The Ralph Waldo Emerson Journals Digital Archive Volume 10 [ 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 Edward’s cautionary editing left some material unpublished, as befitted a son, a citizen of Concord, and the taste of Nineteenth Century New England.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 Ralph Waldo Emerson Journals Digital Archive - Volume 10 CONTENTS VOLUME 10 JOURNAL LV 1864 (From Journals FOR, WAR, DL and KL) Beecher on mobs. Dinner to General Burnside; Mr. Storey's question. Chapin as a lecturer. Magnificent Florence. Obstacles to philanthropy. Dr. Jackson on gold mines. Saturday Club dinner. Obituaries of Thackeray. Captain 0. W. Holmes. France's improvisations. Berthollet's courage. Talk with Alcott ; English and American genius. Our clergy's weakening hold on tradition; a new religion of Virtue and Beauty; great sentiment; The Spirit; Enthusiasm. Barriers. Agassiz's success in Chicago; Club meeting; plan for Shakspeare's birthday. Mr. Emerson's plea for Concord schools. Bons-mots. Thoreau's letter to a lady. Parents and children. Aerial navigation coming. The hostile English press; infatuated aristocracy. New blood disease. Unmindful nations; selfish leaders. Congenial men. Must read Renan. Conceit and humility; power of individuals. Scholar's method. Bandmann reads Hamlet. Thoreau on a book. Invitations for Shakspeare Tercentenary Festival. School committee notes. Bias. Letter to Matthew Arnold. Blake on Wordsworth vi CONTENTS Shakspeare; his felicities; does not speak of tobacco. The Festival, the company; Agassiz's speech. Shakspeare's magic; the wonder at him grows; his courage and competence. Conservative and Reformer. Pascal. Shakspeare again; the sonnets; his language and direct power. A Shakspeare professorship. In the plays the story distracts from the poetry .................................................3-31 Physiology of taste; country life. No age in intellect. Alcott on sons and daughters. Translation of Michel Angelo's sonnet. College mathematics, their overemphasis and abuse; crowd out other studies. Hawthorne's funeral, his friends; James Freeman Clarke's address; the tragic element; Emerson's disappointment in not having reached companionship. The child on the clergyman. The genius of a race. Health the helper. Music's omniscience. Opposition's value. Lesson of the spider. A hotel helps the writer; other helpful circumstances. Occidental respect for human life. The French on English art. Atmospheric influences. The Master of Eton on its influence. Renan on Paris. Advancing years. Helplessness in new conditions. Moral of latent disease. The joy of insight. Raffaele. American reserves; the new inventions. Solitary inspirations. Kings. Manners a castle. Consolations of old age. Every age winnows. Talk with Alcott; Americans have silently passed Debatable Lands. Writers' besetting puerilities. Germany excels in culture; we lack repose. The good Indian. Excellent conveniences of European cities. American independent Thought. Niebuhr on Oracles and on Christ's rank. Family events. Effect of Alcott. England's dis- CONTENTS vii creditable attitude and lost opportunity. The High School. Orchard rule. The "cheating fund" for travel. Affirmative. Visitors at Concord. Agassiz's excellence in counsel; his theory ..........32-60 September walk with Channing; Nature's speed. Sacrifice," a verse. America fighting for humanity; Napoleon's prophecy. Plea to Carlyle. Visits. Beauty as a reward. Harness of city conventionality; unspoiled men. We lack enthusiasm. Nature gives wealth; blessings of obscure youth; Aunt Mary on old-time Christians. The war appoints the generals. Talent in reading. Thoughts' retrospective value. Faithful Wordsworth comes to his fame. Drawings in Punch. Holmes on lectures. Nature's prodigality; cost of experience, of love; we have more material than we can work up. Meeting with Fowler, a Tennessee Union-man. Historic expressions. Visit at Naushon; John Murray Forbes, his admirable qualities; his talk with Goldwin Smith on danger to England of her marine policy. The dire, ra Setv6p, in eloquence; Otis. Lafayette's return to the Assembly. The Age, and Hour. Nature in Bryant's poems. Talk with Henry James; revolutionary force. Skies. The tardy change of England's tone. Adam Smith's clothes and books. Club meeting. The war has made patriotism. Verse, The Sea-gods. Miss Hosmer, the teacher. Club again. Cows' merit. Praise of Bryant. Introduction