一直对爱默生有一点敬而远之，但这一段看起来却是那么亲切，温和，充满诗意。星期五的下午，太阳懒洋洋地烤着，周末也许会热，也许会不太热；明天也许去海滨的 Castle Island，也许去 Walden.
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.
Divinity School Address
RWE.org - The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson - Volume I - Nature, Addresses & Lectures (Nature, 1836)
Written by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, July 15, 1838
http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=117&Itemid=0
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15 comments:
Let me see if I can post a comment anonymously.
I also like RWE; he also said:
"To be great is to be misunderstood."
Internet is a perfect medium where two great minds can misunderstand each other miserably!:) I mean: do you remember our first encounter at the CND's forum?
Alas, now LLJ is mad at me, oops... Just between you and me (and everybody else who cares to read this comment), I still love her, hahaha...:))
You are not me, how do you know that you have misunderstood me, or I misunderstood you, for that matter? :)
Just came back from Walden Pond. Went to Castle Island yesterday. What a glorious weekend! It is a sin not to enjoy it.
Ya ya, I do remember what could hardly be called "first encounter". Chose to laugh to myself only - who knows what more bombardment it would generate had I replied to your reply? :)
昨天去了瓦尔登湖。本来想从村里走到湖边，但我们已经过于依赖以车当步。;( 从The Old Manse 到湖边至少有三英里。哪一天一定要自己走一趟，看看要花多久。霍桑逮着爱默生大星期天不上教堂，心里大不以为然；两个人躲了一会儿，等村里人都在教堂里坐定了才结伴去了瓦尔登湖。
The Old Manse, Bush, Sleepy Hollow, 比教堂更象神堂。：）
绕湖漫游了一周。梭罗的小房子在靠近湖的东南角的地方，从树丛间能够看到湖水荡漾。当然，在他的年代，chipmunks and birds 比人要多。爱默生说，亨利并没有选择他自己的生活方式，只是在生活给了他这种生活以后，用平和的心态接受了它。
在湖边的 Thoreau Society 买了一本 "My Friend, My Friend: Thoreau's Relationship with Emerson". 很有意思。可能有许多臆想和推测的成分，但足以满足我对下蛋的鸡的好奇心。;) 前言里说，爱默生、梭罗、富勒等人虽然终身致力于思想创造，但他们终究是人，摆脱不了人的感情和弱点，所以才有爱默生和梭罗之间既爱又恨、互相依存的友谊，富勒对爱默生感情上的过分依赖，爱默生夫人对富勒无法掩饰的嫉妒，爱默生对 Caroline Sturgis 同样的感情牵连。
The author is a man. :) I'm not the only one who is interested in the gossipy side in the lives of America's finest literary legends. :)
评论者说，作者对于他所写的人物抱有一种悲天悯人的同情心，这就使得他的描述和分析超过了一般的嚼舌头。
Reminder: Aug. 9, 7:15-8:45pm, The Emerson Reading Circle, Lower Level, Concord Free Library
My Friend, My Friend: The Story of Thoreau's Relationship With Emerson (Paperback)
by Harmon Smith
From Library Journal
From the day they met in 1837, an intimate friendship developed between Emerson and Thoreau despite a 14-year age gap. Independent scholar Smith draws deeply on their journals and letters to chronicle the evolution of their friendship. The two drew so close, Smith maintains, that Thoreau began to "talk like Emerson and to use the same gestures," while Thoreau declared that they were "like gods to each other." From 1837 to 1847, writes Smith, this camaraderie fueled the creative and intellectual fires of both men. In spite of their closeness, however, their friendship suffered as well. Thoreau tired of Emerson's insistence on mentoring him, and Emerson grew impatient with Thoreau's contentiousness. Moreover, Emerson's low opinion of Thoreau's writing fed Thoreau's animosity. The rift was healed, though, in 1858 when Emerson experienced a serious illness and Thoreau rushed to his side. Smith's study provides an instructive glimpse into the ways that the seeds of personal relationships produce the fruits of intellectual endeavor. Recommended for large public and academic libraries.AHenry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., OH
“围城”的说法, 原来并不是钱钟书的发明. :)
Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?
