Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

[660] The essay on Prudence was given as a lecture in the course on Human Culture, in the winter of 1837-8. It was published in the first series of Essays, which appeared in 1841.

[661]Lubricity. The word means literally the state or quality of being slippery; Emerson uses it several times, in its derived sense of "instability."

[662]Love and Friendship. The subjects of the two essays preceding Prudence, in the volume of 1841.

[663]The world is filled with the proverbs, etc. Compare with this passage Emerson's words in Compensation on "the flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as that of birds and flies."

[664]A good wheel or pin. That is, a part of a machine.

[665]The law of polarity. Having two opposite poles, the properties of the one of which are the opposite of the other.

[666]Summer will have its flies. Emerson discoursed with philosophic calm about the impediments and disagreeableness which beset every path; he also accepted them with serenity when he encountered them in his daily life.

[667]The inhabitants of the climates, etc. As a northerner, Emerson naturally felt that the advantage and superiority were with his own section. He expressed in his poems Voluntaries and Mayday views similar to those declared here.

[668]Peninsular campaign. Emerson here refers to the military operations carried on from 1808 to 1814 in Portugal, Spain, and southern France against the French, by the British, Spanish, and Portuguese forces commanded by Wellington. What was the "Peninsular campaign" in American history?

[669]Dr. Johnson is reported to have said, etc. Dr. Samuel Johnson was an eminent English scholar of the eighteenth century. In this, as in many other instances, Emerson quotes from his memory instead of from the book. The words of Dr. Johnson, as reported by his biographer Boswell, are: "Accustom your children constantly to this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."

[670]Rifle. A local name in England and New England for an instrument, on the order of a whetstone, used for sharpening scythes; it is made of wood, covered with fine sand or emery.

[671]Last grand duke of Weimar. Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach is a grand duchy of Germany. The grand duke referred to was Charles Augustus, who died in 1828. He was the friend and patron of the great German authors, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland.

[672]The Raphael in the Dresden gallery. The Sistine Madonna, the most famous picture of the great Italian artist, Raphael.

[673]Call a spade a spade. Plutarch, the Greek historian, said, "These Macedonians ... call a spade a spade."

[674]Parts. A favorite eighteenth century term for abilities, talents.

[675]We have found out, etc. Emerson always insisted that morals and intellect should be united. He urged that power and insight are lessened by shortcomings in morals.

[676]Goethe's Tasso. A play by the German poet Goethe, founded on the belief that the imprisonment of Tasso was due to his aspiration to the hand of Leonora d'Este, sister of the duke of Ferrara. Tasso was a famous Italian poet of the seventeenth century.

[677]Richard III. An English king, the last of the Plantagenet line, the hero—or villain—of Shakespeare's historical play, Richard III.

[678]Bifold. Give a simpler word that means the same.

[679]Cæsar. Why is Cæsar the great Roman ruler, given as a type of greatness?

[680]Job. Why is Job, the hero of the Old Testament book of the same name, given as a type of misery?

[681]Poor Richard.Poor Richard's Almanac, published (1732-1757) by Benjamin Franklin was a collection of maxims inculcating prudence and thrift. These were given as the sayings of "Poor Richard."

[682]State Street. A street in Boston, Massachusetts, noted as a financial center.

[683]Stick in a tree between whiles, etc. "Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping."—Scott's Heart of Midlothian. It is said that these were the words of a dying Scotchman to his son.

[684]Minor virtues. Emerson suggests that punctuality and regard for a promise are two of these. Can you name others?

[685]The Latin proverb says, etc. This is quoted from Tacitus, the famous Roman historian.

[686]If he set out to contend, etc. In contention, Emerson holds, the best men would lose their characteristic virtues, —the fearless apostle Paul, his devotion to truth; the gentle disciple John, his loving charity.

[687]Though your views are in straight antagonism, &c. This was Emerson's own method, and by it he won a courteous hearing from those to whom his views were most objectionable.

[688]Consuetudes. Give a simpler word that has the same meaning.

[689]Begin where we will, etc. Explain what Emerson means by this expression.