to lecture ,‘ Education " ; omen of the hour ; the Union is triumphing ; what America means. Napoleon III's Life of Cz'sar. Lord Ravensworth on the soil. Victor Cousin on The Pope. Reading .................................................................................................................................61-88 viii CONTENTS JOURNAL LVI 1865 (From Journals KL, DL, ML, XO and IT) Chicago; the lecturer wins his bet. Miss Edith Emerson marries Colonel Forbes. Wilkinson's writing. Hooker's fine general order. Parisian literary men. The peace of victory; the Reconstruction problem. Church as an amusement. Thunderbolt. Samuel Hoar's strength. Reed on Locke. Playground as police. Illusion of words. Mystery of immortality. President Lincoln's equality to his task. Marcus Antoninus. Delmonico's. Lafayette's nobility. The Scribes' doom. Talk with Alcott on Religion; America's coming religion; atheism of scientific men; there must be faith as well as works. Elizabeth Hoar's fair mind. Tactics of argument. The Bible's claimed authority arouses resistance as the pagan scriptures do not. Affirm the Moral Sentiment with dazzling courage. Limited American reading; select books; events that were eras; curious books. Carlyle's demoniac fun. Ethics. Our young soldiers; war moralizes as well as demoralizes. America, what it means to the immigrant. The Praise of Intellect. A good cause supplies argument, illustrations, poetry. Drugs and temperance. Being. Jones Very's saying on Shakspeare. Children of the people. The pear blight. Forms versus powers. Writings on Immortality do not satisfy. Forceythe Willson. Wendell Phillips's commanding talent. Manners. Scotus Erigena. A resemblance to Lincoln; Nature's CONTENTS ix cunning repetition; the Winthrops. Lingering pro-slavery symptoms. Webster's wrath at young men who forsook him. Potential force. Fitness outranks fashion. Beware the minor key. Stirling's Secret of Hegel. Carlyle's intolerances. Collapse following victory. Williamstown; constellations from the observatory. Dr. Jackson's conversation at Thanksgiving. The story of Cass and Albert H. Tracy. College days; Unitarianism as a cure-all. Carlyle's astonishing style. Virtues of Reaction. Illusion of surfaces. Moral sentiment our protection. The old papyrus, Memory; the Past works. Reading.................................................................................................. 91-126 JOURNAL LVII 1866 (From Journals DL, LN, and ML) Lecturing. The Task and the Muse. The paid mourner. Common Sense; Mansfield, Brummel. Love's imputation. All-powerful manners. Song of the brook. Home-critics. Education. Criticism from Europe. Caution to the University. Charles XII on Mathematics. Sentences from the Koran. Napoleon and his genius. Hesper. Course on ‘, Philosophy of the People." Laws of the mind. Dr. Johnson's sayings. Intellect. The Celestial Mind. Aunt Mary on Immortality; Van Helmont. The Vikings' code. Uses of an Academy; ,, Chaldaic Oracles " ; Zoroaster on death. Identity. Polarity. Memory is Man's lost Pleiad; Life's allurements to the Mind. War clarifies, x CONTENTS opens new doors that never shut. Letter to a friend in Europe; advance of old age; Newcomb; Holmes. What Hegel says. Hafiz plays greatly; fears nothing. America's political duty ethical. Goethe. Beauty a miniature of the world; hence concerns all men. Deity and " God." The field and the seven men. Taliessin; Whitman. Poets of a single utterance. Aunt Mary's manuscripts, their attraction and elevation. Visit to the young people's camp on Monadnoc ; the storm, the glories. Harvard gives degree of Doctor of Laws. Wither and Lovelace compared. Drinking and tobacco. Charles Lamb. Our debt to Milton. Humanity's nobility through the ages. Calvinism and Greek myths. We want heat. Man and the Muse. The new Atlantic cable. Old light better than new. Political fanaticism. Alcott in New York ........................................................................129-158 Maya (Illusion) of Hindoos. William Forbes. Gifts, Flowers. Visit to Agassiz; Brazil. Biography. Hindoo theology important; teaches nobility. Self-respect in a family. Anquetil Duperron. Atlantic cable succeeds. Books as doors. Egypt. Hafiz plays with magnitudes; the manly positive degree. Caprice of Fame; degrees of Greatness. Masters. Dr. Charles T. Jackson tells of wild music at Lake Superior; Analyzed sound. Home allows privacy. The Two Facts. The Preacher. Men and