The coming of Summer
In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm-of-Gilead, and the new hay. Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade. Through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays. Man under them seems a young child, and his huge globe a toy. The cool night bathes the world as with a river, and prepares his eyes again for the crimson dawn. The mystery of nature was never displayed more happily. The corn and the wine have been freely dealt to all creatures, and the never-broken silence with which the old bounty goes forward, has not yielded yet one word of explanation. One is constrained to respect the perfection of this world, in which our senses converse. How wide; how rich; what invitation from every property it gives to every faculty of man! In its fruitful soils; in its navigable sea; in its mountains of metal and stone; in its forests of all woods; in its animals; in its chemical ingredients; in the powers and path of light, heat, attraction, and life, it is well worth the pith and heart of great men to subdue and enjoy it. The planters, the mechanics, the inventors, the astronomers, the builders of cities, and the captains, history delights to honor.
But when the mind opens, and reveals the laws which traverse the universe, and make things what they are, then shrinks the great world at once into a mere illustration and fable of this mind. What am I? and What is? asks the human spirit with a curiosity new-kindled, but never to be quenched. Behold these outrunning laws, which our imperfect apprehension can see tend this way and that, but not come full circle. Behold these infinite relations, so like, so unlike; many, yet one. I would study, I would know, I would admire forever. These works of thought have been the entertainments of the human spirit in all ages.
~Emeron's DIVINITY SCHOOL ADDRESS
Thursday, May 24, 2007 at 11:11AM
Reader Comments (3)
(It snowed here yesterday).
<3,
Brett
This was actually the first thing by Emerson I read. This is just the opening and the rest of the address is more complex, as he begins to hint at in the second paragraph. What's great about Emerson, especially in this particular piece, is how that if you just read the first paragraph... well, it IS a bunch of hippie BS. Extremely well written BS. But then the second paragraph begins to question those sentiments, that raw sense of wonder, but then he shows how those sentiments can be the doorway into true philosophical inquiry and revelation. So yeah, it's a bunch of hippie BS if all you do is love the pretty flowers because they're pretty... but that is not where it stops. In the end, though, he will bring you full circle and will show how appreciating / experiencing the flowers because they are flowers, or the sun for its "sun-ness," etc. can indeed be a lot more than hippie BS. His philosophy begins and ends in wonder...
I would study, I would know, I would admire forever.
Ah. Now those are words to live by!