Volume II – Essays I, First Series (1841)
History Self-Reliance Compensation Spiritual Laws Love Friendship Prudence Heroism The Over-Soul Circles Intellect Art
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Category II – Essays I
Volume II, Essays First Series, was first published in 1841 by Jas. Monroe & Sons, Boston. The first reviews were mixed, varying according to biased opinions about this "new thought." After Emerson’s death, the work appeared as Volume II in the Centenary Edition, published by Houghton Mifflin. A newly edited volume was published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press in 1979.
XII. Art
Give to barrows, trays, and pans Grace and glimmer of romance; Bring the moonlight into noon Hid in gleaming piles of stone; On the city’s paved street Plant gardens lined with lilac sweet; Let spouting fountains cool the air, Singing…
XI. Intellect
Go, speed the stars of Thought On to their shining goals; — The sower scatters broad his seed, The wheat thou strew’st be souls. ESSAY XI Intellect Every substance is negatively electric to that which stands above it in the…
X Circles
Nature centres into balls, And her proud ephemerals, Fast to surface and outside, Scan the profile of the sphere; Knew they what that signified, A new genesis were here. ESSAY X Â Circles The eye is the first circle; the horizon…
IX The Over-Soul
"But souls that of his own good life partake, He loves as his own self; dear as his eye They are to Him: He’ll never them forsake: When they shall die, then God himself shall die: They live, they live…
VIII Heroism
“Paradise is under the shadow of swords.” Mahomet Ruby wine is drunk by knaves, Sugar spends to fatten slaves, Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons; Thunderclouds are Jove’s festoons, Drooping oft in wreaths of dread Lightning-knotted round his head; The hero…
VII Prudence
Theme no poet gladly sung, Fair to old and foul to young, Scorn not thou the love of parts, And the articles of arts. Grandeur of the perfect sphere Thanks the atoms that cohere. ESSAY VII Prudence What right have…
VI Friendship
A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs, The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays. I fancied he was fled, And, after many a year, Glowed unexhausted kindliness Like daily sunrise there. My careful heart…
V Love
“I was as a gem concealed; Me my burning ray revealed.” Koran ESSAY V Love Every promise of the soul has innumerable fulfillments; each often. Nature, uncontainable, flowing, forelooking, in the first sentiment of kindness anticipates already a benevolence which…
IV Spiritual Laws
The living Heaven thy prayers respect, House at once and architect, Quarrying man’s rejected hours, Builds therewith eternal towers; Sole and self-commanded works, Fears not undermining days, Grows by decays, And, by the famous might that lurks In reaction and…