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English Traits
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318 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1883
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About the author
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3,419 books5,365 followersRalph 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 13, 2024
2.453 stars, it was ok. Or rather, it was a mix of the obscure, the insightful, and the tedious. Might be worth reading again in a few decades when I know more.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is enamored with England, for the most part, and in this book he describes the traits, or essentially stereotypes, he makes out of the English people, and to a lesser extent, the derivatives in America and the other colonies at the time.
There is less insight in this book than in his Essays, and more discussions of people, places, and events who are not well known. It seems to me in this book as well as in Essays that Emerson believes knowledge and insight come from within rather than from observation, and is more supportive of a mystical approach than a scientific one. However, there are several quotable phrases:
* "Solvency is maintained by means of the national debt, on the principle, 'If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?'"
* "the tyranny of trade, which necessitates a perpetual competition of underselling, and that again a perpetual deterioration of the fabric."
* "But harder still it has proved to resist and rule the dragon Money, with his paper wings."
* "politics and commerce will absorb from the educated class men of talents without genius, precisely because such have no resistance."
Ralph Waldo Emerson is enamored with England, for the most part, and in this book he describes the traits, or essentially stereotypes, he makes out of the English people, and to a lesser extent, the derivatives in America and the other colonies at the time.
There is less insight in this book than in his Essays, and more discussions of people, places, and events who are not well known. It seems to me in this book as well as in Essays that Emerson believes knowledge and insight come from within rather than from observation, and is more supportive of a mystical approach than a scientific one. However, there are several quotable phrases:
* "Solvency is maintained by means of the national debt, on the principle, 'If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?'"
* "the tyranny of trade, which necessitates a perpetual competition of underselling, and that again a perpetual deterioration of the fabric."
* "But harder still it has proved to resist and rule the dragon Money, with his paper wings."
* "politics and commerce will absorb from the educated class men of talents without genius, precisely because such have no resistance."
October 19, 2025
It was okay. Some of his essays are better than others. Language could be hard to understand at times, his prose/phrases/word choice has not aged as well as other essayists from throughout the centuries. For really good essay collections, and philosophical musings about life and the world around us, as I'd recommend the Essays by Michel de Montaigne or Letters from a Stoic by Seneca. Both are my comfort readings when going through hard times in life.
April 25, 2025
With essay titles like "Cockayne" and "Stonehenge" you'd be forgiven for expecting something a lil more spicy.
The Sage of Concord's approach to seasoning however, as should be well known to all of you, the many, many millions of you who have like Nietzsche, read all of Emerson and "loved him from first to last", tends to be more Puritan.
This time he trains his faculties upon the Isle across the pond, yae, Merry ol' England. His thoughts are mostly positive toward the bloody Brits, although I'd be interested in what modern day Britons would think of his analysis. He seems to get their sense of commerce right, as well as their incindiary press (just sit through an EPL press conference...), but only rarely, in the essay "Literature" does he reach the Emersonian heights any fan reads him for. To whit:
"The necessities of mental structure force all minds into a few categories; and where impatience of the tricks of men makes Nemesis amiable, and builds altars to the negative Deity, the inevitable recoil is to heroism or the gallantry of the private heart, which decks its immolation with glory, in the unequal combat of will against fate."
Look Doom in the eye, Emerson says, and say I am Me.
Or this chestnut, concerning the common readers and the pressure they put on genius:
"The practical and comfortable oppress them with inexorable claims, and the smallest fraction of power remains for heroism and poetry. No poet dares murmur of beauty out of the precinct of his rhymes. No priest dares hint at a Providence which does not respect English utility. The island is a roaring volcano of fate, of material values, of tariffs and laws of repression, glutted markets and low prices."
SOUND FAMILIAR, M8??
And another one which could describe the current literary/intellectual scene in America:
"I should count the poets who have contributed to the Bible of existing England sentences of guidance and consolation whiche are still glowing and effective — how few! Shall I find my heavenly bread in the reigning poets? Where is the great design in modern English poetry? The English have lost sight of the fact that poetry exists to speak the spiritual law, and that no wealth of description or of fancy is yet essentially new and out of the limits of prose, until this condition is reached.
