[Footnote 1: Games of strength. The public games of Greece were
athletic and intellectual contests of various kinds. There were four
of importance: the Olympic, held every four years; the Pythian, held
every third Olympic year; and the Nemean and Isthmian, held alternate
years between the Olympic periods. These great national festivals
exercised a strong influence in Greece. They were a secure bond of
union between the numerous independent states and did much to help the
nation to repel its foreign invaders. In Greece the accomplished
athlete was reverenced almost as a god, and cases have been recorded
where altars were erected and sacrifices made in his honor. The
extreme care and cultivation of the body induced by this national
spirit is one of the most significant features of Greek culture, and
one which might wisely be imitated in the modern world.]
[Footnote 2: Troubadours. In southern France during the eleventh
century, wandering poets went from castle to castle reciting or
singing love-songs, composed in the old Provençal dialect, a sort of
vulgarized Latin. The life in the great feudal chateaux was so dull
that the lords and ladies seized with avidity any amusement which
promised to while away an idle hour. The troubadours were made much of
and became a strong element in the development of the Southern spirit.
So-called Courts of Love were formed where questions of an amorous
nature were discussed in all their bearings; learned opinions were
expressed on the most trivial matters, and offenses were tried.
Some of the Provençal poetry is of the highest artistic significance,
though the mass of it is worthless high-flown trash.]
[Footnote 3: At the time this oration was delivered (1837), many of
the authors who have since given America a place in the world's
literature were young men writing their first books. "We were," says
James Russell Lowell, "still socially and intellectually moored to
English thought, till Emerson cut the cable and gave us a chance at
the dangers and glories of blue water."]
[Footnote 4: Pole-star. Polaris is now the nearest conspicuous star to
the north pole of the celestial equator. Owing to the motion of the
pole of the celestial equator around that of the ecliptic, this star
will in course of time recede from its proud position, and the
brilliant star Vega in the constellation Harp will become the
pole-star.]
[Footnote 5: It is now a well-recognized fact in the development of
animal life that as any part of the body falls into disuse it in time
disappears. Good examples of this are the disappearance of powerful
fangs from the mouth of man, the loss of power in the wings of
barnyard fowls; and, _vice versa_, as new uses for a member arise, its
structure changes to meet the new needs. An example of this is the
transformation from the hoof of a horse through the cloven hoofs of
the cow to the eventual development of highly expert fingers in the
monkey and man. Emerson assumed the doctrine of evolution to be
sufficiently established by the anatomical evidence of gradual
development. In his own words: "Man is no up-start in the creation.
His limbs are only a more exquisite organization--say rather the
finish--of the rudimental forms that have been already sweeping the
sea and creeping in the mud. The brother of his hand is even now
cleaving the arctic sea in the fin of the whale, and innumerable ages
since was pawing the marsh in the flipper of the saurian." A view
afterwards condensed into his memorable couplet:
"Striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form."
]
[Footnote 6: Stint. A prescribed or allotted task, a share of labor.]
[Footnote 7: Ridden. Here used in the sense of dominated.]
[Footnote 8: Monitory pictures. Instructive warning pictures.]
[Footnote 9: The Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus is the author of
this saying, not "the old oracle." It occurs in the Encheiridion, or
manual, a work put together by a pupil of Epictetus. The original
saying of Epictetus is as follows: "Every thing has two handles, the
one by which it may be borne, the other by which it may not. If your
brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold of the act by that handle
wherein he acts unjustly, for this is the handle which cannot be
borne: but lay hold of the other, that he is your brother, that he was
nurtured with you, and you will lay hold of the thing by that handle
by which it can be borne."]
[Footnote 10: Every day, the sun (shines).]
[Footnote 11: Beholden. Emerson here uses this past participle with
its original meaning instead of in its present sense of "indebted."]
[Footnote 12: Here we have a reminder of Emerson's pantheism. He means
the inexplicable continuity "of what I call God, and fools nature," as
Browning expressed it.]
[Footnote 13: His expanding knowledge will become a creator.]
