The Heart of Emerson's Journals

by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bliss Perry (Editor)

“Mr. Bliss Perry has performed his editorial task with great skill and discrimination, and it is now possible to read in a convenient form the intellectual log book of the Concord philosopher, to obtain an informal, but truer picture of Emersonian thought than in the ‘Essays.’”—Independent.
From about 1820, when he was 17, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) kept a personal journal. Over the next 55 years, he continued to make entries, recording a wide range of thoughts and impressions about books and authors, religions, his contemporaries, the state of the nation and the world, and a host of other topics. The result was ten volumes of pure Emerson — open and informal, revealing the private man behind the formidable thinker, poet, and leader of the New England Transcendentalists.
For this volume, Professor Bliss Perry selected, with admirable judgment and a remarkable eye for the telling passage, the best of the journals, offering not only a splendid, revealing record of Emerson’s personal beliefs but also a social and historical record of his age. He has “succeeded in retaining in a single volume both only the best separate passages which their crystalline completeness of construction makes a comparatively simple matter, but, what is more difficult, the unspoiled portrait of Emerson himself.” — Outlook.
Any student, scholar, or admirer of Emerson will want to have this concise, well-chosen compilation of his intimate, innermost musings and meditations. It’s a rich opportunity to discover a fascinating, lesser-known dimension of the man known to the public as the Sage of Concord.

Genres: Nonfiction, Diary

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1926

About the author

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803. Educated at Harvard and the Cambridge Divinity School, he became a Unitarian minister in 1826 at the Second Church Unitarian. The congregation, with Christian overtones, issued communion, something Emerson refused to do. "Really, it is beyond my comprehension," Emerson once said, when asked by a seminary professor whether he believed in God. (Quoted in 2,000 Years of Freethought edited by Jim Haught.) By 1832, after the untimely death of his first wife, Emerson cut loose from Unitarianism. During a year-long trip to Europe, Emerson became acquainted with such intelligentsia as British writer Thomas Carlyle, and poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. He returned to the United States in 1833, to a life as poet, writer and lecturer. Emerson inspired Transcendentalism, although never adopting the label himself. He rejected traditional ideas of deity in favor of an "Over-Soul" or "Form of Good," ideas which were considered highly heretical. His books include Nature (1836), The American Scholar (1837), Divinity School Address (1838), Essays, 2 vol. (1841, 1844), Nature, Addresses and Lectures (1849), and three volumes of poetry. Margaret Fuller became one of his "disciples," as did Henry David Thoreau.

The best of Emerson's rather wordy writing survives as epigrams, such as the famous: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Other one- (and two-) liners include: "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect" (Self-Reliance, 1841). "The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being" (Journal, 1836). "The word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain" (Address to Harvard Divinity College, July 15, 1838). He demolished the right wing hypocrites of his era in his essay "Worship": ". . . the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons" (Conduct of Life, 1860). "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship" (Self-Reliance). "The first and last lesson of religion is, 'The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.' It puts an affront upon nature" (English Traits , 1856). "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." (Civilization, 1862). He influenced generations of Americans, from his friend Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, and in Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power, fate, the uses of poetry and history, and the critique of Christianity. D. 1882.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was his son and Waldo Emerson Forbes, his grandson.

Reviews

[Mark Mortensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was a Harvard educated individual, philosopher and lecturer, who loved reading and writing, living within the well known literary community of Concord, Massachusetts. He shared nature walks, ideas and thoughts with his local friends that included Henry Thoreau and the Alcott family.

Emerson’s Journals simply portray the authors written personal impressions, reflections and views noted by day/month/year. Some entries are a basic sentence, while others are several paragraphs. Emerson’s words also serve as a splendid historical time capsule spanning much of the 19th Century including the Civil War. His first entry is dated “Cambridge, Jan. 25, 1820” as a 16 year old Junior at Harvard and his last recording is listed at age 72 “December 5, 1875” simply stating “Thomas Carlyle’s 80th birthday”. Often Emerson both praised and criticized his contemporaries. With income form lecturing, Emerson traveled to many destinations including Europe three times, the Mississippi River, Wisconsin, around Cape Cod and through New Hampshire.

He outlived Thoreau, Daniel Webster and Nathaniel Hawthorne. I found some small notations quite interesting, such as Webster never read by candle-light and upon viewing Hawthorne’s corpse Emerson noticed “—a calm and powerful head”.

Similar to other journals such as “The Reagan Diaries” enjoyment comes from not knowing what the next entry might reveal. One of my favorites was on Nov. 20, 1840, “Ah, Nature! the (sp) very look of the woods is heroical and stimulating. This afternoon in a very thick grove where Henry Thoreau showed me the bush of mountain laurel, the first I have seen in Concord, the stems of pine and hemlock and oak almost gleamed like steel upon the excited eye.”

[Marilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books. Emerson at his most accessible.

[Cat Rayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books in epistolary genre take me longer to read. A few pages a day suffice. In “The Heart of Emerson’s Journals” editor Bliss Perry, in 1926 published his curated snippets of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s private journals.

While it is often fractured, not gaining full context of commentary, it was a view into the times and the mind of one of America’s great intellects.

The man appears stoic in tragedy, yet express harsh words at seemingly trivial events. Also, condescending toward Thoreau, consistently miffed with Bronson Alcott, and scathing in judgement of Charles Dickens.

These journal excerpts intent was alway to be private, so unfair to judge a person too strongly on deeply personal thought in a point in time.

Ralph Waldo Emerson…unleashed, gives another view of a multi-dimensional man.

[levitations · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emerson is a gorgeously exact writer.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good enough selection to make me wish it were larger.

[Mitzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look at Emerson, his thoughts and his life. I was especially interested in his relationships with Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott's father.