Women. Woman's help to cause of Freedom. Necessity. Railroads make republics. Wealth meets the unexpected. To writers. In dreams we play both parts. Success. Kindness. Names. Brag. Useful Theresa. The Negro. Reading............................................................................................559-177 CONTENTS xi JOURNAL LVIII 1867 (From Journals ML, LN, and NY) Western lecturing. Pleasure in Minnesota; Wisconsin railroads; Long sleigh-rides. Taylor's and Winckelmann's paganism. Eloquence; Landor. Christ's preaching and ours. The mind is true. Natural aristocracy. Intellectual power the presence of God. The guiding whisper. Men of talent, and those who delight in the Eternal Laws. The goading Spirit hides, but is Heaven. Embodied Thoughts. Swedenborg's vision not clear; Milton's vision. The writer's testimony on higher things. Religion is vision enacted; the Soul and the inward law. Good universal, the Law justifies itself. The questions of the Age. American Melioration; this country's office. The human race immortal. Lessing on astronomy. Coming era in Universities. Fathers and sons. Nantasket Beach. Culture partial. The real, daily miracle. Funeral of George L. Stearns. Treatment of Negroes and Jews. Desired tutors. The stately Hudson River. Justice Maule's rebuke. May-Day published. Collins's musical quality. Aunt Mary's reading of Tasso, Homer and Milton. Immortality. Dr. Holmes. The old Boston town-crier. Stout hearts of Pindar and Kepler. The V)st passage in a hook. Mrs. Barbauld. Emerson appointed Overseer at Harvard. Nature's symbols; eyes that can see Identity and Centrality. Death of Mrs. Ripley; her gifts and charm. Charles New- xii CONTENTS comb's writing. Parsons's translation of the Inferno. Dante's abnormal mind. Quotation or Originality. Johnson on death; a representative Englishman. Elusive dream. Strong preachers and outgrown forms. Identity. The Natural. Light. Things incomprehensible yet practical. Zymosis. The grandchild. Peace even-handed. Matthew Arnold on Style. Carlyle's perverse attitude. Holmes on Dr. James Jackson. The deluge. Consul Grattan's wit. The tempting classics. The Quoter gives his past: Kean's admirable Richard II. Architecture of thought. Nature's charming repetitions; what is quotation ? The joy of reading others' works. English guests. More Western lectures, and peril of the freezing Mississippi. Reading................181-224 JOURNAL LIX 1868 (From Journals LN and NY) Sickness of William Emerson. Quarrel of boys. Praise of Harriet Martineau's Eastern Life. Free trade. Unequal shares of beauty. Charles Norton's lecture. The gods of Egypt. The banker's prophecy of fortunes in Railroads. Knowledge dies with its possessors. America's poets should be patriots. Herodotus on the Egyptians. Aunt Mary's attitude in Heaven. Colonel Theodore Lyman. Dr. Jackson on balloons. President Johnson. <, The eye altering alters all." Present day obstructives. Horatio Greenough. Oneness CONTENTS xiii of Religion. Richard Owen's request from Turner. Sunday School. The wished - for tower. Alexander and the Brahmin. Poetic results of Science; Unity. The World a school for Heaven. Revolutions wrought by time; great men. Epigrams. Goethe. Books. Aristophanes judged. Education. Tennyson's " Holy Grail "; a later opinion. Leisure. Calvinism, its three legs; Buddhism its opposite. The Atlantic authors. The Opposition. Inspirations of fit company. Gurney and others. John Weiss. Scott. Absurd honorary degrees. Fox on versifying. Disraeli. William Morris's Earthly Paradise. Beauty a moral effect. Duties done; a daughter. A friend may tell your fortune. Metaphysicians, Berkeley, Hegel; the next step? Enchantments; Shakspeare's poems. The temple builders. The seashore. Visit to Miss Clarke at Newport.............................................. 