[Footnote 660: The essay on _Prudence_ was given as a lecture in
the course on _Human Culture_, in the winter of 1837-8. It was
published in the first series of _Essays_, which appeared in 1841.]
[Footnote 661: Lubricity. The word means literally the state or
quality of being slippery; Emerson uses it several times, in its
derived sense of "instability."]
[Footnote 662: Love and Friendship. The subjects of the two essays
preceding _Prudence_, in the volume of 1841.]
[Footnote 663: The world is filled with the proverbs, etc. Compare
with this passage Emerson's words in _Compensation_ on "the flights of
proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as that of
birds and flies."]
[Footnote 664: A good wheel or pin. That is, a part of a machine.]
[Footnote 665: The law of polarity. Having two opposite poles, the
properties of the one of which are the opposite of the other.]
[Footnote 666: Summer will have its flies. Emerson discoursed
with philosophic calm about the impediments and disagreeableness which
beset every path; he also accepted them with serenity when he
encountered them in his daily life.]
[Footnote 667: The inhabitants of the climates, etc. As a
northerner, Emerson naturally felt that the advantage and superiority
were with his own section. He expressed in his poems _Voluntaries_ and
_Mayday_ views similar to those declared here.]
[Footnote 668: Peninsular campaign. Emerson here refers to
the military operations carried on from 1808 to 1814 in Portugal,
Spain, and southern France against the French, by the British,
Spanish, and Portuguese forces commanded by Wellington. What was the
"Peninsular campaign" in American history?]
[Footnote 669: Dr. Johnson is reported to have said, etc. Dr.
Samuel Johnson was an eminent English scholar of the eighteenth
century. In this, as in many other instances, Emerson quotes from his
memory instead of from the book. The words of Dr. Johnson, as reported
by his biographer Boswell, are: "Accustom your children constantly to
this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it,
say it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check
them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."]
[Footnote 670: Rifle. A local name in England and New England
for an instrument, on the order of a whetstone, used for sharpening
scythes; it is made of wood, covered with fine sand or emery.]
[Footnote 671: Last grand duke of Weimar. Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach is a
grand duchy of Germany. The grand duke referred to was Charles
Augustus, who died in 1828. He was the friend and patron of the great
German authors, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland.]
[Footnote 672: The Raphael in the Dresden gallery. The Sistine
Madonna, the most famous picture of the great Italian artist,
Raphael.]
[Footnote 673: Call a spade a spade. Plutarch, the Greek historian,
said, "These Macedonians ... call a spade a spade."]
[Footnote 674: Parts. A favorite eighteenth century term for
abilities, talents.]
[Footnote 675: We have found out, etc. Emerson always insisted that
morals and intellect should be united. He urged that power and
insight are lessened by shortcomings in morals.]
[Footnote 676: Goethe's Tasso. A play by the German poet
Goethe, founded on the belief that the imprisonment of Tasso was due
to his aspiration to the hand of Leonora d'Este, sister of the duke of
Ferrara. Tasso was a famous Italian poet of the seventeenth century.]
[Footnote 677: Richard III. An English king, the last of the
Plantagenet line, the hero--or villain--of Shakespeare's historical
play, Richard III.]
[Footnote 678: Bifold. Give a simpler word that means the same.]
[Footnote 679: Cæsar. Why is Cæsar the great Roman ruler, given as a
type of greatness?]
[Footnote 680: Job. Why is Job, the hero of the Old Testament book of
the same name, given as a type of misery?]
[Footnote 681: Poor Richard. _Poor Richard's Almanac_,
published (1732-1757) by Benjamin Franklin was a collection of maxims
inculcating prudence and thrift. These were given as the sayings of
"Poor Richard."]
[Footnote 682: State Street. A street in Boston, Massachusetts, noted
as a financial center.]
[Footnote 683: Stick in a tree between whiles, etc. "Jock, when ye hae
naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be
growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping."--Scott's _Heart of Midlothian_.
It is said that these were the words of a dying Scotchman to his son.]
[Footnote 684: Minor virtues. Emerson suggests that punctuality and
regard for a promise are two of these. Can you name others?]
[Footnote 685: The Latin proverb says, etc. This is quoted from
Tacitus, the famous Roman historian.]
[Footnote 686: If he set out to contend, etc. In contention,
Emerson holds, the best men would lose their characteristic virtues,
--the fearless apostle Paul, his devotion to truth; the gentle
disciple John, his loving charity.]
[Footnote 687: Though your views are in straight antagonism, &c. This
was Emerson's own method, and by it he won a courteous hearing from
those to whom his views were most objectionable.]
[Footnote 688: Consuetudes. Give a simpler word that has the same
meaning.]
[Footnote 689: Begin where we will, etc. Explain what Emerson means by
this expression.]