The Conduct Of Life
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Emerson, Ralph Waldo
extent: 390259
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 2
subject: man
subject: nature
subject: power
subject: life
subject: prevision
subject: allied
subject: unto
subject: signified
subject: emerson
subject: ralph
subject: waldo
subject: conduct
subject: american
subject: literature
type: text
local mirror: emerson-conduct-228.txt
concordance: http://infomotions.com/alex/cgi-bin/concordance.pl
plain html: emerson-conduct-228.htm
sort title: Conduct Of Life, The
full text: THE CONDUCT OF LIFE by Ralph Waldo Emerson I FATE Delicate omens traced in air To the lone bard true witness bare; Birds with auguries on their wings Chanted undeceiving things Him to beckon, him to warn; Well might then the poet scorn To learn of scribe or courier Hints writ in vaster character; And on his mind, at dawn of day, Soft shadows of the evening lay. For the prevision is allied Unto the thing so signified; Or say, the foresight that awaits Is the same Genius that creates. _Fate_ It chanced during one winter, a few years ago, that our cities wsing the theory of the Age. By an odd coincidence, four or five noted men were each reading a discourse to the citizens of Boston or New York, on the Spirit of the Times. It so happened that the subject had the same prominence in some remarkable pamphlets and journals issued in London in the same season. To me, however, the question of the times resolved itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live? We are incompetent to solve the times. Our geometry cannot span the huge orbits of the prevailing ideas, behold their return, and reconcile their opposition. We can only obey our own polarity. 'Tis fine for us to speculate and elect our course, if we must accept an irresistible dictation. In our first steps to gain our wishes, we come upon immovable limitations. We are fired with the hope to reform men. After many experiments, we find that we must begin earlier, -- at school. But the boys and girls are not docile; we can make nothing of them. We decide that they are not of good stock. We must begin our reform earlier still, -- at generation: that is to say, there is Fate, or laws of the world. But if there be irresistible dictation, this dictation understands itself. If we must accept Fate, we are not less compelled to affirm liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the power of character. This is true, and that other is true. But our geometry cannot span these extreme…