple and kindly; hidden virtues; angels unawares. Account of course on
Human Culture; its success; gratitude. Opinion also helpful. Just and measured love. Teachers'
meeting; Edmund Hosmer and Henry Thoreau. Dr. Heywood and schoolboy. Milton; association
with Edward and Charles. Walk with Thoreau; his view of college. Words-worth's image from
skating. Solitude depressing; happy lot; love for Carlyle. Landlord of Tremont House. Cousin and
jouffroy count for little in the woods; accomplished but not inspired; Milton. All memories painful
of lost friends. Sights at church helpful, not the minister. Peaceful winter Sunday. Alcott, though
possessed of one idea, large and human. Theism; personality too little for God. French Eclecticism,
Cousin's book. Carlyle's French Revolution—his astonishing style. Preach man's soul, not tradition.
Montaigne charities; Madam Hoar's view. Fear of the rich man. Rustic tediousness, and expressions.
Freedom through riches. Love. Lecture on peace; friends in Boston; Bancroft on newspapers.
Carlyle's French Revolution; he leaves too little to reader; his moral ascents, rare in authors; found
in Tennyson's new volume. Aspiration. World's scriptures. Wild geese. Right handles to thought.
God. Speak your belief, not wish or authority. Vocation must express itself. Mean complaisance.
Starving religion. Talk to Divinity students . 387-420Bunyan. Biography interests not nations.
Napoleon; growth of genius. The fine woman. Preaching and study sickly; home the cure. Bryant,
Dewey, Very,
xvi CONTENTS
Alcott's writing. Desire for a fit church. Reserve your martyrdom. Napoleon rewards, impersonality.
An ideal friendship. The reforming age. Homely joys. The portfolio; judging pictures. Woods; live
with God. Man and weeds. Beauty our asylum. The village soprano. Goethe. Night; four steps. The
congregation. Great men. Everett. Neighbor Minot. Present American thought. The old philosophers.
Facts. Society and solitude. The visitor. No morbidness. Do not speak of God much. Your world is
new. Time optical. Alternations. Sunday. Health. Change. Particular prayers. Hawthorne. Age of
trifles. Aunt Mary's subtlety. Foolish preaching. The sobbing child. The rich world. The serene
Muse. Swedenborg. Attitude of protest. Art of writing. America lags and pretends. Do not argue.
Strong truth. Leave the Past. All in one. Prefaces. The soul's discipline. Classification. Animal
magnetism. The day's gift of facts. Vulgarity's excuse. Courage. The soul's fall. Monotones. The
precious vase. Goodies. The stars. The star-lit desarts of Truth. The Hand. Spiritual dew. Alcott the
believer. The unsaid. The emancipation. Veneration. Love due to Christ. Night alarms.
Swedenborg's position. Tragedy of More and Less. Waiting. Wind of Time. Trismegisti. Facts. Night
enchants.......................................................................................................................... 462-499
JOURNAL XXVII
1836
(From Journal B)
[MR. AND MRS. EMERSON were now settled in their new home, his younger brother Charles
being an inmate there, beloved and reverenced by both. Each week, the stage which passed their
house brought friends or visitors, for Mr. Emerson's door was always open to high-minded persons,
known or unknown. He preached every Sunday at East Lexington, where he was much esteemed,
or elsewhere by exchange, and his lectures were increasingly in demand.
The Journal opens, January 16, with one of the passages in Nature (here omitted because already
printed), about the titular owners of Concord's fields, while the poet has property in the horizon.]
January 16, 1836.
What can be more clownish than this foolish charging of Miss Martineau with ingratitude for
differing in opinion from her Southern friends? I take the law of hospitality to be this:— I con-
4 JOURNAL AGE 3 2
fer on the friend whom I visit the highest compliment, in giving him my time. He gives me shelter
and bread. Does he therewith buy my suffrage to his opinions henceforward? No more than by
giving him my time, I have bought his. We stand just where we did before. The fact is, before we
met he was bound to " speak the truth (of me) in love "; and he is bound to the same now.
On Truth.—The story of Captain Ross's company is good example of the policy of honesty.
"What do the guns speak? " asked the Esquimaux, when they saw the English levelling them. The
English replied that they told what Esquimaux stole files and iron. "Where shall I find seals and
musk oxen ? " said the Esquimaux. The English ventured to point where, and the hunter was lucky.
Presently the Esquimaux boy was killed by an accident, and the tribe ascribed it to English magic
and had almost exterminated the English crew.
Then the saying of George Fox's father : "Truly I see that if a man will but stand by the truth it will
carry him out."
Then the sublimity of keeping one's word across years and years.
1836 PROFANATION. UPHAM 5
317 B.C., Attica had seven hundred and twenty square miles with a population of five hundred and
twenty-seven thousand souls, and nearly four fifths of that number were slaves.
January 21.
The Spartan is respectable and strong who speaks what must be spoken ; but these gay Athenians
that go up and down the world making all talk a Recitation, talking for display, disgust.
January 22.
I think profanity to be as real a violation of nature as any other crime. I have as sensible intimations
from within of any profanation as I should have if I stole.
Upham* thinks it fatal to the happiness of a young man to set out with ultra-conservative notions
in this country. He must settle it in his mind that the human race have got possession, and, though
they will make many blunders and do some great wrongs, yet on the whole will consult the interest
of the whole.
* Charles Wentworth Upham, Emerson's classmate and friend, a distinguished citizen of Salem, and author of
a work on Salem Witchcraft, and other books.
6 JOURNAL AGE 32
Let not the mouse of my good meaning, Lady,
Be snapped up in the trap of your suspicion,
To lose the tail there, either of her truth,
Or swallowed by the cat of misconstruction.
BEN JONSON, Tale of a Tub,
Act iv, Scene 4..
Wherein Minerva had been vanquished
Had she by it her sacred looms advanced
And thro' thy subject woven her graphick thread.
GEORGE CHAPMAN, ON SEJANUS.
Swedenborg said, " Man, in proportion as he is more nearly conjoined to the Lord, in the same
proportion appeareth to himself more distinctly to be his own, and perceiveth more evidently that
he is the Lord's. . . ."
[Here follow several quotations from Swedenborg's Apocalypse Revealed, some of them now in
Representative Men.]
The scholar works with invisible tools to invisible ends, so passes for an idler, or worse, brain-sick,
defenceless to idle carpenters, masons, and merchants, that, having done nothing most laboriously
all day, pounce on him fresh for spoil at night.
Character founded on natural gifts as specific
1836 THE SCHOLAR'S LOT 7
and as rare as military genius ; the power to stand beside his thoughts, or to hold off his thoughts
at arm's length and give them perspective; to form it piu nell' uno ; he studies the art of solitude ;
he is gravelled in every discourse with common people ; he shows thought to be infinite which you
had thought exhausted. There is a real object in nature to which the grocer turns, the intellectual
man
praestantia norat
Plurima, mentis opes amplas sub pectore servans,
Omnia vestigans sapientum docta reperta.
EMPEDOCLES, ON PYTHAGORAS,
Cudworth, vol. ii.
So Bacon's globe of crystal and globe of matter. The thinker, like Glauber, keeps what others throw
away. He is aware of God's way of hiding things, i. e., in light; also he knows all by one. Set men
upon thinking, and you have been to them a god. All history is poetry ; the globe of facts whereon