But...
The two complexions, or two styles of mind, — the perceptive class, and the practical finality class, —are ever in counterpoise, interacting mutually : one in hopeless minorities ; the other in huge masses ; one studious, contemplative, experimenting ; the other, the ungrateful pupil, scornful of the source whilst availing itself of the knowledge for gain ; these two nations, of genius and of animal force, though the first consist of only a dozen souls and the second of twenty millions, forever by their discord and their accord yield the power of the English State.
And the state of the world. Amen.
The Sage of Concord's approach to seasoning however, as should be well known to all of you, the many, many millions of you who have like Nietzsche, read all of Emerson and "loved him from first to last", tends to be more Puritan.
This time he trains his faculties upon the Isle across the pond, yae, Merry ol' England. His thoughts are mostly positive toward the bloody Brits, although I'd be interested in what modern day Britons would think of his analysis. He seems to get their sense of commerce right, as well as their incindiary press (just sit through an EPL press conference...), but only rarely, in the essay "Literature" does he reach the Emersonian heights any fan reads him for. To whit:
"The necessities of mental structure force all minds into a few categories; and where impatience of the tricks of men makes Nemesis amiable, and builds altars to the negative Deity, the inevitable recoil is to heroism or the gallantry of the private heart, which decks its immolation with glory, in the unequal combat of will against fate."
Look Doom in the eye, Emerson says, and say I am Me.
Or this chestnut, concerning the common readers and the pressure they put on genius:
"The practical and comfortable oppress them with inexorable claims, and the smallest fraction of power remains for heroism and poetry. No poet dares murmur of beauty out of the precinct of his rhymes. No priest dares hint at a Providence which does not respect English utility. The island is a roaring volcano of fate, of material values, of tariffs and laws of repression, glutted markets and low prices."
SOUND FAMILIAR, M8??
And another one which could describe the current literary/intellectual scene in America:
"I should count the poets who have contributed to the Bible of existing England sentences of guidance and consolation whiche are still glowing and effective — how few! Shall I find my heavenly bread in the reigning poets? Where is the great design in modern English poetry? The English have lost sight of the fact that poetry exists to speak the spiritual law, and that no wealth of description or of fancy is yet essentially new and out of the limits of prose, until this condition is reached.
But...
The two complexions, or two styles of mind, — the perceptive class, and the practical finality class, —are ever in counterpoise, interacting mutually : one in hopeless minorities ; the other in huge masses ; one studious, contemplative, experimenting ; the other, the ungrateful pupil, scornful of the source whilst availing itself of the knowledge for gain ; these two nations, of genius and of animal force, though the first consist of only a dozen souls and the second of twenty millions, forever by their discord and their accord yield the power of the English State.
And the state of the world. Amen.
July 26, 2024
English Traits (1856) appears in volume 5 of The Harvard Classics alongside Ralph Waldo Emerson’s collected essays. This book is essentially a collection of the American author’s impressions of England following visits there he conducted in 1833 and 1847. English Traits is a time capsule of that country and puts me in mind of
London Labour and the London Poor
for its insights. I’d say it is an essential read for anyone setting a story in England in the first half of the 19th century and may be of historical interest to other readers. While it is by no means a gripping read, the text is pleasantly short and Emerson’s prose style is consistently strong. Harvard Classics editor Charles W. Eliot describes him as “the foremost writer and thinker of his country” by the time of his death and states that “no American has exerted in the Old World an intellectual influence comparable to that of Emerson.”
QUOTES:
“He has even said, what seemed a paradox, that they needed a civil war in America, to teach the necessity of knitting the social ties stronger.” (spoken by William Wordsworth in 1833. The US Civil War began in 1861).
*
“...there is no prosperity that seems more to depend on the kind of man than British prosperity. Only a hardy and wise people could have made this small territory great.”
