The Tao of Emerson (10 page)
Read The Tao of Emerson Online
Authors: Richard Grossman
Man at his birth is supple and weak;
at his death, firm and strong
.
So it is with all things
.
Trees and plants, in their early growth
,
are soft and brittle;
At their death, dry and withered
.
Thus it is that firmness and strength are
the concomitants of death;
Softness and weakness, the concomitants of life
.
Hence, he who relies on the strength of his forces
does not conquer;
And a tree which is strong will fill the outstretched arms
,
and thereby invites the feller
.
Therefore the place of what is firm and strong is below
,
And that of what is soft and weak is above
.
When we come into the world
A wonderful whisper gives us a direction
for the whole road.
Ah! If one could keep this sensibility,
and live in the happy, sufficing present,
And find the day and his chief means contenting,
which only ask receptivity in you,
and no strained exertion or cankering ambition.
We are not strong by our power to penetrate,
to have distinction and laurels and consumption;
The world is enlarged for us not by new objects,
But by finding more affinities and potencies
than those we have.
May not the Tao of Heaven he compared
to the method of bending a how?
The part of the how which was high is brought low
,
And what was low is raised up
.
So Heaven diminishes where there is superabundance
,
and supplements where there is deficiency
.
It is the Way of Heaven to diminish superabundance
,
and to supplement deficiency
.
It is not so with the way of man
.
He takes away from those who have not enough
to add to his own superabundance
.
Who can take his own superabundance and
therewith serve all under Heaven?
Only he who is in possession of the Tao!
I am born into the great, the universal mind.
I, the imperfect, adore my own Perfect.
I am somehow receptive of the great soul,
And thereby do I overlook the sun and stars.
More and more the surges of everlasting nature
enter into me.
I am willing also to be as passive
to the great forces I acknowledge,
as the thermometer, or the clock,
And quite part with all will as superfluous.
I am a willow of the wilderness,
loving the wind that bent me.
There is nothing in the world more soft
and weak than water
,
And yet for attacking things that are firm and strong
there is nothing that can take precedence of it
—
For there is nothing for which it can he changed
.
Everyone in the world knows that the soft
overcomes the hard, and the weak the strong
,
But no one is able to carry it out in practice
.
Therefore a sage has said
,
“He who accepts his state’s reproach
,
Is hailed therefore its altars’ lord;
To him who hears men’s direful woes
They all the name of king accord.”
Words that are strictly true seem to he paradoxical
.
There is a principle which is the basis of things.
A simple, quiet, undescribed, undescribable presence,
is dwelling very peacefully in us.
We are not to do, but to let do;
not to work, but to be worked upon.
We cannot disenchant, we cannot
impoverish ourselves by obedience;
But by humility we rise, by obedience we command;
By poverty we are rich, by dying we live.
These facts have always suggested to man
the sublime creed.
When a reconciliation is effected after a great animosity
,
There is sure to be a grudge remaining
in the mind of the one who was wrong
.
And how can this be beneficial to the other?
Therefore, to guard against this, the sage keeps
the left-hand portion of the record of the engagement
,
And does not insist on the speedy fulfillment of it
by the other party
.
So, he who has the attributes of the Tao
regards only the conditions of the engagement
,
While he who has not those attributes
regards only the conditions favorable to himself
.
In the Way of Heaven, there is no partiality of love;
It is always on the side of the good man
.
By going one step farther back in thought,
Discordant opinions are reconciled
by being seen as two extremes of one principle,
And we can never go so far back as to
preclude a still higher vision.
When we get an advantage
It is because our adversary has committed a fault.
Forgive his crime, forgive his virtues, too,
Those smaller faults, half convert to the right.
In a little state with a small population
,
I would so order it, that
,
Though there were individuals with the abilities
of ten or a hundred men
,
There should be no employment of them;
I would make the people
,
While looking on death as a grievous thing
,
Yet not remove elsewhere to avoid it
.
Though they had boats and carriages
,
They should have no occasion to ride in them;
Though they had buff coats and sharp weapons
,
They should have no occasion to don or use them
.
I would make the people return to the use
of knotted cords instead of the written characters
.
They should think their coarse food sweet;
Their plain clothes beautiful;
Their poor dwellings places of rest;
And their simple ways sources of enjoyment
.
There should be a neighboring state within sight
,
And the voices of the fowls and dogs
should be heard all the way from it to us
,
But I would make the people to old age, even to death
,
not have any intercourse with it
.
To educate the wise man, the State exists;
And with the appearance of the wise man,
the State expires.
The appearance of character
makes the State unnecessary.
The wise man needs no army, port, or navy—
He loves men too well;
No bribe, no feast, or palace to draw
friends to him;
No vantage ground, no favorable circumstance.
He needs no library, for he has not done thinking;
No church, for he is a prophet;
No statute book, for he has the lawgiver;
No road, for he is at home where he is;
No experience, for the life of the creator
shines through him and looks from his eyes.
His relation to men is angelic; his memory
is myrrh to them;
His presence, frankincense and flowers.
Sincere words are not fine;
Fine words are not sincere
.
Those who are skilled in the Tao
do not dispute about it;
The disputatious are not skilled in it
.
Those who know the Tao are not extensively learned;
The extensively learned do not know it
.
The sage does not accumulate for himself
.
The more that he expends for others
,
The more does he possess of his own;
The more that he gives to others
,
The more does he have himself
.
With all the sharpness of the Way of Heaven
,
it injures not;
With all the doing in the way of the sage
he does not strive
.
Let us not be the victims of words;
They who speak have no more,—have less.
