the student, but he must put himself into harmony with the constitution
of things. "He must embrace solitude as a bride." Not superstitiously,
but after having found out, as a little experience will teach him, all
that society can do for him with its foolish routine. I have spoken of
the exalted strain into which Mr. Emerson sometimes rises in the midst
of his general serenity. Here is an instance of it:--

"You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear
that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. 'What
is this truth you seek? What is this beauty?' men will ask, with
derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore
truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say,
'As others do, so will I: I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early
visions: I must eat the good of the land, and let learning and
romantic expectations go, until a more convenient season;'--then
dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art, and
poetry, and science, as they have died already in a thousand
thousand men.--Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you from
every object in nature, to be its tongue to the heart of man, and to
show the besotted world how passing fair is wisdom. Why should you
renounce your right to traverse the starlit deserts of truth, for
the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has
its roof and house and board. Make yourself necessary to the world,
and mankind will give you bread; and if not store of it, yet such as
shall not take away your property in all men's possessions, in all
men's affections, in art, in nature, and in hope."

The next Address Emerson delivered was "The Method of Nature," before
the Society of the Adelphi, in Waterville College, Maine, August 11,
1841.