The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Lectures and biographical sketches [Vol. 10]

sends a new mind into the world, fills it beforehand with a desire for that which she wishes it to know and do. Let us wait and see what is this new creation, of what new organ the great Spirit had need when it incarnated this new Will. A new Adam in the garden, he is to name all the beasts in the field, all the gods in the sky. And jealous provision seems to have been made in his constitution that you shall not invade and contaminate him with the worn weeds of your language and opinions. The charm of life is this variety of genius, these contrasts and flavors by which Heaven has modulated the identity of truth, and there is a perpetual hankering to violate this individuality, to warp his ways of thinking and behavior to resemble or reflect your thinking and behavior. A low self-love in the parent desires that his child should repeat his character and fortune; an expectation which the child, if justice is done him, will nobly disappoint. By working on the theory that this resemblance exists, we shall do what in us lies to defeat his proper promise and produce the ordinary and mediocre. I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being on a young soul to which they are totally unfit.

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Title: The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Lectures and biographical sketches [Vol. 10]
Author: Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882.
Canvas: Page 137
Publication: Boston ; New York :: Houghton, Mifflin,; [1903-1904].

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Collection: The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Full citation: "The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Lectures and biographical sketches [Vol. 10]." In the digital collection The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/4957107.0010.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 24, 2025.

The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Lectures and biographical sketches [Vol. 10]

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