Harmon Smith: My Friend, My Friend: The Story of Thoreau's Relationship with Emerson, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Emerson, Thoreau, and their circle may have thought of themselves as dedicated to the life of the mind, but that didn't exempt them from the needs and passions everyone else is prey to. Thoreau was as close to his borhter, John, as to anyone, yet he allowed himself to fall in love with the same woman and propose to her, which led inevitably to a breach between them. Emerson's constant attention to Margaret Fuller aroused such jealousy in his wife, Lidian, that she could not hide it from her family and friends. Margaret Fuller permitted her feelings for Emerson to cross the line from friendship to a depper attachment, as Emerson himself did with Caroline Sturgis. Ellery Channing, who settled in Concord to be near Emerson, evolved from a young man very much in love with his young wife into an abusive husband and father. My Friend, My Friend: Introduction
The death of Emerson's son, Waldo, is generally agreed to have marked a watershed in Emerson's intellectual life. It had taught him that there are situations where idealism simply proves inadequate. In the year that had passed since his son's fatal illness he had come to concede that it did not suffice to live in "the world of pure thought"; that "experience" counted for a great deal more in the order of things than he had earlier supposed. Through an "acceptance of limitations" he was slowly achieving a "basic adjustment of belief." While he continued to stress the importance of the soul in establishing man's relationship to the world, his change in attitude was having an eroding effect on his fidelity to transcendental thought.
Qian Zhongshu made many famous comments such as "get out or get in", few of which are his original. Here is another example:
"...一个人的缺点，正像猴子的尾巴，蹲在地下的时候，尾巴是看不见的，直到他向树上爬，就把后部给大家看了。。。”
cf.
"An example from the monkey: the higher it climbs, the more you see of its behind."
---Saint Bonaventure
------------------
齿松尚能饭，笔怠殊未停。
Really? Now I'm beginning to suspect even Emerson was just quoting somebody else. :)
Who is Saint Bonaventure?
S.C.E.: If you choose the "Other" option, then you don't have to be anonymous. :) No guarantee to be famous though.
Are you any good at web design? I need help. First I want to make it possible for a few people, not just myself, to open a new post here.
Web design? Oh, no, I'm good at nothing besides having a decadent mind, a big mouth, and a worn pen!:-)
I only started to type Chinese on the computer last Feb. when I began to write for the CND. My children are bookworms, too--we don't even own a digital camera! Not that we cannot afford one, nobody in the family wants to play with it...
Oh, about that Saint B--he was a 13th century French catholic saint.
Prof. Liao:
You talk like a happily married man. If a man were single, or if a man is unhappily married, he would probably not be in a mood for poetry. :)
Still-Can-Eat: "a decadent mind, a big mouth, and a worn pen" is a lot of things to have. Many people would be happy with just one of them. :) But your big mouth does scare modest people like me - us women who cover our mouths when we laugh, if you know what I mean. :)
Gosh, I think pretty soon I'm going to have closetphobia. ;)
Prof. Liao and Juzi:
To add to the enigma about the origin of "the fortress besieged" metaphor, here is another one:
"Marriage may be compared to a cage: the birds outside despair to get in and those within despair to get out." (Montaigne: Essays)
1. "Happily married" or not, the mentality is just the same--the pasture is greener in the neighbor's yard, especially the one with blossom of chrysanthemum!:)(Hurry up to cover your mouth!:))
2. Truly original ideas and voices are always rare: as William Blake aptly said: "The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: The bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does." That's why I was so excited upon reading Ms. Organ's writings and--praised her (my big mouth again scared some people...:))
3. This blog thing seems interesting, and I wish I could set up one for myself--so I can shut myself in it and scream my lung out, not bothering anybody...:)
Hold it, Ms. Organ is all mine. :) And why is everybody talking about Montaigne!
Originality is not the whole thing. To us little folks, originality is important only when we find a way to relate to it. Otherwise it's just dead knowledge. The reason Ms. Organ's writings fascinate me is due to both originality and understandablity. ;) The world under her pen is so differnt from mine yet I could see it through her eyes, thus have complete new experiences. :)
I misunderstood Blog's function. It's not supposed to be a Saloon - it's more like a public diary. The novelty is wearing off for me. :) But if you open one, let me know so we will come hear your beat your own chest and kick your own butt, from afar of course. :)
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