Ralph Waldo Emerson - The Complete Works, Vol. II, Essays First Series, 1903

Page 279

HEROISM The

257

Interest these fine stories

power of

have for us, the

romance over the boy who grasps the forbidden book under his bench at school, a

our delight in the hero, purpose."

the main fact to our

is

All these great and transcendent pro-

perties are ours.

we

If

pride.

small houses.

The

this great

first

It

Is

we

that

same sentiment.

are already domesticating the

Let us find room for

beholding the

dilate In

Roman

Greek energy, the

guest in our

step of worthiness will

be to disabuse us of our superstitious associa-

and times, with number and

tions with places size.

Why

should these words, Athenian, Ro-

man, Asia and England, so tingle

Where

the heart

Is,

in the ear?

there the muses, there the

goHsTojourn, and not in any geography of fame. NTSsachusetts^ Connecticut River arid Boston

Bay_you~thTrik paltry -places, and the ear loves

names of foreign and

classic

we are and. If we will may come to learn that here here

topography. tarry a

;

on ly th at thyself

is

here,

is

and

best. art

But we

little,

See to

It

and nature,

Supreme B eing shall not be absent Irom the chamber where thou sittest. Epaminondas, brave and affectionate, does not seem to us to need Olymho pe and

fate, frien ds,

angels and the

pus to die upon, nor the Syrian sunshine.

He


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