Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am finding Firkins' 1915 biography of Emerson a delight to read. However, I must offer a warning that his antique prose style will not be to all tastes. In this age that appreciates simplicity of telling, Firkins will seem obtuse and extremely difficult to understand by many readers. For instance: Here is a crabbed sentence from page 22 that I had to read several times. "It must be clearly realized that in questions of machinery, of the modus operandi of society and civilization, Emerson's temper was essentially conservative; his instinct was to grasp the approved tool, the existent mechanism: in a universe in which all forms were reduced to a virtual equality through previous reduction to virtual nullity before the face of an omnipotent spirit, it seemed finical to be nice in the comparison of ineffectualities." So if you are looking for the bare bones of Emerson, try elsewhere. The second half of the Firkins is given over to a valuable review of Emerson's works. It may be well worth your price of admission to have these insightful commentaries on each of the essays. For example: "Self-Reliance" is the most spinous and bristling of the essays of Emerson, as it is unquestionable one of the greatest. With the exception of two or three sentences in "Spiritual Laws," it is almost the only essay in which our own tolerant generation perceives that "nipping and eager air" which bit so shrewdly into the more sensitive cuticle of his contemporaries."