I tried to read Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature last year, but I wasn't ready for it. The text is dense and I was out of practice in reading this type of material. I was in the right place for it this month and completely devoured these essays.
This book is broken into three essays: Nature, History, and Self-Reliance. I was most excited to read "Self-Reliance," but found the "Nature" and "History" essays more interesting. For me, the entire book is worth it just for this one line:
"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn." (pg. 57)
I don't know why this one sentence hit me so much. There are a thousand other similar sentences in this book, but I kept going back to read this one. Funny how some writing just hits this sweet spot in your mind.
Another bit of words from this book that really got to me is this:
We are associated in adolescent and adult life with some friends, who, like skies and waters, are coextensive with our idea; who, answering each to a certain affection of the soul, satisfy our desire on that side; who we lack power to put at such focal distance from us, that we can mend of even analyze them. We cannot choose but love them. (page 32)
I recommend this book, as it got me very inspired, but if you can't get through it, put it down for another time. It is worth it in te end, but if you aren't going to absorb the words, wait until you are open enough to.
Not many people would approach Emerson; he is far removed from his hey-day of popularity in the 1830s. Congrats on finishing the book. His essay "Nature" is named as the US's introduction to Transcendentalism- changes so much the way we still interact with and conceptualize natural space today.
Congrats on the reading, all the best-
Posted by: M. David Farrell, Jr. | Tuesday, February 26, 2013 at 07:07 PM