Ralph Waldo Emerson's By The Mountain

The sun was glistening through the tall, swaying pines. To the right of the trail, a gentle river flowed softly down towards the mouth of the lake. Walking across the rickety wooden bridge, I inhaled a deep breath of refreshingly crisp mountain air. The sun beat down on me as I made my way across the bridge and back onto the well-used hiking trail. The ambient sounds of chirping birds, babbling water, and the croaks of several frogs filled my ears as I made my way around the bend. As I entered the mouth of the forest, I could see my father standing in the middle of the path, glancing upwards, taking in the beauty that had began to engulf us. “We better get going.” he said, looking back at me. “There’s still many miles to go.” I smiled and turned, taking in one last view of the beautiful creekside. Then, with determination, we set out to finish the challenging trek we had started.

“Nature” is an essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and published by James Munroe and Company in 1836. [1] “Nature” has a total of 41 pages. The essay consists of eight parts: Nature, Commodity, Beauty, Language, Discipline, Idealism, Spirit and Prospects. Each part takes a different perspective on the relationship between humans and nature. In this essay, Emerson emphasizes the foundation of transcendentalism, “a religious and philosophical movement that developed during the late 1820s and 30s in the Eastern region of the United States as protest against the general state of spirituality and, in particular, the state of intellectualism.” [2] “Transcendentalism suggests that the divine, or God, suffuses nature, and suggests that reality can be understood by studying nature.” [3] “Transcendentalism is closely related to Unitarianism, the dominant religious movement in Boston at the early nineteenth century. Transcendentalism evolved as an organic consequence of the Unitarian emphasis on free conscience and the value of intellectual reason.” [4] Emerson divides nature into four stages: commodity, beauty, language, and discipline. These define the ways by which humans use nature for their basic needs. The historical significance of “Nature” was that transcendentalism club led the celebration of the American experiment as one of the individualism and self-reliance. [5]

his profession as a pastor in search for vital truth and hope. But his father

Chris McCandless probably wasn’t the first to think, “When you want something in life, you just gotta reach out and grab it.” In the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and the short story “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson, they both have the belief that by living off of nature and preserving it, the closer one will come to understanding the nature of nature.

Being in the home was like a separate world, one between life and death. When I reached the outside world again everything seemed so fresh. There were bright yellow-green leaves that hung with an arrogant vivacity, cars that sped by with such fervor, wind blowing with verve and energy, lively children playing with a vivacious lust for life, and the vitality that exudes from the air into your lungs. I wanted to bring this energy into

Amidst the swirling ripple of faceless people meandering around fire hydrants, pedestrian signs, and ragged newspaper stands, he stood; embedded within the relentless stream of continuous people trickling by him. The occasional nudge threatened to dislodge his balance as he gazed across the road where two buildings laden by carmine shaded bricks separated. The same two buildings he walked directly pass early in the dewy morning and late in the brisk evening weather everyday for the past two decades. Surely he knew every wondering power line and dimly lit alley of the surrounding neighborhood? Yet something glimmered from in between the impossibly small gap separating the buildings. His conscious turned from thought to action as he leapt from the scuffed curb and into the high voltage current of traffic without a second

In a constantly updating world, eventually cultural diffusion causes changes to a society 's views and practices over a period of time. With many religious pressures in Europe and the constant switch between Catholicism and Protestantism, a group called the Puritans moved to America to start life anew. The Puritan lifestyle took hold of America’s New England colonies and became a theocracy of how people lived their lives. People lived by the Puritan interpretation of the New Testament with harsh forms of punishment for the violation of even the most simple sins. Because of this restricting lifestyle and new ideas like the Enlightenment which caused intellectual reforms, people started to break away from the extreme Puritan philosophy. Another movement occurring in America called Transcendentalism, on the other side of the spectrum of Puritanism, started with writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, specifically with his essay “Nature”. Emerson depicts the prime example of the breaking away from strict religion to Transcendentalism. In America, Emerson was a priest who had been ridiculed and had traveled to Europe to find himself. After meeting up with writers of the Romanticism movement, he fell in love with it and brought it back to America under the name of Transcendentalism. Puritanism and Transcendentalism have opposing philosophies which include their view on people, philosophy and God , and on nature through essays and texts by: William Bradford, Anne

Ralph Waldo Emerson							I am writing this essay on the beliefs and thoughts of Ralph Waldo Emerson on the subjects of individuality, society, government, technology, and spirituality.

