I was interested in Emerson’s emphasis on independence, not so much because I agree with it (although to a certain extent I do), but rather because I find it interesting that it permeates everything that he talks about. At the beginning of the speech he talks about how “man” (in the sense of humankind, I suppose—or is that “I hope”?) is divided into various functions, which I found interesting because that is actually a Biblical concept, even though he never makes that link. Anyway, he talks about how those functions have become disjointed—how there is disunity among “Man.” This is interesting given his later praise if individualism and independence, but he seems to see independence as a necessary component to unity, as if all the cogs have to be able to work on their own in order to work well as a system. It might be a stark way of looking at life, but it’s a good analogy, I think (one that God thought up first, in a way!!)

I will quote some bits I liked:

“Science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in the most remote parts”

“The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again. It came into him, life; it went out from him, truth. It came to him, short-lived actions; it went out from him, immortal thoughts. It came to him, business; it went from him, poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. Precisely in proportion to the depth of the mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing.”

“Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.”

I think he is actually praising books here, not looking down on them. I like the way he talks of books as inspiration, as truth made out of life. It’s as if he likens the scholar’s work in reading a book to taking part in a conversation: when the scholar reads the book, s/he is listening to the conversation, but part of her must also be preparing a response, thinking about the ideas put forward by the text and bringing her own mind to it – giving it “the new arrangement of [her] own mind” and then re-uttering it from her point of view. Truth is subjective, and the work of a scholar (or, in our terms, perhaps, a reader and writer) is to take part in a neverending conversation of ideas, of the world (nature) and the past (thoughts of others in books) creating new truths in each age.

I think his negative remarks about “the bookworm” and “the book-learned class” stem from his view that worship of the book itself puts too much emphasis on the thing, not as a product of thought and ultimately nature, but as a think to be worshipped itself. We must remember that all writers were human, and their thoughts come from the same place – the world around them and the inspiration of others. He links this to the education system, and stresses that there is a danger that students will be taught to consume other people’s knowledge (books) for their own sake, without having their own thoughts.

I admit he does get a little hard on books, for instance: “Books are for the scholar’s idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men’s transcripts of their readings.” But he has a point I think. And he goes on to praise the importance of these books, using the proverb (which I love): “A fig tree, looking on a fig tree, becometh fruitful” – Books should be used to inspire – their thoughts to alight our souls to thoughts (fig to inspire the ripening of fig), but never relied upon exclusively, to the exclusion of nature and God and the world around us. We must all be creators and experiencers as well as readers.

“It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books. They impress us with the conviction, that one nature wrote and the same reads.”

I love this – it is very true. And perhaps my favourite:”There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had wellnigh thought and said.”

Don’t you often feel like that? And how wonderful to feel that we are connected by thought to these great authors because we can identify the same universal feeling.

And I wonder what broth of shoes would taste like… Never mind, I’d rather not know…

“One must be an inventor to read well.”

And then here is something you must have underlined and related to. I have a big Yes! Written beside it, underlined four times:

“But they [colleges] can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, but the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame.”

I like that. Education should be about inspiration, not about drilling knowledge.

“Only so much do I know, as I have lived.”

It’s as if he is noting two different types of knowledge: book-knowledge (does that have Maggie Tulliver written all over it?!) and life-knowledge. He believes that action is life, and that truth comes from life, and so should books – so we should read them as a source of life too, but not as the only source.

And I loved this.

“The actions and events of our childhood and youth, are now mattes of calmest observation. They lie like fair pictures in the air. Not so with our recent actions,--with the business which we now have in hand. On this we are quite unable to speculate. Our affections as yet circulate through it. We no more feel or know it, than we feel the feet, or the hand, or the brain of our body. The new deed is yet a part of life,--remains for a time immersed in our unconscious life. In some contemplative hour, it detaches itself from the life like a ripe fruit, to become a thought in the mind.”

Do you think this is true? It has a Virginia Woolf-esque parallel to it – this idea that we are unable to separate ourselves from the here and now, the current in our life, our present. What was it she said about that?? Then I was thinking, I wonder if this is why Hemingway and other expats find it so difficult to write about the place they are in; why they must return home or move on to write about it. I wonder if this is why I also have that issue. Or perhaps that’s to do with romance of place. Anyway, I would like to think more on this idea and know your thoughts too.

“Life is our dictionary.”

What a lovely motto. They should put that somewhere on a wall in the Liberal Arts building.

And the recognition of your own soul in someone else’s writing prompts the exclamation:” This is my music; this is myself.”

And then a wonderfully one suited for the cynical among us: “The world is his, who can see through its pretension”

I also liked his observations on the movement of literary and philosophical thought into more modern ideas of focusing on the every-day—what was once thought mundane: “One of these signs is the fact, that the same movement which effected the elevation of what was called the lowest class in the state, assumed in literature a very marked and as benign an aspect., Instead of the sublime and the beautiful; the near, the low, the common, was explored and poetized. That, which as been negligently trodden under foot by those who were harnessing and provisioning themselves for long journeys into far countries, is suddenly found to be richer than all foreign parts.”

Isn’t that a harbinger for what was to come in literature throughout the next few decades and on?

And a quote for how relative everything in this world is: “The drop is a small ocean.”

And the last one: “The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future.”

So there’s a challenge for you.