Essays: First Series

The section does not cover the history and life of Emerson and his writings, but rather his work entitled “History.”

Ever since I was a boy, I have wished to write a discourse on Compensation: for it seemed to me when very young, that on this subject life was ahead of theology, and the people knew more than the preachers taught.

When the act of reflection takes place in the mind, when we look at ourselves in the light of thought, we discover that our life is embosomed in beauty. Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off.

Every promise of the soul has innumerable fulfilments; each ofnt. Nature, uncontainable, flowing, forelooking, in the first sentiment of kindness anticipates already a benevolence which shall lose all particular regards in its general light.

We have a great selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor, and who honor us!

What right have I to write ont of the negative sort? My prudence consists in avoiding and going without, not in the inventing of means and methods, not in adroit steering, not in gentle repairing. I have no skill to make money spend well, no genius in my economy, and whoever sees my garden discovers that I must have some other garden.

In the elder English dramaetcher, there is a constant
recognition of gentility, as if a noble behaviour were as easily
marked in the society of their age, as color is in our American
population.

There is a difference between one and another hour of life, in their authority and subsequent effect. Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual. Yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences.

The essay “Circles” by Emerson is a distinction between two kinds of knowledge – Understanding and Reasoning. There is a difference between the both. Understanding is a state when you realize what is what and which is which, but reasoning is a state where it goes beyond understanding and need logically thinking on matters.

Every substance is negatively electric to that which stands above it in the chemical tables, positively to that which stands below it. Water dissolves wood, and iron, and salt; air dissolves water

Emerson in his essay “Art” through an evidence of the artist’s personality gives a fresh and a brand new experience of reality. The consciousness of all the artists expands and as a result, they create concentric circles of artistry.