Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Bibliographical note
- Selections from Nature: Introduction
- Selections from Nature: Language
- Journal entries: 1837
- The American Scholar
- The Divinity School Address
- Uriel
- Concord Hymn
- Letter to Martin Van Buren, President of the United States
- Self-Reliance
- Compensation
- Concerning Brook Farm
- Man the Reformer
- Politics
- Journal entries: 1840 and 1844
- Ode: Inscribed to W. H. Channing
- Address to the Citizens of Concord
- Webster and 1854
- Journal entry: 1851
- Woman. A Lecture Read Before the Woman's Rights Convention, September 20, 1855
- Napoleon; or, the Man of the World from Representative Men
- Speech at a Meeting for the Relief of the Family of John Brown
- John Brown. Speech at Salem
- Fate
- Power
- Journal entry: 1862
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Concerning Brook Farm
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Bibliographical note
- Selections from Nature: Introduction
- Selections from Nature: Language
- Journal entries: 1837
- The American Scholar
- The Divinity School Address
- Uriel
- Concord Hymn
- Letter to Martin Van Buren, President of the United States
- Self-Reliance
- Compensation
- Concerning Brook Farm
- Man the Reformer
- Politics
- Journal entries: 1840 and 1844
- Ode: Inscribed to W. H. Channing
- Address to the Citizens of Concord
- Webster and 1854
- Journal entry: 1851
- Woman. A Lecture Read Before the Woman's Rights Convention, September 20, 1855
- Napoleon; or, the Man of the World from Representative Men
- Speech at a Meeting for the Relief of the Family of John Brown
- John Brown. Speech at Salem
- Fate
- Power
- Journal entry: 1862
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Summary
Journal for October 17, 1840
Yesterday George & Sophia Ripley, Margaret Fuller & Alcott discussed here the new social plans. I wished to be convinced, to be thawed, to be made nobly mad by the kindlings before my eye of a new dawn of human piety. But this scheme is arithmetic & comfort; this was a hint borrowed from the Tremont House and U.S. Hotel; a rage in our poverty & politics to live rich & gentleman like, an anchor to leeward against a change of weather; a prudent forecast on the probable issue of the great questions of pauperism and & prosperity. And not once could I be inflamed – but sat aloof & thoughtless, my voice faltered & fell. It was not the cave of persecution which is the palace of spiritual power, but only a room in the Astor House hired for the Transcendentalists. I do not wish to remove from my present prison to a prison a little larger. I wish to break all prisons. I have not yet conquered my own house. It irks & repents me. Shall I raise the siege of this hencoop & march baffled away to a pretended seige of Babylon? It seems to me that so to do were to dodge the problem I am set to solve and to hide my impotency in the thick of a crowd. I can see too afar that I should not find myself more than now, – no, not so much, in that select, but not by me selected, fraternity.
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- Information
- Emerson: Political Writings , pp. 93 - 100Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008