Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 334 pages of information about Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 334 pages of information about Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

[Footnote 120:  Nemesis, a Greek female deity, goddess of retribution, who visited the righteous anger of the gods upon mortals.]

[Footnote 121:  The Furies or Eumenides, stern and inexorable ministers of the vengeance of the gods.]

[Footnote 122:  Ajax and Hector, Greek and Trojan heroes in the Trojan War.  See Homer’s Iliad.  Achilles slew Hector and, lashing him to his chariot with the belt which Ajax had given Hector, dragged him round the walls of Troy.  Ajax committed suicide with the sword which Hector had presented to him.]

[Footnote 123:  Thasians, inhabitants of the island of Thasus.  The story here told of the rival of the athlete Theagenes is found in Pausanias’ Description of Greece, Book VI. chap.  XI.]

[Footnote 124:  Shakespeare, the greatest of English writers, seems to have succeeded entirely or almost entirely in removing the personal element from his writings.]

[Footnote 125:  Hellenic, Greek.]

[Footnote 126:  Tit for tat, etc.  This paragraph is composed of a series of proverbs.]

[Footnote 127:  Edmund Burke (1729?-1797), illustrious Irish statesman, orator, and author.]

[Footnote 128:  Pawns, the pieces of lowest rank in chess.]

[Footnote 129:  What is the meaning of obscene here?  Compare the Latin.]

[Footnote 130:  Polycrates, a tyrant of Samos, who was visited with such remarkable prosperity that he was advised by a friend to break the course of it by depriving himself of some valued possession.  In accordance with this advice he cast into the sea an emerald ring which he considered his rarest treasure.  A few days later a fisherman presented the monarch with a large fish inside of which the ring was found.  Soon after this Polycrates fell into the power of an enemy and was nailed to a cross.]

[Footnote 131:  Scot and lot, “formerly, a parish assessment laid on subjects according to their ability.  Now, a phrase for obligations of every kind regarded collectively.” (Webster.)]

[Footnote 132:  Read Emerson’s essay on Gifts.]

[Footnote 133:  Worm worms, breed worms.]

[Footnote 134:  Compare the old proverb “Murder will out.”  See Chaucer, N.P.T., 232 and 237, and Pr.  T., 124.]

[Footnote 135: 

“Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum.” 
                       HORACE, EPIST., I. XVIII. 65.

]

[Footnote 136:  Stag in the fable.  See AEsop, LXVI. 184, Cerva et Leo; Phaedrus I. 12. Cervus ad fontem; La Fontaine, vi. 9, Le Cerf se Voyant dans l’eau.]

[Footnote 137:  See the quotation from St. Bernard farther on.]

[Footnote 138:  Withholden, old participle of withhold, now withheld.]

[Footnote 139:  What is the etymology of the word mob?]

[Footnote 140:  Optimism and Pessimism.  The meanings of these two opposites are readily made out from the Latin words from which they come.]

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Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.