[Footnote 14: Know thyself. Plutarch ascribes this saying to Plato. It
is also ascribed to Pythagoras, Chilo, Thales, Cleobulus, Bias, and
Socrates; also to Phemonië, a mythical Greek poetess of the
ante-Homeric period. Juvenal (Satire XI. 27) says that this precept
descended from heaven. "Know thyself" and "Nothing too much" were
inscribed upon the Delphic oracle.
"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man."
]
[Footnote 15: Observe the brisk movement of these sentences. How they
catch and hold the attention, giving a new impulse to the reader's
interest!]
[Footnote 16: Nature abhors a vacuum.]
[Footnote 17: Noxious. Harmful.]
[Footnote 18: John Locke (1632-1704), an English philosopher whose
work was of especial significance in the development of modern
philosophy. The work he is best known by is the exhaustive "Essay on
the Human Understanding," in which he combated the theory of
Descartes, that every man has certain "innate ideas." The innate-idea
theory was first proved by the philosopher Descartes in this way.
Descartes began his speculations from a standpoint of absolute doubt.
Then he said, "I think, therefore I am," and from this formula he
built up a number of ideas innate to the human mind, ideas which we
cannot but hold. Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding" did much
to discredit Descartes' innate ideas, which had been very generally
accepted in Europe before.]
[Footnote 19: Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount Saint Alban's
(1561-1626), a famous English statesman and philosopher. He occupied
high public offices, but in 1621 was convicted of taking bribes in his
office of Lord Chancellor. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to
imprisonment and a fine of forty thousand pounds. Both these sentences
were remitted, however. In the seventeenth century, judicial
corruption was so common that Bacon's offence was not considered so
gross as it would now be. As a philosopher Bacon's rank has been much
disputed. While some claim that to his improved method of studying
nature are chiefly to be attributed the prodigious strides taken by
modern science, others deny him all merit in this respect. His best
known works are: "The Novum Organum," a philosophical treatise; "The
Advancement of Learning," a remarkable argument in favor of
scholarship; and the short essays on subjects of common interest,
usually printed under the simple title "Bacon's Essays."]
[Footnote 20: Third Estate. The thirteenth century was the age when
the national assemblies of most European countries were putting on
their definite shape. In most of them the system of _estates_
prevailed. These in most countries were three--nobles, clergy, and
commons, the commons being the third estate. During the French
Revolution the Third Estate, or Tiers Etat, asserted its rights and
became a powerful factor in French politics, choosing its own leaders
and effecting the downfall of its oppressors.]
[Footnote 21: Restorers of readings. Men who spend their lives trying
to improve and correct the texts of classical authors, by comparing
the old editions with each other and picking out the version which
seem most in accordance with the authors' original work.]
[Footnote 22: Emendators. The same as restorers of readings.]
[Footnote 23: Bibliomaniacs. Men with a mania for collecting rare and
beautiful books. Not a bad sort of mania, though Emerson never had any
sympathy for it.]
[Footnote 24: To many readers Emerson's own works richly fulfill this
obligation. He himself lived continually in such a lofty mental
atmosphere that no one can come within the circle of his influence
without being stimulated and elevated.]
[Footnote 25: Genius, the possession of a thoroughly active soul,
ought not to be the special privilege of favorites of fortune, but the
right of every sound man.]
[Footnote 26: They stunt my mental growth. A man should not accept
another man's conclusions, but merely use them as steps on his upward
path.]
[Footnote 27: If you do not employ such talent as you have in original
labor, in bearing the mental fruit of which you are capable, then you
do not vindicate your claim to a share in the divine nature.]
[Footnote 28: Disservice. Injury.]
[Footnote 29: In original composition of any sort our efforts
naturally flow in the channels worn for us by the first dominating
streams of early genius. The conventional is the continual foe of all
true art.]
[Footnote 30: Emerson is continually stimulating us to look at things
in new ways. Here, for instance, at once the thought comes: "Is it not
perhaps possible that the transcendent genius of Shakespeare has been
rather noxious than beneficent in its influence on the mind of the
world? Has not the all-pervading Shakespearian influence flooded and
drowned out a great deal of original genius?"]
[Footnote 31: That is,--when in his clear, seeing moments he can
distil some drops of truth from the world about him, let him not waste
his time in studying other men's records of what they have seen.]
[Footnote 32: While Emerson's verse is frequently unmusical, in his
prose we often find passages like this instinct with the fairest
poetry.]
