The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Volume: 1; Original Published by: Houghton Mifflin company in 1909 in 450 pages; Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General; Biography & Autobiography / Literary; Fiction / Literary; Literary Collections / American / General; Literary Collections / Essays; Literary Criticism / General; Literary Criticism / American / General;

456 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 2015

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

[Dana Reynolds · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many entries are about historical persons, places, and events of which I know nothing about. The good part is that these can be skipped or glanced over quickly. However, some entries have phrases loaded with imagery that make the reading so very much worthwhile. Emerson had me going to my dictionary frequently and that too is a good thing. The regret is that there is so much here one cannot read it all.

[Hansen Wendlandt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps I shouldn't have read Emerson's rant against ministry just before my last ordination interview. He has an issue with the Church, as we all should (or maybe his 29-year-old issue was with his congregation?), but I'm glad some of us can make a better stand for its positive side. Some favorite entries on this topic: early 1832, "It is the best part of man, I sometimes think, that revolts against his being a minister. His good revolts from official goodness. The difficulty is that we do not make a world of our own, but fall into institutions already made, and have to accommodate ourselves to them to be useful at all, and this accommodation is, I say, a loss of so much integrity and, of course, of so much power." Or mid 1835, still copmlaining about his former career, "The young preacher is discouraged by learning the motives that brought his great congregation to church. Scarcely ten came to hear his sermon... Never mind how they came, my friend... Here they are, real men and women--fools, I grant, but potentially divine, every one of them convertible." Late 1836, complaining about other preachers, "The next best thing to good preaching is bad preaching. I have even more thoughts during or enduring it than at other times."