NOTES The heavy marginal figures stand for page, and the lighter ones for line. THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR 66 33: 1. Recommencement of our literary year. Emerson was invited in 1837 to deliver the annual oration before the Harvard chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa, a society composed of honour-men from various American colleges. The college commencement," at that time, was held in the autumn or late summer, at the beginning of the college year. The audience to which Emerson spoke crowded the hall, and contained many distinguished men. The oration excited general attention, and was warmly admired and as warmly condemned. Oliver Wendell Holmes called it " our intellectual Declaration of Independence." But it is, in fact, as much a claim for originality and liberty in every other country as in America. So far from teaching a new doctrine, it presents the philosophy of the German idealists, Hegel and Fichte and Schelling and others, which Coleridge had already made familiar to English readers, in a form which certainly bears traces of the influence of Bacon and Carlyle. 33 5. The ancient Greeks. The Grecian games (Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian) were, for the most part, public contests in athletic sports, running, boxing, wrestling, throwing the discus, and so on. They were held regularly, at certain intervals of years, and were connected with religious ceremonies. At some of them there were musical contests, and in later times poems and histories were recited for a prize. The Festivals of the Panathenæa and the Dionysia at Athens included the singing of odes and the presentation of tragedies and comedies. 33 6. Troubadours. Poets and minstrels of southern France in the Middle Ages. They wandered from court to court, singing of love and war. Sometimes a prince or princess would hold a contest for these singers, gathered from different provinces; and this was called a "parliament." 34 7. The pole-star. The name given to that star which is nearest to the northern point of the invisible axis around which the heavens seem to turn. This star is now Polaris, which is about 1 degrees from the polar point. It will, in course of time, move a little nearer to the pole, and then farther away. After about twelve thousand years the star Vega, one of the brightest in the constellation Lyra, will be the pole-star. Emerson means that poetry will be the central star of men's thoughts; and he chooses this figure because the Lyre, or Harp, is the emblem of the poet. 35 7. The members. The figure of the body and its members is used by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians xii. 14-21. Emerson's vivid poetic imagination expresses itself in this metaphor of the members strutting about separately. He is fond of using concrete images, and much prefers metaphor to simile. Cf. p. 35, l. 19, “the priest becomes a form,” etc.; p. 38, l. 8, “seal and print"; p. 45, 1. 23, "pearls and rubies to his discourse." 36 6. Two handles: beware of the wrong one. : A maxim of Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher of the first century, preserved by Arrian in a book called Encheiridion. 36 12. Every day, the sun. The verb is omitted. This is a favourite construction with Emerson, who is sparing in his use of words and likes to condense. 36 15. Beholding and beholden. An illustration of Emerson's odd use of words. "Behold" originally meant to hold by, keep, retain. This sense is now obsolete, and the word means to hold in view, to see with attention. The participle "beholden,” however, follows the older sense, and means bound, held by obligation. Emerson uses "beholding” in the modern sense, of seeing; and "beholden" in the older sense, of being bound by ties of duty. 36 25. Nature . . . mind. Here begins the unfolding of Emerson's favourite doctrine that nature and the human mind correspond, and that in the relation between them the mind imposes its own laws and ideas on nature, instead of being evolved out of nature, so that the form of things as we see them is really of spiritual origin, coming from within us, and in the end we can look forward (as he says on page 38) "to an ever expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator." This, of course, is idealism; the doctrine that ideas and mental laws are the real things, and material objects are temporary forms. 38 5. A becoming creator. For example, the knowledge of astronomy brings the stars for us into an orderly universe obedient to gravitation and other laws, all of which, so far as we know them, are the product of thought, of mental power. Thus "the soul is the seal, and nature is the print." 38 13. Know thyself. A saying of Chilon, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, who lived in the sixth century B.C. 39: 16. Each generation for the next succeeding. To-day men go farther, and say that each generation must write the books for itself. 40 7. Cicero (106-43 B.C.). A Roman statesman, orator, and author. 40 7. Locke (1632-1704). An English philosopher. 40 8. Bacon (1561-1626). An English judge and essayist. All three of these men made good use of the ancient wisdom which they found in libraries; and other "young men in libraries" may well follow their example. 40 14. Third Estate. In some countries, for example France, the nation has been politically divided into three estates or classes, nobility, clergy, and the common people. The last is called "the third estate." : 42 15. Chaucer (1340-1400). Called "the morning star of English poetry"; author of the Canterbury Tales. 42 15. Marvell (1621-1678). One of Emerson's favourite poets; author of The Garden, The Bermudas, Ode on Cromwell. 42 15. Dryden (1631-1700). A dramatist and satiric poet; author of Absalom and Achitophel, The Hind and the Panther, Alexander's Feast, etc. The "modern joy" which Emerson finds in these old poets refutes what he says a little before: "the books of an older period will not fit this." 43: IO. Wealth of the Indies. A Spanish proverb. 43 19. 43 19. matic poet. Plato (429-348 B.C.). The greatest of Greek idealists. 44: 12. A pen-knife for an axe. This should be "a pen-knife for the work of an axe." 45 15. : The dumb abyss. Does this refer to the world within, or without? 46: 2. A mulberry leaf. . . satin. Satin is made from the cocoon of the silkworm, which feeds on the leaves of the mulberry. 46: 16. The corruptible . . . incorruption. I Cor. xv. 54. 47 9. Savoyards. The inhabitants of a small country in the Western Alps, south of Geneva. It is now a part of France. The making of wooden toys is one of the industries of the country, and at one time the fir forests around certain villages were much reduced by careless cutting. The damage has now been largely repaired by scientific forestry. 47 13. Authors replenish their stock. Washington Irving published Astoria in 1836, The Rocky Mountains in 1837. Longfellow published Outre-Mer in 1835. N. P. Willis published sketches of travel in Europe aud the East in 1835 and 1836. To these and other instances Emerson not very kindly alluded. 48 12. Newton (1642-1727). Sir Isaac Newton, English man of science, discoverer of the law of gravitation. 49 13. Druids. Priests of the ancient Celtic people of Gaul and Britain. Their religion was full of superstitious rites and wild ceremonies. 49 13. Berserkers. Berserk (bearsark) was a name given to a mythological hero of the Norsemen, because he went into battle without armour, clad in a shirt of bearskin. In later times the name was given to those who went crazy in fighting, and were dangerous to friends as well as enemies. It is something like the Oriental phrase of "running amuck." 49 14. Alfred (849-901), King of the West Saxons, a patron of learning and religion, one of the wisest and greatest of English kings. 50 3. Flamsteed. John Flamsteed (1646-1719), English astronomer royal; his observations at Greenwich are the beginning of modern practical astronomy. 50 3. Herschel. Sir William Herschel (1738–1822), private astronomer to George III. of England, discovered the planet Uranus, 145 new double stars, the existence of systems beyond our own, and did more than any other man to make the immensity of the stellar universe known to men. Here we see a 50: 23. Hostility . . . to educated society. trace of Emerson's sensitiveness to the opposition and criticism which were called out by his radical views and independent action. The conservatives distrusted him, and the academic authorities, at first, were rather scornful towards him. He often speaks indirectly But his martyrdom was mild in the tone of a martyr for liberty. and profitable. This use of the superlative in 52 18. Privatest, secretest. words which are usually compared with "most" is a trick of Carlyle's, from whom Emerson doubtless caught it. 54 8. The head of the table. The idea that the great man makes the seat which he occupies the seat of honour, is found in Don Quixote, where a gentleman who has offered the head of the table to a farmer, out of courtesy, is vexed by the persistent refusal of the rustic to take it, and cries out, "Sit down, clodpole; |