[Footnote 33: Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400). The father of English
poetry. Chaucer's chief work is the "Canterbury Tales," a series of
stories told by pilgrims traveling in company to Canterbury.
Coleridge, the poet, wrote of Chaucer: "I take unceasing delight in
Chaucer; his manly cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my
old age. How exquisitely tender he is, yet how free from the least
touch of sickly melancholy or morbid drooping." Chaucer's poetry is
above all things fresh. It breathes of the morning of literature. Like
Homer he had at his command all the riches of a new language undefiled
by usage from which to choose.
"Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,
On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled."
]
[Footnote 34: Andrew Marvell (1620-1678). An eminent English patriot
and satirist. As a writer he is chiefly known by his "Rehearsal
Transposed," written in answer to a fanatical defender of absolute
power. When a young man he was assistant to the poet Milton, who was
then Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell. Marvell's wit and
distinguished abilities rendered him formidable to the corrupt
administration of Charles II., who attempted without success to buy
his friendship. Emerson's literary perspective is a bit unusual when
he speaks of Marvell as "one of the great English poets." Marvell
hardly ranks with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton.]
[Footnote 35: John Dryden (1631-1700). A celebrated English poet.
Early in life he wrote almost entirely for the stage and achieved
great success. In the latter part of his life, however, according to
Macaulay, he "turned his powers in a new direction with success the
most splendid and decisive. The first rank in poetry was beyond his
reach, but he secured the most honorable place in the second.... With
him died the secret of the old poetical diction of England,--the art
of producing rich effects by familiar words."]
[Footnote 36: Plato (429-347 B.C.). One of the most illustrious
philosophers of all time. Probably no other philosopher has
contributed so much as Plato to the moral and intellectual training of
the human race. This pre-eminence is due not solely to his
transcendent intellect, but also in no small measure to his poetic
power and to that unrivaled grace of style which led the ancients to
say that if Jove should speak Greek he would speak like Plato. He was
a remarkable example of that universal culture of body and mind which
characterized the last period of ancient Greece. He was proficient in
every branch of art and learning and was such a brilliant athlete that
he contended in the Isthmian and Pythian games.]
[Footnote 37: Gowns. The black gown worn occasionally in America and
always in England at the universities; the distinctive academic dress
is a cap and gown.]
[Footnote 38: Pecuniary foundations. Gifts of money for the support of
institutions of learning.]
[Footnote 39: Wit is here used in its early sense of intellect, good
understanding.]
[Footnote 40: Valetudinarian. A person of a weak, sickly
constitution.]
[Footnote 41: Mincing. Affected.]
[Footnote 42: Preamble. A preface or introduction.]
[Footnote 43: Dumb abyss. That vast immensity of the universe about us
which we can never understand.]
[Footnote 44: I comprehend its laws; I lose my fear of it.]
[Footnote 45: Silkworms feed on mulberry-leaves. Emerson describes
what science calls "unconscious cerebration."]
[Footnote 46: Ripe fruit. Emerson's ripe fruit found its way into his
diary, where it lay until he needed it in the preparation of some
lecture or essay.]
[Footnote 47: I. Corinthians xv. 53.]
[Footnote 48: Empyrean. The region of pure light and fire; the ninth
heaven of ancient astronomy.
"The deep-domed empyrean
Rings to the roar of an angel onset."
]
[Footnote 49: Ferules. According to the methods of education fifty
years ago, it was quite customary for the teacher to punish a
school-child with his ferule or ruler.]
[Footnote 50: Oliver Wendell Holmes cites this last sentence as the
most extreme development of the distinctively Emersonian style. Such
things must be read not too literally but rapidly, with alert
attention to what the previous train of thought has been.]
[Footnote 51: Savoyards. The people of Savoy, south of Lake Geneva in
Switzerland.]
[Footnote 52: Emerson's style is characterized by the frequent use of
pithy epigrams like this.]
[Footnote 53: Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). A great English
philosopher and mathematician. He is famous as having discovered the
law of gravitation.]
[Footnote 54: Unhandselled. Uncultivated, without natural advantages.
A handsel is a gift.]
