Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

[129] What is the meaning of obscene here? Compare the Latin.

[130]Polycrates, a tyrant of Samos, who was visited with such remarkable prosperity that he was advised by a friend to break the course of it by depriving himself of some valued possession. In accordance with this advice he cast into the sea an emerald ring which he considered his rarest treasure. A few days later a fisherman presented the monarch with a large fish inside of which the ring was found. Soon after this Polycrates fell into the power of an enemy and was nailed to a cross.

[131]Scot and lot, "formerly, a parish assessment laid on subjects according to their ability. Now, a phrase for obligations of every kind regarded collectively." (Webster.)

[132] Read Emerson's essay on Gifts.

[133]Worm worms, breed worms.

[134] Compare the old proverb "Murder will out." See Chaucer, N.P.T., 232 and 237, and Pr. T., 124.

[135]

"Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum." Horace, Epist., I. XVIII. 65.

[136]Stag in the fable. See Æsop, lxvi. 184, Cerva et Leo; Phædrus I. 12. Cervus ad fontem; La Fontaine, vi. 9, Le Cerf se Voyant dans l'eau.

[137] See the quotation from St. Bernard farther on.

[138]Withholden, old participle of withhold, now withheld.

[139] What is the etymology of the word mob?

[140]Optimism and Pessimism. The meanings of these two opposites are readily made out from the Latin words from which they come.

[141]St. Bernard de Clairvaux (1091-1153), French ecclesiastic.

[142]Jesus. Holmes writes of Emerson: "Jesus was for him a divine manifestation, but only as other great human souls have been in all ages and are to-day. He was willing to be called a Christian just as he was willing to be called a Platonist.... If he did not worship the 'man Christ Jesus' as the churches of Christendom have done, he followed his footsteps so nearly that our good Methodist, Father Taylor, spoke of him as more like Christ than any man he had known."

[143] The first his refers to Jesus, the second to Shakespeare.

[144]Banyan. What is the characteristic of this tree that makes it appropriate for this figure?