226—250 The sea not seen from the wharves; the ocean's surprise. Mrs. Helen Hunt; George Eliot's poems; Wordsworth. Vermont, Middlebury. Mount Mansfield, George Bradford, George Bartlett. Banquet to Chinese Embassy. The University question, faults and shortcomings. Nature's bounty. Evarts and Williams. France's scientific achievement. Joy in woods; in books of reference. Boston course of lectures. Memorable single poems or sentences. George E. Tufts's line. Mediocre books; blessing of libraries. Zymosis, ferment of Science. Surprises from within. French tact in writing. John Hunter; his Museum; "arrested development." William R. Ware, his Berkeley St. Church and Harvard Memorial Hall. xiv CONTENTS Lowell's poems; tone in poetry. Wordsworth and Tennyson. Michel Angelo; Thomas Gray. English manners. Strong New England families. Culture. Farming. Intellect and physical laws. Reading ............................................................................................................................251-272 JOURNAL LX 1869 (From Journals NY and ML) Plan for Readings in Boston; the Bardic poetry, the Marie d'Arthur; Byron, Scott, Tcnnyson. Homer's impartiality. Arab and Greek hospitality. Tone; French poetry, Victor Hugo. Religion, the point of view. Cheering men; the Forbeses, Judge Hoar, Agassiz. Immortality. Political managers. Shakspeare the man. Montaigne on Socrates. Richard Hunt. Readings to class; poetry and prose planned or actually read. The Mountain, verse. Pervading Deity. Imcompatibles. Memory. Talk to Alcott on the Current of Thought. Bunsen. God's dealing with Time. College Committee on Merit and Discipline at Harvard; marks, the Antioch method. Judge Hoar at Commencement dinner. Charles Sumner's character, learning, services; his detractors. Landor compares Austria with Florence alone. Hesiod's sayings. Periodicity on Nature and in Fable. Speech at Humboldt Centenary Celebration. Powers of Intellect enumerated. Command. Experimental poetry. Problem of dreams. General Wayne's foresight. Aunt CONTENTS xv Mary and society. Prune your writing. Plutarch's immortality. The Indian and Eliot. Blessing of warmth. Latent Harmony. Threat of Calvinism. Elect persons. Agassiz's illness. Reading .. 275-306 JOURNAL LXI 1870 (From Journals NY and ST) Goodwin's Plutarch's Morals. Society and Solitude. Charles Ware's dream; Commemoration Day at Harvard; Lowell's Ode. Bettine Brentano and Aunt Mary. Saturday Club. Lowell misprizes Thoreau. The new book sells. Vicious protection in trade. Gentlemen rare. Musagetes; a Yankee Muse helps. Alvah Crocker; his Fitchburg Railroad and Hoosac Tunnel; Baldwin. Jealousy of Dream-spirits. Montesquieu. Use of Clubs to hermits. Arago. Carlyle's bequest of books to Harvard University. Varnhagen on impressions. The exclusive Englishman. Goethe's Musagetes again. University Lectures established at Harvard; Mr. Emerson asked to give course on Philosophy. Identity; Bias; Schelling and his pupils; Hegel on sensibility ? Dog and dress. Fichte. Autograph letters. Plutarch on reacting courtesy; Montesquieu on Age. Philip Physick Randolph. Alexander's weeping rightly told. “Apophthegms of Great Commanders." Philosophies grow old. Socrates's accusers. Nouvelle Biographie Generale. Nantasket Beach; its riches and glories. Can I have books hereafter ? xvi CONTENTS Mrs. Howe's ,‘ Battle Hymn " and The Flag." Home. Aunt Mary's moral inspirations; the ancient ethics; the omnipotent Yea. Christianity and man react on each other. The September trip to Waterford and Mount Washington. France's fate. Saturday Club. Chivalry a good theme, Imagination unextinguishable. The range of a thought, religion promotes this, in the great writers. Memory. The Master's Degree made real at Harvard. Corner-stone of Memorial Hall laid; admirable services. Freedom given by the private Class. Importance of foreign literature. Couture's important rule applied to writing; Holmes and Hood as examples. Education of familiar intercourse; heredity in culture. Greatness. Greek. Objection to metaphysics. Americans fortunate in individual freedom. Plutarch's Symposiacs. History shows that lapses beget protest and reform. Voltaire's Spinoza. Classics over-esteemed; Science asserts itself. Plato on Time. The Rememberers. Public speaking. Oliver's Puritan Commonwealth underestimates force of conditions. Stories of Rhode Island; holy ancestors. Delight in men who can do things. The mystical double printing. Reading ...........................................................................309-344 JOURNAL LXII 1871 (From Journal ST) Lectures. Organizing the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Course on Philosophy at Harvard. Age, Taliessin. CONTENTS xvii The Spirit has no fear of Science; Identity. Carlyle and Mill. Pusey sends an inscribed book. Miiller's gift. Coleridge on Greek women. Chateaubriand and Washington. John M. Forbes carries Mr. Emerson off to California for a rest; the party. Notes of the journey, the Big Tree, California boys. Good comes of evil in the population. Newton on gifts. Coincidences suggest guardian