| Title: | [Manuscript] / Ralph Waldo Emerson. |
| Personal Author: | Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882. |
| Extent: | [4] leaves. |
| Dimensions: | 3 leaves at 25 cm.; 4th leaf 25 x 39 cm. folded to 25 x 20 cm. |
| General Note: | The manuscript bears cross outs and pencil marginalia as well as blocks around specific paragraphs. The manuscript also bears notations in orange and sometimes green. See also letters in the collection from Emerson. |
| Abstract: | This manuscript was a draft for Emerson's Lecture on Aristocracy which he later collected and published as Lectures and biographical sketches (c. 1883). Emerson covers the topics of self respect, initiative, and conformity, urging listeners to beware of "laughing devils" hidden in well-dressed crowds, and to govern their impulses in order to become "men of honor." In one passage he states that "All reference to models, all comparison with neighboring abilities and reputations, is the road to mediocrity." Emerson discusses Chartism and the "Red Revolution" and urges listeners to maintain positions of "armed neutrality" in the hope that the "music of liberty" will prevail. The manuscript breaks off after Emerson's catalogue of how the ancients equated nobility and largeness of heart with giant proportions and strength; some of the examples he uses do not appear in the published version of this talk. Emerson established the foundation for transcendentalism, a philosophy derived in part from European Romanticism, becoming one of its most well-known spokespersons with the publication of Nature (1836) and "The American Scholar." Actively writing essays, lectures, and poems during the period known as the American renaissance (1835-65), Emerson also helped launch The Dial (1840) a magazine for expressing transcendental philosophies and ideas. |
| Personal Subject: | Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882--Correspondence. |
| Subject: | Transcendentalists (New England)
Speeches, addresses, etc.
United States--Intellectual life--19th century. |
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