I'm reading The Portable Emerson now...a collection of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays and books.
The last time I read Emerson was in high school, when we had to read Self-Reliance. (If you click on the word "Emerson" at the top of this post, it will take you to a full text copy of Self-Reliance.) All these years later, I remembered nothing of the essay, but I did recall that it had impressed me deeply.
I recently bought a used Emerson anthology online to see if I would be as impressed with Emerson now as I was in high school.
And, wow...am I ever.
Reading Emerson is very slow going. Not because he's tedious, but because each line is so shattering, so overwhelming, so overpowering, so illuminating, that I have to pause to catch my breath after each phrase.
I must underline and take notes. I have to close the book and set it aside in order to allow the intensity of the ideas to take root in my mind.
Emerson lays before the reader a sumptuous feast. One must take the time to sit back, savor, and digest after almost every bite.
Emerson cannot be wolfed down and swallowed whole.
Here are some juicy tidbits to share with you...although they are all so delicious, it is difficult to choose only a few:
"What your heart thinks great, is great. The soul's emphasis is always right."
"Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed."
"Time and space are but physiological colors which the eye makes, but the soul is light."
"The soul's advances are not made by gradation, such as can be represented by motion in a straight line, but rather by ascension of state, such as can be represented by metamorphosis, -- from the egg to the worm, from the worm to the fly."
"Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream."
"The universe is represented in every one of its particles. Every thing in nature contains all the powers of nature. Every thing is made of one hidden stuff."
"Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much."
And now, back to my book....