*
“...the Norman has come popularly to represent in England the aristocratic, and the Saxon the democratic principle. And though, I doubt not, the nobles are of both tribes, and the workers of both, yet we are forced to use the names a little mythically, one to represent the worker, and the other the enjoyer.”
*
“I know not where any personal eccentricity is so freely allowed, and no man gives himself any concern with it. An Englishman walks in a pouring rain, swinging his closed umbrella like a walking-stick; wears a wig, or a shawl, or a saddle, or stands on his head, and no remark is made….In short, every one of these islanders is an island himself, safe, tranquil, incommunicable. In a company of strangers, you would think him deaf; his eyes never wander from his table and newspaper. He is never betrayed into any curiosity or unbecoming emotion.”
*
“They tell you daily, in London, the story of the Frenchman and Englishman who quarrelled. Both were unwilling to fight, but their companions put them up to it; at last, it was agreed, that they should fight alone, in the dark, and with pistols: the candles were put out, and the Englishman, to make sure not to hit anybody, fired up the chimney, and brought down the Frenchman.”
*
“No chemist has prospered in the attempt to crystallize a religion. It is endogenous, like the skin, and other vital organs.”
*
“The tendency in England towards social and political institutions like those of America, is inevitable, and the ability of its journals is the driving force.”
*
“The men were common masons, with paddies to help, nor did they think they were doing anything remarkable. I suppose there were as good men a thousand years ago. And we wonder how Stonehenge was built and forgotten.”
*
“The foreign policy of England, though ambitious and lavish of money, has not often been generous or just.”
*
“The English have given importance to individuals, a principal end and fruit of every society. Every man is allowed and encouraged to be what he is, and is guarded in the indulgence of his whim. ‘Magna Charta,’ said Rushworth, ‘is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.’”
*
“That which lures a solitary American in the woods with the wish to see England, is the moral peculiarity of the Saxon race,--its commanding sense of right and wrong,--the love and devotion to that,--this is the imperial trait, which arms them with the sceptre of the globe.”
*******************************************************************************************
[Image: Cover of the Delphi Classics’ The Harvard Classics]
Citation:
Emerson, R.W. (2018). English traits. In Charles W. Eliot (Ed.), The Harvard classics [eBook]. Delphi Classics. https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/t... (Original work published 1856)
Title: English Traits
Author(s): Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Year: 1856
Series: The Harvard Classics (1909): Volume 5 - Delphi Complete Harvard Classics and Shelf of Fiction
Genre: Nonfiction - Memoir, social studies
Date(s) read: 7/24/24 - 7/26/24
Book # 147 in 2024
*******************************************************************************************
QUOTES:
“He has even said, what seemed a paradox, that they needed a civil war in America, to teach the necessity of knitting the social ties stronger.” (spoken by William Wordsworth in 1833. The US Civil War began in 1861).
*
“...there is no prosperity that seems more to depend on the kind of man than British prosperity. Only a hardy and wise people could have made this small territory great.”
*
“...the Norman has come popularly to represent in England the aristocratic, and the Saxon the democratic principle. And though, I doubt not, the nobles are of both tribes, and the workers of both, yet we are forced to use the names a little mythically, one to represent the worker, and the other the enjoyer.”
*
“I know not where any personal eccentricity is so freely allowed, and no man gives himself any concern with it. An Englishman walks in a pouring rain, swinging his closed umbrella like a walking-stick; wears a wig, or a shawl, or a saddle, or stands on his head, and no remark is made….In short, every one of these islanders is an island himself, safe, tranquil, incommunicable. In a company of strangers, you would think him deaf; his eyes never wander from his table and newspaper. He is never betrayed into any curiosity or unbecoming emotion.”
*
“They tell you daily, in London, the story of the Frenchman and Englishman who quarrelled. Both were unwilling to fight, but their companions put them up to it; at last, it was agreed, that they should fight alone, in the dark, and with pistols: the candles were put out, and the Englishman, to make sure not to hit anybody, fired up the chimney, and brought down the Frenchman.”
