Considerations by the Way from The Conduct of Life (1860, rev. 1876) by Ralph Waldo Emerson VII: CONSIDERATIONS BY THE WAY Hear what British Merlin sung, Of keenest eye and truest tongue. Say not, the chiefs who first arrive Usurp the seats for which all strive; The forefathers this land who found Failed to plant…

IX: ILLUSIONS Flow, flow the waves hated, Accursed, adored, The waves of mutation: No anchorage is. Sleep is not, death is not; Who seem to die live. House you were born in, Friends of your spring-time, Old man and young maid, Day’s toil and its guerdon, They are all vanishing, Fleeing to fables, Cannot be…

VIII: BEAUTY Was never form and never face So sweet to SEYD as only grace Which did not slumber like a stone But hovered gleaming and was gone. Beauty chased he everywhere, In flame, in storm, in clouds of air. He smote the lake to feed his eye With the beryl beam of the broken…

VII: CONSIDERATIONS BY THE WAY Hear what British Merlin sung, Of keenest eye and truest tongue. Say not, the chiefs who first arrive Usurp the seats for which all strive; The forefathers this land who found Failed to plant the vantage-ground; Ever from one who comes to-morrow Men wait their good and truth to borrow….

VI: WORSHIP This is he, who, felled by foes, Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows: He to captivity was sold, But him no prison-bars would hold: Though they sealed him in a rock, Mountain chains he can unlock: Thrown to lions for their meat, The crouching lion kissed his feet: Bound to the stake, no…

V: BEHAVIOR Grace, Beauty, and Caprice Build this golden portal; Graceful women, chosen men Dazzle every mortal: Their sweet and lofty countenance His enchanting food; He need not go to them, their forms Beset his solitude. He looketh seldom in their face, His eyes explore the ground, The green grass is a looking-glass Whereon their…

IV: CULTURE Can rules or tutors educate The semigod whom we await? He must be musical, Tremulous, impressional, Alive to gentle influence Of landscape and of sky, And tender to the spirit-touch Of man’s or maiden’s eye: But, to his native centre fast, Shall into Future fuse the Past, And the world’s flowing fates in…

III WEALTH Who shall tell what did befall, Far away in time, when once, Over the lifeless ball, Hung idle stars and suns? What god the element obeyed? Wings of what wind the lichen bore, Wafting the puny seeds of power, Which, lodged in rock, the rock abrade? And well the primal pioneer Knew the…

II: POWER His tongue was framed to music, And his hand was armed with skill, His face was the mould of beauty, And his heart the throne of will. Power There is not yet any inventory of a man’s faculties, any more than a bible of his opinions. Who shall set a limit to the…