The sunlight tinting the clouds with pink and golden hues reminding me of a Maxwell Parish painting I had once owned. There was a heavy fog and mist coming in off the Pacific Ocean into the San Francisco Bay I noticed that the fog clung to the bottom of the Golden Gate Bridge. Sounds of gulls screeching and fog horns moaning, issuing warning of possible danger are coming in off the bay overwhelmed my senses. I did not take the time to breath in this wondrous moment as I should have. It is only now though this reflection that I appreciate the beauty. I had a goal, a destination. I was a force of nature not to be deterred. So onward north I traveled passing monumental sites with a lackadaisical attitude. Not understanding that I needed to breath in, slowdown and enjoy the singular experience of the once in lifetime moments that were flying past me as I raced down the

I long to disappear, I want the cool air to caress my cheek and I want to smile, I want to be happy, to move on. I walked past Lauras old house, a two-story Queenslander with flowers entwining on the balcony railing. The house looks lonely; the grass overgrown and dry, begging to be cut. The spider webs and smashed windows deterred anyone from entering the soul-less house. I stopped outside, inhaled the cool air in shuddered breaths.

"To believe that what is true in your private heart is true for all men — that is genius," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1841 essay “Self-Reliance.” Emerson believes that every man has the potential to be “geniuses” if they are self contained and resist the influence of society. Dr. Stockmann’s actions in “An Enemy of the People,” reflect the ideas Emerson proposes. In the play, he challenged the authority of the town in a fight to rebuild the contaminated baths. It is clear that both Stockmann and Emerson are strong proponents of individualism. Stockmann claims that, “the strongest man is the one who stands alone,” [An Enemy of the People, Ibsen] and Emerson, “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string”[Self-Reliance, Emerson]. But does individualism really make you the better person? Both men are free thinkers and idealists. They are visionaries who reject have many accepted opinions, and favor ones that are less practical but ideal in their respective minds. This desire for idealism blinds an individual and leads to ignorance of others’ opinions and refusal to compromise, ultimately leading to failure.

(A detailed look into three transcendental ideas, as presented by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau)

Nature and wilderness were very important ideas to some extant for St. John de Crevecoeur and Ralph Waldo Emerson, each had their own opinions and ideas that contrasted against each other and were somewhat similar to each other. Emerson who valued it and looked at the nature as something to proud of had used it many times in his works as examples and that we are part of nature as well and make whatever choices from it as it can from us. While Crevecoeur believes that in every land it has its own form of culture as it does its own kind of nature, and describes how the land and nature was then and how it will be giving details of it in his pieces of work. How they use and see nature is described equally important in both their works “the American Scholar” and “What is an American” but shows how different their views really are in them.

He tied his boat off and started to climb the cliffs. He knew that no one had lived to tell what was behind the cloud, but still he climbed. The reason he kept going was because he had heard of a secret city past the cloud to the very top of the mountain. There people had no problems, no worries, they had nothing, but peace and relaxation of the flourish valley. The man wasn’t sure if the legend was true or not,all he wanted was just wanted peace nothing to care about not even death. For the legend also spoke that if lived in the city the special flora would allow anyone to live forever as long as they stayed in the city.

I woke up desperately taking in a gasp of air. My body rose and fell uncontrollably as I laid on the cold earth taking in the fact that I was still alive. At first I couldn’t tell if I was blind or not with the darkness lingering in front of me. That was until I rolled myself over and was introduced to the milky colored moon that peaked behind the clouds. They quickly made their way across the barren land to reveal the deep purple haze that was the night sky. The night looked young as the moon shined bright behind the branches of the dead trees. Each of the trees stretched their branches out to reach for the sky. You could tell that they wanted to escape from this place as their branches reached for the stars. However, the malnourished earth refused to let them go as the ground locked their exposed roots to the soil beneath them. Some had many of their hopes of leaving forever, lost, as they were flat on the dirt soil.