A Thread Runs Through All Things Emersonian

How wild and mysterious our position as individuals to the Universe; here is always a certain amount of truth lodged as intrinsic foundation in the depths of the soul, a certain perception of absolute being, as justice, love, and the like, natures which must be the God of God, and this is our capital stock, this is our centripetal force. We can never quite doubt, we can never be adrift, we can never be nothing, because of this Holy of Holies, out of sight of which we cannot go. Then, on the other side, all is to seek. We understand nothing; our ignorance is abysmal, the overhanging immensity staggers us, whither we go, what we do, who we are, we cannot even so much as guess. We stagger and grope. (Emerson 136)


These words could have come from the mouths of any of the early British Romantisits we've been studying. The mention of "centripetal force" (turning one's attention towards the centre) evokes lines from Goethe On Science: "Nothing is more constant with Nature than that she puts into operation in the smallest detail that which she intends as a whole," and "If you would seek comfort in the whole, you must learn to discover the whole in the smallest part" (59). This idea can also apply to the cultivation, or glorification, of childhood innocence within the context of adulthood put forth by Blake. It seems Emerson departs slightly in tone from his European peers with regard to his notions of the self. The use of words like "depths," "abysmal," and "overhanging immensity" conger images of a dangerous world, an unsafe place where nature - external and internal - is more immediately frightening. Perhaps the kind of environment one might find in the New World where fewer spaces have been tamed and links to home and family are frayed or broken. Hence the need to seek comfort in the thought of God while we are left here to "stagger and grope."


Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Emerson: a modern anthology. Ed. Alfred Kazin and Daniel Aaron. New York: Dell, 1958.

Goethe J. W. Goethe on Science. Ed. Jeremy Nadler. Edinburgh, UK: Floris, 2006.