No Jello Here!

Speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

I was very agreeably disappointed in Mr Emerson. I had heard of him as full of transcendentalisms, myths & oracular gibberish; I had only glanced at a book of his once in Putnam’s store — that was all I knew of him, till I heard him lecture. — To my surprise, I found him quite intelligible, tho' to say truth, they told me that that night he was unusually plain.

-- Herman Melville, Letter to Evert Duyckinck, March 3 1849


I remember trying to read Emerson in high school, I believe it was an excerpt from Nature. I remember his thick prose and convoluted sentences and thinking that reading it was like trying to swim in jello. Melville's quote above makes me think that he had a similar experience. (And yet, I have always been quite comfortable reading Donne and Shakespeare, so "thick prose" isn't really a problem -- maybe I do better with iambic pentameter??) Maybe it's because I'm 20+ years older now than I was in 11th-Grade English class, or maybe I've just had the life experiences to appreciate Emerson more, but whatever it is, I found his Self-Reliance much easier to get through than Nature.

In this essay, Emerson exhorts his audience to think for themselves -- and to keep thinking for themselves, each and every day, even if what they think changes day-to-day. And yet, isn't he telling his audience what to think? I read words like "you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it," and I can't help but think and yet, he's telling people what to do, too! Perhaps it is true that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," so why should I expect Emerson to be consistent? (or maybe that's just my "feminine rage" talking....)


Snark aside, I really do agree with alot of what Emerson says in this essay: religious things like "prayer as a means to effect a private end, is theft and meanness" and "everywhere I am bereaved of meeting God in my brother, because he has shut his own temple doors, and recites fables merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God," as well as personal things such as "I must be myself. I will not hide my tastes or aversions" and "the power men possess to annoy me, I give them by a weak curiosity." These things resonate with my spirit & it gives me great joy to see them articulated by someone who lived and died a century-and-a-half ago.

It's especially refreshing to read things like this after spending 3 weeks reading about the horrors of slavery, and the injustices of race and class issues. As I read the essay, I thought that Emerson seemed to "get it" - he seems to understand what it means to be human, that we are each one of us precious, and valuable as individuals rather than as just part of some group. When I then read what the editors of the Norton anthology had to say of Emerson, "Valuing individual rights and believing in the individual mind (or soul) as nothing short of divine, Emerson regarded slavery as abhorrent. In the same spirit, he argued in favor of women's rights," I was not surprised.

After all, this is the guy who wrote, "All men have my blood, and I have all men's."

***

Addendum: I actually tried to find a picture of someone swimming in jello - surely *someone* has tried it & posted pics! - but the pics I found were all of a decidedly, er, shall we say "non-family-friendly" type, so I decided against posting them. :-)

Addendum the Second, Tuesday morning: This morning, I woke up thinking that Emerson's essay reminded me of that scene from Monty Python's The Life of Brian:

Brian: Please, please, please listen! I've got one or two things to say.
The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them!
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, you don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for yourselves! You're ALL individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!
Man in crowd: I'm not...
The Crowd: Ssh!

And now we have Addendum the Third, after Tuesday's class: This image is for Dr. Scott (I wish I had the Photoshop skills to put a cravat on it!!):



which of course reminds me of this classic:
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [to Igor] Now that brain that you gave me. Was it Hans Delbruck's?
Igor: [pause, then] No.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Ah! Very good. Would you mind telling me whose brain I DID put in?
Igor: Then you won't be angry?
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: I will NOT be angry.
Igor: Abby Someone.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [pause, then] Abby Someone. Abby who?
Igor: Abby Normal.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [pause, then] Abby Normal?
Igor: I'm almost sure that was the name.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [chuckles, then] Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, fifty-four inch wide GORILLA?
[grabs Igor and starts throttling him]
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Is that what you're telling me?

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