Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

The history of Christ is the best document of the power of Characterwhich we have. … In short, there ought to be no such thing as Fate.As long as we use this word, it is a sign of our impotence and thatwe are not ourselves. … I have this latent omniscience coexistentwith omnignorance. Moreover, whilst this Deity glows at the heart,and by his unlimited presentiments gives me all Power, I know thattomorrow will be as this day, I am dwarf, and I remain a dwarf. Thatis to say, I believe in Fate. As long as I am weak, I shall talk of Fate;whenever the God fills me with his fullness, I shall see the disappearanceof Fate.I am Defeated all the time; yet to Victory I am born.Emerson the man, between the ages of forty-one and forty-nine (1844–52), experienced few outer changes. In partial compensation for Waldo’sdeath, a son Edward joined the two daughters, Ellen and Edith. The publishingof Essays, Second Series was followed by lectures of Representative Men in1846 and the first publication of Poems. Eighteen-forty-seven led Emersonto Europe for a second time, renewing his acquaintance with Carlyle andmeeting many major literary figures. Lecture tours took him further afield,to Mississippi in 1850, Buffalo and Pittsburgh in 1851, Montreal in 1852. In1852 rage began to simmer in the as yet relatively apolitical Emerson dueto the Fugitive Slave Law. As Emerson himself grew in stature in the eyesof the world during these years, his earlier concept of Vishnu-Man forgingwith flame at the center of the world yielded, acquiesced, receded to a moreShakespearean, invisible man, merely beholding his Maya, his world, withthe more professional detachment of a dramatist beholding his stage.During the ages of forty-one to forty-nine, the inner Emerson becamein due time the outer; the private Emerson unfolded honestly in his publicaddresses. His need to remain aloof, unfixed, improved his role as dramatistwith an eye for the whole rather than as actor committed to a particularpart. He expressed a greater weight of darkness than before, by contrastintensifying a light which, diminishing in relation to the expansive light ofearlier years, now concentrates into a seed-like power. Emerson worked toincreasingly penetrate the nature of fate. Freedom and fate became powerand form, power needing an appreciation of the present, form necessitatingillusion.In Experience in 1844, one dramatic voice often bewails the separationbetween man and world, subject and object. “The Indian who was laidunder a curse that the wind should not blow on him, nor water flow to170