[Footnote 55: Druids. The ancient priesthood of the Britons in Cæsar's
time. They had immense power among these primitive peoples. They were
the judges as well as the priests and decided all questions. It is
believed that they made human sacrifices to their gods in the depths
of the primeval forest, but not much is known of their rites.]
[Footnote 56: Berserkers. Berserker was a redoubtable hero in
Scandinavian mythology, the grandson of the eight-handed Starkodder
and the beautiful Alfhilde. He had twelve sons who inherited the
wild-battle frenzy, or berserker rage. The sagas, the great
Scandinavian epics, are full of stories of heroes who are seized with
this fierce longing for battle, murder, and sudden death. The name
means bear-shirt and has been connected with the old _were-wolf_
tradition, the myth that certain people were able to change into
man-devouring wolves with a wolfish mad desire to rend and kill.]
[Footnote 57: Alfred, surnamed the Great (848-901), king of the West
Saxons in England. When he ascended the throne his country was in a
deplorable condition from the repeated inroads of northern invaders.
He eventually drove them out and established a secure government.
England owes much to the efforts of Alfred. He not only fought his
country's battles, but also founded schools, translated Latin books
into his native tongue, and did much for the intellectual improvement
of his people.]
[Footnote 58: The hoe and the spade. "In spite of Emerson's habit of
introducing the names of agricultural objects into his writing ('Hay,
corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool, and wood' is a line from one of
his poems), his familiarity therewith is evidently not so great as he
would lead one to imagine. 'Take care, papa,' cried his little son,
seeing him at work with a spade, 'you will dig your leg.'"]
[Footnote 59: John Flamsteed (1646-1719). An eminent English
astronomer. He appears to have been the first to understand the theory
of the equation of time. He passed his life in patient observation and
determined the position of 2884 stars.]
[Footnote 60: Sir William Herschel (1738-1822). One of the greatest
astronomers that any age or nation has produced. Brought up to the
profession of music, it was not until he was thirty years old that he
turned his attention to astronomy. By rigid economy he obtained a
telescope, and in 1781 discovered the planet Uranus. This great
discovery gave him great fame and other substantial advantages. He was
made private astronomer to the king and received a pension. His
discoveries were so far in advance of his time, they had so little
relation with those of his predecessors, that he may almost be said
to have created a new science by revealing the immensity of the scale
on which the universe is constructed.]
[Footnote 61: Nebulous. In astronomy a nebula is a luminous patch in
the heavens far beyond the solar system, composed of a mass of stars
or condensed gases.]
[Footnote 62: Fetich. The word seems to have been applied by
Portuguese sailors and traders on the west coast of Africa to objects
worshiped by the natives, which were regarded as charms or talismans.
Of course the word here means an object of blind admiration and
devotion.]
[Footnote 63: Cry up, to praise, extol.]
[Footnote 64: Ancient and honorable. Isaiah ix. 15.]
[Footnote 65: Complement. What is needed to complete or fill up some
quantity or thing.]
[Footnote 66: Signet. Seal. Emerson is not always felicitous in his
choice of metaphors.]
[Footnote 67: Macdonald. In Cervantes' "Don Quixote," Sancho Panza,
the squire to the "knight of the metaphysical countenance," tells a
story of a gentleman who had asked a countryman to dine with him. The
farmer was pressed to take his seat at the head of the table, and when
he refused out of politeness to his host, the latter became impatient
and cried: "Sit there, clod-pate, for let me sit wherever I will, that
will still be the upper end, and the place of worship to thee." This
saying is commonly attributed to Rob Roy, but Emerson with his usual
inaccuracy in such matters places it in the mouth of Macdonald,--which
Macdonald is uncertain.]
[Footnote 68: Carolus Linnæus (1707-1778). A great Swedish botanist.
He did much to make botany the orderly science it now is.]
[Footnote 69: Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829). The most famous of English
chemists. The most important to mankind of his many discoveries was
the safety-lamp to be used in mines where there is danger of explosion
from fire-damp.]
[Footnote 70: Baron George Cuvier (1769-1832). An illustrious French
philosopher, statesman, and writer who made many discoveries in the
realm of natural history, geology and philosophy.]
[Footnote 71: The moon. The tides are caused by the attraction of the
moon and the sun. The attraction of the moon for the water nearest the
moon is somewhat greater than the attraction of the earth's center.