I am explained without explaining;
I am felt without action,
and where I am not.
The thing uttered in words is not therefore affirmed;
He teaches who gives and he learns who receives;
He is great who confers the most benefits.
A consent to solitude and inaction,
which proceeds out of an unwillingness
to violate character,
Is the century which makes the gem.
I must act with truth, though I should never come to act,
as you call it, with effect.
I must consent to inaction, a patience which is grand.
MERSON
S
OURCES
(Unless otherwise indicated all excerpts are taken from essays)
Chapter 1. “The Over-Soul/’ “Idealism,” “The Poet”
Chapter 2. “Compensation/’ “Each and All” (poem), “Man the Reformer” (lecture), “Spiritual Laws”
Chapter 3. “Circles”
Chapter 4. “The American Scholar” (address), “Senses and Soul”
Chapter 5. “Nature,” “Circles”
Chapter 6. “Musketaquid” (poem), “The Transcendentalist,” “The Over-Soul”
Chapter 7. “The Transcendentalist,” “The Over-Soul”
Chapter 8. “Merlin” (poem), Journals 1830, Journals 1831
Chapter 9. “Fate,” “Worship,” “Wealth,” “The Scholar”
Chapter 10. “Threnody” (poem), “Musketaquid” (poem), “The Over-Soul,” “Education”
Chapter 11. “Compensation”
Chapter 12. “Poetry and Imagination”
Chapter 13. “Self-Reliance,” “Compensation”
Chapter 14. “The Method of Nature” (address), “Spirit”
Chapter 15. “Plato,” “The Uses of Great Men,” “Considerations by the Way”
Chapter 16. Journals 1838, “Spiritual Laws,” “The Method of Nature” (address)
Chapter 17. “Politics”
Chapter 18. “New England Reformers,” Journals 1832
Chapter 19. “Success”
Chapter 20. “Illusions,” “Circles,” “The Method of Nature” (address), “The Over-Soul”
Chapter 21. “Language,” “Circles,” “The World-Soul”
Chapter 22. “The Over-Soul”
Chapter 23. “Nominalist and Realist,” “History”
Chapter 24. “Prudence,” “Culture”
Chapter 25. “Monadnoc” (poem), “The World-Soul,” “Concord Hymn” (poem), “Nature” (poem), “Fate” (poem), “History,” “Beauty”
Chapter 26. “Spiritual Laws,” “Politics”
Chapter 27. “Considerations by the Way,” “Education”
Chapter 28. Journals 1839, “Nominalist and Realist,” “Illusions,” “Education”
Chapter 29. “Worship,” “Fate,” “Nature” (poem), “Nominalist and Realist,” “Nature” (essay)
Chapter 30. “War” (address)
Chapter 31. “War” (address)
Chapter 32. “Nature,” “The Over-Soul”
Chapter 33. “Self-Reliance”
Chapter 34. “Nature,” “The Over-Soul”
Chapter 35. “The Uses of Great Men,” “Worship”
Chapter 36. “Compensation”
Chapter 37. “Character” (lecture)
Chapter 38. “Considerations by the Way,” “Discipline”
Chapter 39. “History,” “Fate”
Chapter 40. “The Method of Nature” (address)
Chapter 41. “The Method of Nature” (address), “The Over-Soul”
Chapter 42. “Circles,” “The Method of
Nature” (address), “Works and Days,” “War” (address)
Chapter 43. “Illusions,” “Prudence”
Chapter 44. Journals 1846, “Nature” (poem), “Greatness”
Chapter 45. “Experience,” “Prudence”
Chapter 46. “The Method of Nature” (address)
Chapter 47. “Self-Reliance,” “The Over-Soul”
Chapter 48. “Spiritual Laws”
Chapter 49. “Education,” “Self-Reliance,” “Spiritual Laws”
Chapter 50. “Immortality,” “Perpetual Forces”
Chapter 51. “Nature,” “Spiritual Laws,” “The Method of Nature” (address)
Chapter 52. “Compensation,” “The American Scholar” (address), sources”
Chapter 53. “Spiritual Laws”
Chapter 54. “Power,” Journals 1841, “The Progress of Culture”
Chapter 55. “Character” (address)
Chapter 56. “Spirit,” “Experience,” “Spiritual Laws”
Chapter 57. “Politics”
Chapter 58. “Lecture on the Times,” “New England Reformers,” “Politics,” “Compensation”
Chapter 59. “Education”
Chapter 60. “Character,” “Politics”
Chapter 61. “The Sovereignty of Ethics,” “The Over-Soul,” “Education”
Chapter 62. “The Over-Soul,” “Intellect”
Chapter 63. “Greatness”
Chapter 64. “Circles,” “Compensation”
Chapter 65. “Politics”
Chapter 66. “Greatness”
Chapter 67. “Success”
Chapter 68. Journals 1849
Chapter 69. “War” (address)
Chapter 70. “Self-Reliance”
Chapter 71. “Experience”
Chapter 72. “Education”
Chapter 73. “Compensation”
Chapter 74. “The Uses of Great Men,” “Lecture on the Times”
Chapter 75. “Politics”
Chapter 76. Journals 1845, “Success”
Chapter 77. “Spiritual Laws,” “The Over-Soul,” Journals 1835, “Musketaquid” (poem)
Chapter 78. Worship,” “The Sovereignty of Ethics, “The Divinity School Address
Chapter 79. “Circles,” “Courage”
Chapter 80. “Politics”
Chapter 81. “Society and Solitude,” “Ex-”Spiritual Laws,” “Compensation” “Lecture on the Times”