Essays By Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 17

[Footnote 217: An allusion to the Mohammedan custom of removing the shoes before entering a mosque.]

[Footnote 218: Of a truth, men are mystically united; a mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one.]

[Footnote 219: Thor and Woden. Woden or Odin was the chief G.o.d of Scandinavian mythology. Thor, his elder son, was the G.o.d of thunder.

From these names come the names of the days Wednesday and Thursday.]

[Footnote 220: Explain the meaning of this sentence.]

[Footnote 221: You, or you, addressing different persons.]

[Footnote 222: "The truth shall make you free."--_John_, viii. 32.]

[Footnote 223: Antinomianism, the doctrine that the moral law is not binding under the gospel dispensation, faith alone being necessary to salvation.]

[Footnote 224: "There is no sorrow I have thought more about than that--to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail."

GEORGE ELIOT, _Middlemarch_, lxxvi.]

[Footnote 225: Explain the use of _it_ in these expressions.]

[Footnote 226: Stoic, a disciple of the Greek philosopher Zeno, who taught that men should be free from pa.s.sion, unmoved by joy and grief, and should submit without complaint to the inevitable.]

[Footnote 227: Word made flesh, see _John_, i. 14.]

[Footnote 228: Healing to the nations, see _Revelation_, xxii. 2.]

[Footnote 229: In what prayers do men allow themselves to indulge?]

[Footnote 230:

"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed, The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast."

MONTGOMERY, _What is Prayer?_ ]

[Footnote 231: Caratach (Caractacus) is a historical character in Fletcher's (1576-1625) tragedy of _Bonduca_(Boadicea).]

[Footnote 232: Zoroaster, a Persian philosopher, founder of the ancient Persian religion. He flourished long before the Christian era.]

[Footnote 233: "Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not G.o.d speak with us, lest we die."--_Exodus_, xx. 19. Compare also the parallel pa.s.sage in _Deuteronomy_, v. 25-27.]

[Footnote 234: John Locke. (See note 18.)]

[Footnote 235: Lavoisier (1743-1794), celebrated French chemical philosopher, discoverer of the composition of water.]

[Footnote 236: James Hutton (1726-1797), great Scotch geologist, author of the _Theory of the Earth_.]

[Footnote 237: Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), English philosopher, jurist, and legislative reformer.]

[Footnote 238: Fourier (1772-1837), French socialist, founder of the system of Fourierism.]

[Footnote 239: Calvinism, the doctrines of John Calvin (1509-1564).

French theologian and Protestant reformer. A cardinal doctrine of Calvinism is predestination.]

[Footnote 240: Quakerism, the doctrines of the Quakers or Friends, a society founded by George Fox (1624-1691).]

[Footnote 241: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), Swedish theosophist, founder of the New Jerusalem Church. He is taken by Emerson in his _Representative Men_ as the type of the mystic, and is often mentioned in his other works.]

[Footnote 242: "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not."--EMERSON, _Art_.]

[Footnote 243: Thebes, a celebrated ruined city of Upper Egypt.]

[Footnote 244: Palmyra, a ruined city of Asia situated in an oasis of the Syrian desert, supposed to be the Tadmor built by Solomon in the wilderness (_II. Chr._, viii. 4).]

[Footnote 245:

"Vain, very vain, my weary search to find That bliss which only centers in the mind....

Still to ourselves in every place consign'd, Our own felicity we make or find."

GOLDSMITH (and JOHNSON), _The Traveler_, 423-32.

"He that has light within his own clear breast May sit i' th' center, and enjoy bright day; But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; Himself in his own dungeon."

MILTON, _Comus_, 381-5.

Compare also _Paradise Lost_, I, 255-7.]

[Footnote 246: Vatican, the palace of the pope in Rome, with its celebrated library, museum, and art gallery.]

[Footnote 247: Doric, the oldest, strongest, and simplest of the three styles of Grecian architecture.]

[Footnote 248: Gothic, a pointed style of architecture, prevalent in western Europe in the latter part of the middle ages.]

[Footnote 249: Never imitate. Emerson insists on this doctrine.]

[Footnote 250: Shakespeare (1564-1616), the great English poet and dramatist. He is mentioned in Emerson's writings more than any other character in history, and is taken as the type of the poet in his _Representative Men_.

"O mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,--like frost and snow, rain and dew, hailstorm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless or inert,--but that, the further we press in our discoveries, the more we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the careless eye had seen nothing but accident!"--DE QUINCY.]

[Footnote 251: Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), American philosopher, statesman, diplomatist, and author. He discovered the ident.i.ty of lightning with electricity, invented the lightning-rod, went on several diplomatic missions to Europe, was one of the committee that drew up the Declaration of Independence, signed the treaty of Paris, and compiled _Poor Richard's Almanac_.]

[Footnote 252: Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a famous English philosopher and statesman. He became Lord Chancellor under Elizabeth. He is best known by his _Essays_; he wrote also the _Novum Organum_ and the _Advancement of Learning_.]

[Footnote 253: Sir Isaac Newton. (See note 53.)]

[Footnote 254: Scipio. (See note 205.)]

[Footnote 255: Phidias (500?-432? B.C.), famous Greek sculptor.]

[Footnote 256: Egyptians. He has in mind the pyramids.]

[Footnote 257: The Pentateuch is attributed to Moses.]