Rocky Mount Telegram from Rocky Mount, North Carolina • 31

a www.rockymounttelegram.com Life Rocky Mount Telegram Sunday, May 18. 2003 7D Emerson's sagacity stands the test of time essayist and fiction writer Annie Dillard, who wrote about Emerson's work in "Living by Fiction." RALPH WALDO EMERSON BICENTENNIAL American eloquence As a young man, Emerson recorded what he called his "luckless ragamuffin ideas" in a personal journal. But the poet and essayist would become an influential American thinker and lecturer. He was a strong proponent of women's suffrage, an ardent abolitionist and his words gave eloquent voice to the ideas of transcendentalism. day.

He supported women's suffrage, attacked slavery as a "special and aggressive' evil" and praised abolitionist John Brown, pronouncing that his hanging made "the gallows as glorious as the cross." "There goes in the world a notion, that the scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian as unfit for any handiwork or public labor as a penknife for an ax," he said during his famed "American Scholar" commencement speech, given at Harvard in 1838. "Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action." From the start of the Revolutionary War, Americans sought freedom from England not just in how they were governed but in how they imagined them-- selves. Few were as effective as Emen Emerson, a pastor's son, was born in Boston on May 25, 1803. The fourth of eight children, he was 7 when his father died.

With his mother often busy, his most important caretaker became his aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, a lifelong influence. Four feet tall and fearless, Emerson's aunt was a thinker. Young Emerson wrote poetry in grade and kept a journal while at Harvard of his "luckless ragamuffin ideas." He won prizes for oratory, philosophy and essays on Socrates, and he even delivered the class graduation poem -after six others declined. He briefly taught at a "school for young ladies," attended Harvard Divinity School and was ordained in 1829 as junior minister at the Second Unitar- hit The life of a thinker 1803 Bom on May 25 in Boston. 1817-21 Attends Harvard and begins keeping a journal.

After college he begins teaching. 1 824 Dedicates himself to study of divinity. 1829 Marries Ellen Tucker. 1831 Ellen dies at age 19 of tuberculosis. 1832 Leaves church over disagreements with officials.

1834 Moves to Concord, N.H., marries again, lectures. 1 836 Publishes his essay "Nature," setting forth the main points of transcendentalism. 1837 Calls for intellectual independence from Europe in "American Scholar" lecture at Harvard. 1838 Starts friendship with Henry David Thoreau. 1841 First series of "Essays" published; invites Thoreau to live at his house.

1846 "Poems" published. 1854 Attacks Fugitive Slave Law in lectures. 1855 Anti-slavery lectures in major U.S. cities; writes Walt Whitman praising "Leaves of Addresses woman's rights convention. 1860 Tries unsuccessfully to convince Whitman to minimize the "sex element" in "Leaves of "Conduct of Life" is published.

1865 Eulogizes Abraham Lincoln. 1867 Lectures 80 times, the peak of his career. 1870 "Society and Solitude" published. 1872 Health declines, house in Concord badly damaged by fire; friends raise money to restore it. 1875 Stops writing in private journals.

1877-82 Mental state slips in last years; dies of pneumonia on April 27, 1882, in Concord. The Associated Press CONCORD, Mass. Concord is a town for walking, for circling the narrow trail around Walden Pond, or stepping past the graves of Sleepy Hollow, or loafing along the landmarks of Monument Square, with its pillared churches and flat-brick civic hall. In Ralph Waldo Emerson, the town claimed both a loyal neighbor and a spokesman for the nation. Born 200 years ago this spring, he remains the so-called Sage of Concord, his likeness an imposing white marble statue presiding over the common reading area of the public library, his bulky granite headstone a colossus among the tidier memorials in Sleepy Hollow.

Emerson is secure in the American canon, although his role today is not easily defined. David Wood, curator of the Concord Museum, across the road from Emerson's house says he is frequently asked why Emerson still matters, and Wood struggles to answer. Emerson stands for a less cynical, more demanding time, for the uplifting New England mind-set that insisted all could change, and change -for the better. "You can't point to any institution, or movement these days and say it was inspired by Emerson," Wood says. "What I want to say, but bite my tongue, is that the way to understand Emerson is through reading Emerson." Emerson's highest art was the essay, memorable phrase stacked upon memorable phrase as if each were an essay itself.

Aphorisms like "hitch your wagon to a 1 845 Gives Thoreau permission to build a hut on his property, on Walden Pond; refuses to lecture where blacks are excluded from membership. The poet and essayist in print Success Friendship Emerson is secure in the American canon, although his role today is not easily defined. ian Church in Boston. Emerson was popular with the congregation, but a preacher who likens the prayers of his church to "the zodiac of Denderah" is not long for his calling. He found community in Transcendentalism, a classic expression of American idealism.

While the Puritans thought all to be lowly sinners, the son. He virtually prophesied the rise of Walt Whitman, calling for a poet who would capture "the barbarism and materialism of the times," and stating in terms Whitman later immortalized that "America is a poem in our eyes." "He was a guy that believed all Americans were potential poets and he believed the Self-Reliance "To be great is to be Civilization "Hitch your wagon to a star." Circles "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." "A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature." "Self-trust is the first secret of success." AP SOURCES: "Emerson Essays and The Columbia Encyclopedia; photo courtesy of the Concord Museum power of the mind, if awakened, was the greatest strength anybody could rely upon," said Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's. Emerson later suffered from failing health and wrote little in the last decade of his life. In 1882, Transcendentalists believed all were potential gods, each mind partaking of the "Universal Mind." He revered, even symbol ized, the solitary thinker. But not at the expense of public matters.

Ideas were to be shared, and Emerson er," he writes in "Circles," one of his most important essays. "No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past at my back." "People think of Emerson's essays as dull; they should read says became a manifesto of individual power. "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men that is genius," he wrote. Models, even archetypes, of democratic thought, his essays dramatize the debating, changing mind. One line sets off another and then another the pre-digital version of links on a Web page.

"I am only an experiment ing and eloquence was essential to every Emerson project," says Lawrence Buell, a professor of English at Harvard University and author of "Emerson," a new biography. Emerson's most notable works include "Experience," with its lament that "so much of our time is preparation, so much is "Nature," in which he declared "nature is the incarnation of and "Self-Reliance," which engaged in the issues of his Emerson died of pneumonia. 'ti P7 Celebrate Spring With The Rocky Mount TELEGRAM Start or renew your subscription and we'll throw in fun spring items for youl Iddq 8 star" and "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" are still endlessly, irresistibly quoted. "His essays are really performances. They're crystal-nations, many of them, of public lectures.

Eloquence is integral to the art of speak- NYC honors late violinist The Associated Press NEW YORK -It's a new Manhattan address: Isaac Stern Place. Stern, who helped save Carnegie Hall, was honored Friday in a ceremony naming the corner of West 57th Street and Seventh Avenue in his memory. The violinist saved the musical landmark from the wrecking ball in 1960, then went on to be its president for more than 40 years, until his death in September 2001 at age 81. Under his tutelage, the hall was renovated in 1986 and celebrated its centennial in 1991, while developing music education programs that reached out to the city's children and constructing its new Zankel Hall. Get a combination of sunflower or zinnia seeds! Rocky Mount Pick up the Rocky Mount Telegram when you check-out at Wal-Mart! Months $30.03 Sty 15 Seed wf.

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