us, but that every anecdote, where a sharper observation of Nature in some particulars bestows some petty advantage, gives a fillip to the attention and to our courage."
Page 139, note 1.
No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,My oldest force is good as new,And the fresh rose on yonder thornGives back the bending heavens in dew."Song of Nature," Poems.
Page 141, note 1. Here came in several sheets now included in "Works and Days," in Society and Solitude.
Page 141, note 2. Two sheets, giving a story, such as often garnished Mr. Emerson's lyceum lectures, and a sudden return to the more serious aspects, may be here inserted in the place they once occupied:—
"There is a story of an old lady who was carried to see a mountain and a cataract, and afterwards shown the steam-mill and the new railroads, and, very grateful and a little confused, she said, 'God's works are great, but man's works are greater.'
"There does not seem to be any limit to these new applications of the same spirit that made the elements at first, and now through man works them. Art and power will go on as they have done, will make day out of night, time out of space, and space out of time."
Page 141, note 3. Mr. Emerson often alludes with pleasure to the Dutch horticulturist whose theory, given in Downing's book on Fruits, pleased him. Journal, 1842: "Delights in Van Mons and his pear in a state of melioration; to be liquid and plastic,—that our reading or doing or knowing should react on us, that is all in all."