angel. Return home. The fountain inscription. Beauty of woman's hair. Nature's ground plan. ,‘ My Men." Historical Society; Scott Centennial; picturesque superstition. Correlation of forces, sciences, men. Splendors of this Age. Poetry must be fresh, avoid emphasis; the man and his visiting angel. The 5oth year after graduation. Rhetoric. The Whig poetry of Charles I's time did not live. Thought may expel Memory. Ellery Channing's poems. Alcott's words on Memory. Bret Harte's visit. Ruskin's Two Paths. Names. Those facts that Nature teaches; their relation. Poetic necessity of Mind; beautiful revelations of science. Thoughts fugitive. Hero meets his enchanter. Bacon's saying on testimony. Tihullus, on Venus; Epicharmus on the Mind. Geoffroy Saint - Hilaire's heroism, his contest with Cuvier. Culture increasing; more writers and lovers of verse; yen de Societe. Blessed cheerfulness. Poets have unlucky physique. The father fails to control child; the sympathetic man can. America at disadvantage in literary culture, but has many men of varied power and wit; fine women also. Burnt Chicago; the last Western lecturing journey. Reading...................... 347-373 xviii CONTENTS JOURNAL LXIII 1872 (From Journal ST) Lectures at Baltimore and Washington. Speech to Freedmen at Howard University; praise of George Herbert; its result. James T. Fields arranges Saturday Afternoon Readings for Mr. Emerson; their success. Notes on Religion. Lecture for Concord on generosity in books and pictures. Memories of childish delights and wonders. Old Age. The good writer will influence, independent of date. Shakspeare a fixed star. The sixty-ninth birthday near childhood's home in Boston; memories. Beauty of girls in Boston streets. Sarah Clarke's visit. Address at Amherst College, guest of President Stearns. The great office of Poetry. The burning of the Concord home. The town family to the rescue; hospitality at the Old Manse. The munificence of the many friends ; Dr. LeBaron Russell and Judge Hoar. Provisional arrangements. Mr. Emerson's illness and anxieties. Visit to Maine. Naushon and its restoring hospitalities; its beauty. Mr. Emerson sent to Europe by his friends. London; Colonel Lee and Charles Norton, William Henry Channing and Moncure D. Conway; their attentions. Good effect of rest. Carlyle; Dean Stanley. Canterbury. At Paris with Lowell and John Holmes. Rome; the good Von Hoffmans. Sailing for Egypt; Christmas at Alexandria. Reading.......................................................................................................377-401 CONTENTS xix JOURNAL LXIV 1873 (From Journal ST) The dismal Delta. Cairo. Meeting friends. Courtesy of General Stone (Pasha). Sailing up the. Nile in a dahabeah; the party. Humiliation of ignorance; the sphinxes' scorn. The stately people. Summer in midwinter. Thebes, Assuan, Philx. The magnet's mystery. Pleasant English visitors. Return to Cairo. Crete. Rome; friends. Florence; John Bigelow, Herman Grimm and his wife. Latter March in Paris with Lowell and John Holmes. J. C. Morison. Meeting with Renan, Tainc, Elie de Beaumont. Enjoyment of Paris, its privileges and freedom. Returning strength and spirits. April in London. Happy meetings with Carlyle. Gladstone, Mill, Huxley, Tyndall, Dean Stanley, Thomas Hughes, Helps and others. Visit to the Amberleys. Cyfarthra Castle. Oxford, guest of Max Muller; Jewett, Ruskin, Prince Leopold. Visit to Mr. Flower, Stratford on Avon. The voyage home. Birthday at sea; Mr. Norton's poem. Concord's joyful welcome. Wonder of the restored home. Mrs. Bell's mot. Max Muller's tribute. September, Address at opening of Munroe gift of Free Public Library to Concord. Stallo forestalls Darwin. Thcologic mysteries. Overseer of College again. Hegel on life. Boston Tea-Party anniversary; reading of poem "Boston." Reading...............................405-425 JOURNAL LXV 1874 (From Journal ST) Quiet life at home, reviewing the manuscripts. Charles Sumner's death; Judge Hoar's letter. Death of two old and valued friends : Abel Adams; Francis Cabot Lowell, obituary notice. The secret of Poetry. Candidacy for Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University; Disraeli wins. Collection of poetry Parnassus " published; its history. Reading...................................................................429-438 JOURNAL LXVI 1875 (From Journal ST) Mr. Emerson unequal to arranging the promised volume. Mr. Cabot willingly gives the needed aid.