This causes a slight bulging of the water toward the moon and a
consequent high tide.]
[Footnote 72: Emerson frequently omits the principal verb of his
sentences as here: "In a century _there may exist_ one or two men."]
[Footnote 73: This obscurely constructed sentence means: "For their
acquiescence in a political and social inferiority the poor and low
find some compensation in the immense moral capacity thereby gained."]
[Footnote 74: "They" refers to the hero or poet mentioned some twenty
lines back.]
[Footnote 75: Comprehendeth. Here used in the original sense _to
include_. The perfect man should be so thoroughly developed at every
point that he will possess a share in the nature of every man.]
[Footnote 76: By the Classic age is generally meant the age of Greece
and Rome; and by the Romantic is meant the middle ages.]
[Footnote 77: Introversion. Introspection is the more usual word to
express the analytic self-searching so common in these days.]
[Footnote 78: Second thoughts. Emerson uses the word here in the same
sense as the French _arrière-pensée_, a mental reservation.]
[Footnote 79:
"And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."
_Hamlet_, Act III, Sc. 1.
]
[Footnote 80: Movement. The French Revolution.]
[Footnote 81: Let every common object be credited with the diviner
attributes which will class it among others of the same importance.]
[Footnote 82: Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774). An eminent English poet
and writer. He is best known by the comedy "She Stoops to Conquer,"
the poem "The Deserted Village," and the "Vicar of Wakefield." "Of all
romances in miniature," says Schlegel, the great German critic, "the
'Vicar of Wakefield' is the most exquisite." It is probably the most
popular English work of fiction in Germany.]
[Footnote 83: Robert Burns (1759-1796). A celebrated Scottish poet.
The most striking characteristics of Burns' poetry are simplicity and
intensity, in which he is scarcely, if at all, inferior to any of the
greatest poets that have ever lived.]
[Footnote 84: William Cowper (1731-1800). One of the most popular of
English poets. His poem "The Task" was probably more read in his day
than any poem of equal length in the language. Cowper also made an
excellent translation of Homer.]
[Footnote 85: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). The most
illustrious name in German literature; a great poet, dramatist,
novelist, philosopher, and critic. The Germans regard Goethe with the
same veneration we accord to Shakespeare. The colossal drama "Faust"
is the most splendid product of his genius, though he wrote a large
number of other plays and poems.]
[Footnote 86: William Wordsworth (1770-1850). By many considered the
greatest of modern English poets. His descriptions of the ever-varying
moods of nature are the most exquisite in the language. Matthew Arnold
in his essay on Emerson says: "As Wordsworth's poetry is, in my
judgment, the most important work done in verse in our language during
the present century, so Emerson's 'Essays' are, I think, the most
important work done in prose."]
[Footnote 87: Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). A famous English essayist,
historian, and speculative philosopher. It is scarcely too much to say
that no other author of this century has exerted a greater influence
not merely upon the literature but upon the mind of the English nation
than Carlyle. Emerson was an intimate friend of Carlyle, and during
the greater part of his life maintained a correspondence with the
great Englishman. An interesting description of their meeting will be
found among the "Critical Opinions" at the beginning of the work.]
[Footnote 88: Alexander Pope (1688-1744). The author of the "Essay on
Criticism," "Rape of the Lock," the "Essay on Man," and other famous
poems. Pope possessed little originality or creative imagination, but
he had a vivid sense of the beautiful and an exquisite taste. He owed
much of his popularity to the easy harmony of his verse and the
keenness of his satire.]
[Footnote 89: Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). One of the eminent writers
of the eighteenth century. He wrote "Lives of the Poets," poems, and
probably the most remarkable work of the kind ever produced by a
single person, an English dictionary.]
[Footnote 90: Edward Gibbon (1737-1794). One of the most distinguished
of English historians. His great work is the "Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire." Carlyle called Gibbon, "the splendid bridge from the
old world to the new."]
[Footnote 91: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). A great Swedish
theologian, naturalist, and mathematician, and the founder of a
religious sect which has since his death become prominent among the
philosophical schools of Christianity.]
[Footnote 92: Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827). A Swiss teacher
and educational reformer of great influence in his time.]