[Footnote 93: These lines are printed under the title of
_Compensation_ in Emerson's collected poems. He has also another poem
of eight lines with the same title.]
[Footnote 94: Documents, data, facts.]
[Footnote 95: This doctrine, which a little observation would confute,
is still taught by some.]
[Footnote 96: Doubloons, Spanish and South American gold coins of the
value of about $15.60 each.]
[Footnote 97: Polarity, that quality or condition of a body by virtue
of which it exhibits opposite or contrasted properties in opposite or
contrasted directions.]
[Footnote 98: Systole and diastole, the contraction and dilation of
the heart and arteries.]
[Footnote 99: They are increased and consequently want more.]
[Footnote 100: Intenerate, soften.]
[Footnote 101: White House, the popular name of the presidential
mansion at Washington.]
[Footnote 102: Explain the phrase _eat dust_.]
[Footnote 103: Overlook, oversee, superintend.]
[Footnote 104: Res nolunt, etc. Translated in the previous sentence.]
[Footnote 105: The world ... dew. Explain the thought. What gives the
earth its shape?]
[Footnote 106: The microscope ... little. This statement is not in
accordance with the facts, if we are to understand _perfect_ in the
sense which the next sentence would suggest.]
[Footnote 107: Emerson has been considered a pantheist.]
[Footnote 108: _[Greek: Hoi kyboi]_, etc. The translation follows in
the text. This old proverb is quoted by Sophocles, (Fragm. LXXIV.2) in
the form:
[Greek: Aei gar eu piptousin oi Dios kyboi],
Emerson uses it in _Nature_ in the form "Nature's dice are always
loaded."]
[Footnote 109: Amain, with full force, vigorously.]
[Footnote 110: The proverb is quoted by Horace, Epistles, I, X.24:
"Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret."
A similar thought is expressed by Juvenal, Seneca, Cicero, and
Aristophanes.]
[Footnote 111: Augustine, Confessions, B. I.]
[Footnote 112: Jupiter, the supreme god of the Romans, the Zeus of the
Greeks.]
[Footnote 113: Tying up the hands. The expression is used
figuratively, of course.]
[Footnote 114: The supreme power in England is vested in Parliament.]
[Footnote 115: Prometheus stole fire from heaven to benefit the race
of men. In punishment for this Jupiter chained him to a rock and set
an eagle to prey upon his liver. Some unknown and terrible danger
threatened Jupiter, the secret of averting which only Prometheus knew.
For this secret Jupiter offered him his freedom.]
[Footnote 116: Minerva, goddess of wisdom, who sprang full-armed from
the brain of Jupiter. The secret which she held is told in the
following lines.]
[Footnote 117: Aurora, goddess of the dawn. Enamored of Tithonus, she
persuaded Jupiter to grant him immortality, but forgot to ask for him
immortal youth. Read Tennyson's poem on _Tithonus_.]
[Footnote 118: Achilles, the hero of Homer's _Iliad_. His mother
Thetis, to render him invulnerable, plunged him into the waters of the
Styx. The heel by which she held him was not washed by the waters and
remained vulnerable. Here he received a mortal wound.]
[Footnote 119: Siegfried, hero of the Nibelungenlied, the old German
epic poem. Having slain a dragon, he bathed in its blood and became
covered with an invulnerable horny hide, only one small spot between
his shoulders which was covered by a leaf remaining vulnerable. Into
this spot the treacherous Hagen plunged his lance.]
[Footnote 120: Nemesis, a Greek female deity, goddess of retribution,
who visited the righteous anger of the gods upon mortals.]
[Footnote 121: The Furies or Eumenides, stern and inexorable ministers
of the vengeance of the gods.]
[Footnote 122: Ajax and Hector, Greek and Trojan heroes in the Trojan
War. See Homer's _Iliad_. Achilles slew Hector and, lashing him to his
chariot with the belt which Ajax had given Hector, dragged him round
the walls of Troy. Ajax committed suicide with the sword which Hector
had presented to him.]
[Footnote 123: Thasians, inhabitants of the island of Thasus. The
story here told of the rival of the athlete Theagenes is found in
Pausanias' _Description of Greece_, Book VI. chap. XI.]
[Footnote 124: Shakespeare, the greatest of English writers, seems to
have succeeded entirely or almost entirely in removing the personal
element from his writings.]
[Footnote 125: Hellenic, Greek.]
[Footnote 126: Tit for tat, etc. This paragraph is composed of a
series of proverbs.]
[Footnote 127: Edmund Burke (1729?-1797), illustrious Irish statesman,
orator, and author.]
[Footnote 128: Pawns, the pieces of lowest rank in chess.]
[Footnote 129: What is the meaning of _obscene_ here? Compare the
Latin.]
[Footnote 130: Polycrates, a tyrant of Samos, who was visited with
such remarkable prosperity that he was advised by a friend to break
the course of it by depriving himself of some valued possession. In
accordance with this advice he cast into the sea an emerald ring which
he considered his rarest treasure. A few days later a fisherman
presented the monarch with a large fish inside of which the ring was
found. Soon after this Polycrates fell into the power of an enemy and
was nailed to a cross.]
[Footnote 131: Scot and lot, "formerly, a parish assessment laid on
subjects according to their ability. Now, a phrase for obligations of
every kind regarded collectively." (Webster.)]
[Footnote 132: Read Emerson's essay on _Gifts_.]
[Footnote 133: Worm worms, breed worms.]
[Footnote 134: Compare the old proverb "Murder will out." See Chaucer,
_N.P.T._, 232 and 237, and _Pr. T._, 124.]
[Footnote 135:
"Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum."
HORACE, _EPIST._, I. XVIII. 65.
]
[Footnote 136: Stag in the fable. See _Æsop_, LXVI. 184, _Cerva et
Leo_; Phædrus I. 12. _Cervus ad fontem_; La Fontaine, vi. 9, _Le Cerf
se Voyant dans l'eau_.]
[Footnote 137: See the quotation from St. Bernard farther on.]
[Footnote 138: Withholden, old participle of _withhold_, now
_withheld_.]
[Footnote 139: What is the etymology of the word _mob_?]
[Footnote 140: Optimism and Pessimism. The meanings of these two
opposites are readily made out from the Latin words from which they
come.]
[Footnote 141: St. Bernard de Clairvaux (1091-1153), French
ecclesiastic.]
[Footnote 142: Jesus. Holmes writes of Emerson: "Jesus was for him a
divine manifestation, but only as other great human souls have been in
all ages and are to-day. He was willing to be called a Christian just
as he was willing to be called a Platonist.... If he did not worship
the 'man Christ Jesus' as the churches of Christendom have done, he
followed his footsteps so nearly that our good Methodist, Father
Taylor, spoke of him as more like Christ than any man he had known."]
[Footnote 143: The first _his_ refers to Jesus, the second to
Shakespeare.]
[Footnote 144: Banyan. What is the characteristic of this tree that
makes it appropriate for this figure?]