Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1876-01-14
Epigrams by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

EplgraMs ny halpH Hala0 EhersOns
[From Fmerson,s New Volume of Essays.]
"A MANS action is only a picture book
of his creed. He does alter what he be-
lieves. lmeY IL s8 9Fat aGs ri aaFI rnH
THE metallic force of primitive words
makes the superiority of the remains of
the rude ages.
Y POETRY must be affirmative. 1t is the
piety of intellect. Thus saith the Lord
should begin the song. sii5ea5 aeas' aas
ANY word, every word in language,
every circumstance, becomes poetic IN the
hands of higher thought. x
To THE poet the world is virgin soil;
all is practicable; the men are ready for
virtue; it is always time to do right.
: AS THE bird alights on the Dough, then
of God pause but for moment in any
form. df.gg vs-..x.4z 500 n-sra n
THE prayers of nations are rhythmic =
have .iterations and alterations, like. the
marriage service and burial service in our
liturgies. aigi. zw nit1e& 3adt ind f.
!, The poet discovers that what men
value as substances have higher value
as symbols; that nature Is the immense
shadow of man..
/ REQUIRE that the poem should i'm
press me, so that after / have shut the
book it shall recall me to itself, or that
passages should. 9as Hte s'st4ai lr
- POETRY is the perpetual endeavor to ex-
press the spirit of the thing; to pass the
brute body and search the life and reason
which causes it to exist sEt - lS,51@
Is NOT poetry the little chamber in the
brain where is generated the explosive
force which, by gentle shocks, sets in &C.
ton the intellectual world?
A SYMBOL always stimulates the intel
lect therefore is poetry ever the best read
ing. The very design of Imagination is
to domesticate us in another, in a celestial
nature. qrtsts. 49 81
RHYME, being kind of music, shares
this advantage with music, that it has
privilege of speaking truth, which all
Philistia is unable to challenge. Music
is the poor mans Parnassus. i@ 7t5@
THERE is no choice of words for him
who clearly sees the truth. That provides
him with the best words. If your subject
do not appear to you the flower of the
world at this moment, you have not right
ly chosen it. E13 .il0 u ;'l8 -.@ h+
THE impressions on the imagination
make the great days of life; the book, the
landscape, or the personality which did
not stay on the surface. of the eye or ear,
but penetrated to the inv ard sense, agitates
us and is not forgotten. -i@' aJ p
OUTSIDE of the nursery the beginning
of literature is the prayers of the people,
and they are always hymns, poetic-the
mind allowing itself range, and Herewith
is ever a corresponding freedom in the
style which becomes lyrical
Il, THE act of Imagination is ever attended
by pure delight 1t infuses q certain
volatility and intoxication into all nature.
Ithas q flute which sets the atoms of our
frame in q. dance. n Our indeterminate
size is delicious secret which it reveals
to US. TfsE >ofrg EFkI
We must learn the homely laws of fire
and water; we must feed, wash, plant,
build. These are the ends of necessity,
and first in the order of nature. Poverty,
frost, famine, disease, debt, are the beadles
and guardsmen that hold us to common
sense.
MATURE is the true idealist When
she serves us best; when, on rare days,
she speaks to the Imagination, we feel that
the huge heaven and earth are but web
drawn around us; that the light, skies
and mountains are but the painted vicis-
STUDIES of the soul.
MAN runs about restless and in pain
when his condition or the objects about
him do not fully match his thought He
wishes to be rich, to be old, to be young,
that things may obey him. In the ocean,
in fire, in the sky, in the forest he finds
facts adequate and as large as he.
THE test, or measure, of poetic genius
is the power to read the poetry of affairs
to fuse the circumstance of to-day; not
to use SCOTS antique superstitions, or
Shakespeare's, but to convert those of the
nineteenth century, and of the existing
nations, into universal symbols.
SHADOWS please us as still finer
rhymes. Architecture gives the like
pleasure by the repetition of equal parts in
a colonnade, in row of windows or in
wings; gardens by the symmetrlc con-
trasts of the beds and walks. In society
you have this figure in bridal company,
where choir of white-robed maidens
gives the charm of living statues; in a
funeral procession, where allywear black;
in regiment of soldiers in uniform. e q
IMAGINATION is central; fancy is super
fetal Fancy relates TO surface, in which
a great part of life lies. The lover is
rightly said to fancy the hair, eyes, COM
plexion of the maid Fancy is willful,
Imagination spontaneous, act; fancy,
play as with dolls and puppets which we
choose to call men and women; imagina-
ton, a perception and affirming of q real
relation between thought and some ma
terial fact. Fancy amuses; imagination
expands and exalts u.s. as, & ,e+1l
In dreams we are true poets; we create
The persons of the, drama; we give them
appropriate. figures, faces, costume; they
are perfect in their organs, attitude, man.
ners moreover, they speak after their own
characters, not ours; they speak to us, and
we listen with surprise to what they say.
Indeed, doubt if the best poet has yet
written any fve-act play that can compare
in thoroughness of invention with this un-
written play in fifty acts, composed by the
FULLEST snorer on the floor of the watch