On May 25, 1803, Emerson came into this world, fortunately

Emerson, pictured in his younger years

1803 Ralph Waldo Emerson (d. April 27, 1882), American poet and essayist. Emerson's essays, in particular, are famed not only for their beauty of language but also for their insights and inspiration. My personal favourite: 'Self-Reliance'.  
(My Uncle Ray Harrison, one of my three Uncle Rays, when he died, had been living in a boarding house in the suburb of Burwood, Sydney. 'Unk' as we knew him, had had a fascinating life. He had been a soldier in the Boer War, for one thing, and always wore a gold pocket watch. When he passed away, although he had quite a bit of money, bequeathed it all, not to family members, like my late mother, or friends who'd helped him for years, nor his landlady, but to a dogs' home. All that remained of his possessions were some clothing and a Globite school case containing only two books, a New Testament, and Emerson's Essays. At least I still respect his taste in literature.)

Emerson wrote, "I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim.", and I've made such a notice on my own door.

Emersoncentral.com    Poets.org    Lucidcafe.com    Biography and Poems
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Project Gutenberg e-texts    Essays – First Series    Essays – Second Series
Representative Men    Poems – Household Edition    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
Early progressives in the Book of Days    More