Emerson, Ralph Waldo - A Collection on CD NEW

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose original profession and calling was as a Unitarian minister, left the ministry to pursue a career in writing and public speaking. Emerson became one of America's best known and best loved 19th century figures.

As an essayist Emerson was a master of style. "Emerson is God," declared the literary theorist Harold Bloom once, and testified with this the importance of Emerson to American literature. Many of his phrases have long since passed into common English parlance: 'a minority of one', 'the devil's attorney', 'a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds'. 

 Example:

ART

 

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Give to barrows, trays, and pans

Grace and glimmer of romance;

Bring the moonlight into noon

Hid in gleaming piles of stone;

On the city's paved street

Plant gardens lined with lilac sweet;

Let spouting fountains cool the air,

Singing in the sun-baked square;

Let statue, picture, park, and hall,

Ballad, flag, and festival,

The past restore, the day adorn,

And make each morrow a new morn.

So shall the drudge in dusty frock

Spy behind the city clock

Retinues of airy kings,

Skirts of angels, starry wings,

His fathers shining in bright fables,

His children fed at heavenly tables.

'T is the privilege of Art

Thus to play its cheerful part,

 Man in Earth to acclimate,

 And bend the exile to his fate,

 And, moulded of one element

 With the days and firmament,

 Teach him on these as stairs to climb,

  and live on even terms with Time;

 Whilst upper life the slender rill

 Of human sense doth overfill.

Plus as a bonus you'll get on the same CD a collection of 100 quotes by other famous people