Extract from the essay Self-reliance: Ralph Waldo Emerson (the entire extract quoted here was originally written as one paragraph. Much too much for the modern reader)
It so happens that at the time in 1988 that I was told I was not a UK citizen, I happened to be reading this and without it I do not know what I would have done:
THE WORLD EXISTS FOR THE EDUCATION OF EACH MAN.
There is no age or state of society or mode of action in history to which there is not somewhat corresponding in his life. Every thing tends in a wonderful manner to abbreviate itself and yield its own virtue to him.
HE SHOULD SEE THAT HE CAN LIVE ALL HISTORY IN HIS OWN PERSON. HE MUST SIT SOLIDLY AT HOME, AND NOT SUFFER HIMSELF TO BE BULLIED BY KINGS OR EMPIRES, BUT KNOW THAT HE IS GREATER THAN ALL THE GEOGRAPHY AND ALL THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD; HE MUST TRANSFER THE POINT OF VIEW FROM WHICH HISTORY IS COMMONLY READ, FROM ROME AND ATHENS AND LONDON, TO HIMSELF, AND NOT DENY HIS CONVICTION THAT HE IS THE COURT, AND IF ENGLAND OR EGYPT HAVE ANY THING TO SAY TO HIM HE WILL TRY THE CASE; IF NOT, LET THEM FOR EVER BE SILENT.
HE MUST ATTAIN AND MAINTAIN THAT LOFTY SIGHT WHERE FACTS YIELD THEIR SECRET SENSE, AND POETRY AND ANNALS ARE ALIKE.
The instinct of the mind, the purpose of nature, betrays itself in the use we make of the signal narrations of history. Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts. No anchor, no cable, no fences avail to keep a fact a fact. Babylon, Troy, Tyre, Palestine, and even early Rome are passing already into fiction.
The Garden of Eden, the sun standing still in Gibeon, is poetry thenceforward to all nations. Who cares what the fact was, when we have made a constellation of it to hang in heaven an immortal sign? London and Paris and New York must go the same way.
"What is history," said Napoleon, "but a fable agreed upon?"
This life of ours is stuck round with Egypt, Greece, Gaul, England, War, Colonization, Church, Court and Commerce, as with so many flowers and wild ornaments grave and gay. I will not make more account of them. I BELIEVE IN ETERNITY. I can find Greece, Asia, Italy, Spain and the Islands,—the genius and creative principle of each and of all eras, IN MY OWN MIND.
There is no age or state of society or mode of action in history to which there is not somewhat corresponding in his life. Every thing tends in a wonderful manner to abbreviate itself and yield its own virtue to him.
HE SHOULD SEE THAT HE CAN LIVE ALL HISTORY IN HIS OWN PERSON. HE MUST SIT SOLIDLY AT HOME, AND NOT SUFFER HIMSELF TO BE BULLIED BY KINGS OR EMPIRES, BUT KNOW THAT HE IS GREATER THAN ALL THE GEOGRAPHY AND ALL THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD; HE MUST TRANSFER THE POINT OF VIEW FROM WHICH HISTORY IS COMMONLY READ, FROM ROME AND ATHENS AND LONDON, TO HIMSELF, AND NOT DENY HIS CONVICTION THAT HE IS THE COURT, AND IF ENGLAND OR EGYPT HAVE ANY THING TO SAY TO HIM HE WILL TRY THE CASE; IF NOT, LET THEM FOR EVER BE SILENT.
HE MUST ATTAIN AND MAINTAIN THAT LOFTY SIGHT WHERE FACTS YIELD THEIR SECRET SENSE, AND POETRY AND ANNALS ARE ALIKE.
The instinct of the mind, the purpose of nature, betrays itself in the use we make of the signal narrations of history. Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts. No anchor, no cable, no fences avail to keep a fact a fact. Babylon, Troy, Tyre, Palestine, and even early Rome are passing already into fiction.
The Garden of Eden, the sun standing still in Gibeon, is poetry thenceforward to all nations. Who cares what the fact was, when we have made a constellation of it to hang in heaven an immortal sign? London and Paris and New York must go the same way.
"What is history," said Napoleon, "but a fable agreed upon?"
This life of ours is stuck round with Egypt, Greece, Gaul, England, War, Colonization, Church, Court and Commerce, as with so many flowers and wild ornaments grave and gay. I will not make more account of them. I BELIEVE IN ETERNITY. I can find Greece, Asia, Italy, Spain and the Islands,—the genius and creative principle of each and of all eras, IN MY OWN MIND.
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