RALPH WALDO EMERSON AND THE EVER-EVOLVING ART OF ...

gives further sign of itself, as it were in flashes of light, in sudden discoveries of
its profound beauty and repose, as if the clouds that covered it parted at
intervals…But every insight from this realm of thought is felt as initial, and
promises a sequel. I do not make it; I arrive there, and behold what was there
already. (Emerson EXP 208, emphasis mine)
Reading still exhumes luminous connections between subject and object, which in turn
will reveal wonderful new ways of living and seeing to the reader. Further, reading is
still progressive in that a disciplined and active reader will finds aspects of this “excellent
region of life” in the natural world, as if some curtain were slowly parting to expose the
true profundity of its comprehensiveness. But what has changed, for Emerson, is his
ability to explain the relevance of these incandescent connections from personal
experience, which is an essential aspect self-reliant reading and necessary for the
ratification of any reading into personal truth. Though reading a fresh text is still as
provoking as ever, Emerson finds that he cannot lend his experiences to a closer
examination of the newly forged connections the text contains. Instead, he finds “what
was there already”, and this keeps him from truly understanding and exemplifying what
the text is offering him.
Finding “what was already there” in a text implicitly details the conviction that
personal expression is wholly unable to communicate meaningful experiences, and this
can lead to the prima facie adoption of another’s words into a personal vocabulary simply
because they belong to someone else. In a very literal sense, an assimilation of this sort
would be more alike to reading with deference as opposed to self-reliance. Emerson
finds regretfully that,
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