Ralph Waldo Emerson’s diary, 1845

Plato. A terrific motive power ; he touches things and they spin : the solar system is fast becoming a fine transparency.

It was a pleasure, yesterday, to hear Father Taylor preach all day in our country church. Men are always interested in a man, and the whole various extremes of our…

I heard last night with some sensibility that the question of slavery has never been presented to the South with a kind and thoroughly scien- tific treatment, as a…

We sidle towards the problem. If we could speak the direct, solving word, it would solve us too; we should die, or be liberated as the gas in the great gas of the…