*
“No chemist has prospered in the attempt to crystallize a religion. It is endogenous, like the skin, and other vital organs.”
*
“The tendency in England towards social and political institutions like those of America, is inevitable, and the ability of its journals is the driving force.”
*
“The men were common masons, with paddies to help, nor did they think they were doing anything remarkable. I suppose there were as good men a thousand years ago. And we wonder how Stonehenge was built and forgotten.”
*
“The foreign policy of England, though ambitious and lavish of money, has not often been generous or just.”
*
“The English have given importance to individuals, a principal end and fruit of every society. Every man is allowed and encouraged to be what he is, and is guarded in the indulgence of his whim. ‘Magna Charta,’ said Rushworth, ‘is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.’”
*
“That which lures a solitary American in the woods with the wish to see England, is the moral peculiarity of the Saxon race,--its commanding sense of right and wrong,--the love and devotion to that,--this is the imperial trait, which arms them with the sceptre of the globe.”
*******************************************************************************************
[Image: Cover of the Delphi Classics’ The Harvard Classics]
Citation:
Emerson, R.W. (2018). English traits. In Charles W. Eliot (Ed.), The Harvard classics [eBook]. Delphi Classics. https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/t... (Original work published 1856)
Title: English Traits
Author(s): Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Year: 1856
Series: The Harvard Classics (1909): Volume 5 - Delphi Complete Harvard Classics and Shelf of Fiction
Genre: Nonfiction - Memoir, social studies
Date(s) read: 7/24/24 - 7/26/24
Book # 147 in 2024
*******************************************************************************************
September 28, 2025
A lot of great stuff in this essay, but I think Emerson was too easy on them. I don’t blame him though, firstly because he seemed to try to maintain a positive world-view, and secondly even with the criticisms he did include I can only imagine the waves of hatred he received by British readers… Readers who were perhaps even more defensive then, especially when the critic is an American. Though many are certainly still rabidly nationalistic today. Take, for instance, the abuse sustained by Harvard professor Caroline Elkins who wrote about British colonialism.
Speaking of colonialism, Emerson was certainly under misapprehensions about their supposed exported humanity. But given the time in which this was written & England’s lack of free press, the public had no way of getting accurate information about the violence of their colonial rule, unless they actually “served” overseas. Even so, it’s unfortunate that such a humanist as he parroted the propaganda, for instance, about India being better off, and implied the British were “letting them” partially self-govern so one day they could spread their wings and fly for their own good… (when the British only ran colonial governments in the way they perceived to be most economical for them… which I think Emerson really should have been aware of considering the common sense he wrote with elsewhere.)
Speaking of colonialism, Emerson was certainly under misapprehensions about their supposed exported humanity. But given the time in which this was written & England’s lack of free press, the public had no way of getting accurate information about the violence of their colonial rule, unless they actually “served” overseas. Even so, it’s unfortunate that such a humanist as he parroted the propaganda, for instance, about India being better off, and implied the British were “letting them” partially self-govern so one day they could spread their wings and fly for their own good… (when the British only ran colonial governments in the way they perceived to be most economical for them… which I think Emerson really should have been aware of considering the common sense he wrote with elsewhere.)
March 7, 2018
Still highly relevant and insightful.
His insights on England and her place in the world, as well as that of America, are still very relevant. The distinctions he makes between the natures of America and England are particularly intriguing. Recommended for the philosophically inclined. I took to skimming many parts to find the gems as he can be wordy and dry at times.
His insights on England and her place in the world, as well as that of America, are still very relevant. The distinctions he makes between the natures of America and England are particularly intriguing. Recommended for the philosophically inclined. I took to skimming many parts to find the gems as he can be wordy and dry at times.
December 31, 2021
Anyone who wants to understand the US mindset with England post revolutionary war should read this. Great insight into colonialism.
May 17, 2016
I'm finding it harder and harder to find a reason to read this guy.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews