Ralph Waldo Emerson’s diary, 1838

Five days ago came Carlyle's letter, and has kept me warm ever since with its affection and praise. It seems his friend John Sterling loves Waldo Emerson also, by…

In Boston, Wednesday night, I read at the Masonic Temple the tenth and last lecture of my Course on Human Culture.

Abel Adams ' told me that Boyden, the late \ landlord of the Tremont House, told him that he made forty-five thousand dollars in one year in that establishment, and…

I told Alcott that in the city. Cousin and JoufFroy, and the opinion of this and that Doc- tor, showed very large; a fame of the book- stores seemed commanding ;…

Yesterday (Sunday) was a beautiful day, mild, calm,and though the earth is covered with snow, somewheres two feet deep, yet the day and the night, moonlit, were as…

Read in Montaigne's chapter on Seneca and Plutarch a very good critique on the systems and methods on which I expended my petu- lance in these pages yesterday.…

There was a simple man grew so suddenly rich that, coming one day into his own stately door and hall in a reverie, he felt on his mind the accustomed burden of fear…

The natural motions of the Soul are so much better than the voluntary ones that you will never do yourself justice in dispute. The thought is not then taken hold of…

This is one of the chilly, white days that de- form my Spring.' It seems as if we owed to literature certain impressions concerning nature which nature did not…

Last night ill dreams. Dreams are true to nature and, like monstrous formations (e. g. the horse-hoof divided into toes), show the law. Their double consciousness,…

This tragic Cherokee business which we stirred at a meeting in the church yesterday will look to me degrading and injurious, do what I can. It is like dead cats…

Walter Scott says, that " at night, the kind are savage."

Last night described the apathy from which she suffers. I own I was at a loss to pre- scribe, as I did not sufficiently understand the state of mind she paints. It…

On Anniversaries. Not without some rem- nant of its old radiance dawns yet the Sabbath on the heart. Any holiday communicates to me its color. I wear its cockade in…

Aunt Mary said of a sermon she had heard: " If they say it 's good, then 't is good ; if they say it's bad, then 't is bad." It is even so. In all that we hear and…

A letter this morning from T. Carlyle. How should he be so poor? It is the most creditable poverty I know of.

(To S. M. Fuller.) Dwightcame here and we got as far as speech this time. I think I told you that between him and me, as chances so often with those we reckon…

Hostility, bitterness to persons or to the age indicate infirm sense, unacquaintance with men who are really at top selfish, and really at bot- tom fraternal,…

Everybody, I think, has sublime thoughts sometimes. At times they lie parallel with the world, or the axes coincide so that you can see through them the great laws.…

I wish a church to worship in, where all the people are better than I am, and not spotted souls. Nothing shows more plainly the bad state of society than the…

A good deal of character in our abused age. The rights of woman, the antislavery-, temper- ance-, peace-, health-, and money-movements ; female speakers, mobs and…

I hate goodies. I hate goodness that preaches. Goodness that preaches undoes itself. A little electricity of virtue lurks here and there in kitch- ens and among the…

Forever the night addresses the imagination and the interrogating soul within or behind all its functions, and how in the summer night which makes the earth more…

They said in the French Revolution there was a Comte whose ruling passion was the fear of being guillotined. Civil life may show many men whose ruling passion is…

The moon and Jupiter side by side last night stemmed the sea of clouds and plied their voy- age in convoy through the sublime Deep as I walked the old and dusty…

We shun to say that which shocks the reli- gious ear of the people and to take away titles even of false honor from Jesus. But this fear is an impotency to commend…

At Dartmouth College, Tuesday, 24 July.

The poet demands all gifts, and not one or two only. Yet see the frugality of nature. The men of strength and crowded sense run into affectation. The men of…

What is more alive among works of art than our plain old wooden church, built a century and a quarter ago, with the ancient New Eng- land spire ? I pass it at…

A good subject for a sermon would be the Doctrine of Benefits. Benefit is the end of na- ture. Benefit is done to all by all, by good and bad, voluntarily and…

It is very grateful to my feelings to go into a Roman cathedral, yet I look as my country- men do at the Roman priesthood. It is very grateful to me to go into an…

I have usually read that a man suflFered more from one hard word than he enjoyed from ten good ones. My own experience does not con- firm the saying. The censure (I…

How rare is the skill of writing? I detected a certain unusual unity of purpose in the para- graph levelled at me in the Daily Advertiser, and I now learn it is the…

That which is individual and remains indi- vidual in my experience is of no value. What is fit to engage me, and so engage others perma- nently, is what has put off…

Nature a Heist. — The thermometer, the mi- croscope, the prism are little deists. They stand like pagans, have a very pagan look when the creed and catechism begin…

Nature a Resource. — Nature is the beautiful asylum to which we look in all the years of striving and conflict as the assured resource when we shall be driven out…

The kiss of the Dryads is not soft; the kiss of the Oreads is still. A good woodland day or two with John Lewis Russell who came here, and showed me mushrooms,…

Like-minded. — Nothing seems so easy as to speak and to be understood." . . .

Nearness and distinctness seem to be con- vertible. A noise, a jar, a rumble, is infinitely far off from my nature, though it be within a few inches of the…

Letter to W. Silsbee. — I read in your letter the expressions of an earnest character of faith, of hope, with extreme interest ; and if I can con- tribute any aid…

Once I thought it a defect peculiar to me, that I was confounded by interrogatories and when put on my wits for a definition was unable to reply without injuring my…

They put their finger on their lip, — the Powers above.'

' Jones Very came hither, two days since, and gave occasion to many thoughts on his peculiar state of mind and his relation to society. His position accuses society…

Jones Very says it is with him a day of hate ; that he discet-ns the bad element in every person whom he meets, which repels him : he even shrinks a little to give…

We are wiser, I see well, than we know.' . . .

And I am to seek to solve for my fellows the problem of Human Life, in words, — for that is the subject advertised for my lectures presently. Well, boy, what canst…

Heard I not that a fair girl said, She would not be "charitable" as she wished to, because it looked to her so \i]/ie feeding ? Rem acu tetigisti. To all let us be…

'The TrismegisH. — There is always a higher region of thought, — soar as high as you will ; and in literature very few words are found touch- ing the best thought;…

I wish society to be a Congress of Sovereigns without the pride, but with the power. There- fore I do not like to see a worthy woman resem ble those flowers that…

Freedom. — I will, I think, no longer do things unfit for me. Why should I act the part of the silly women who send out invitations to many persons, and receive…

"The Asylums of the Mind. — I have said on a former page that natural science always stands open to us as any asylum, and that, in the con- flict with the common…

At Portsmouth Mr. Haven described the passage to the guillotine of Manuel and Gen- eral Houchard, as he saw it in Paris.

The brilliant young student full of philoso- phy and happy in the faculty of unfolding and illustrating his theories, should dread his own theories. They are snares…