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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Waldo Emerson was Ralph Waldo Emerson’s son. He died at the age of five in 1842, lost to scarlet fever. In a long poem written to his memory, “Threnody,” Emerson called Waldo “the hyacinthine boy” who “did adorn / the world whereinto he was born.” Emerson discusses the boy’s death in a short but rich passage of “Experience,” in which he shows that the implications of his theory of individual experience is that calamities like the loss of a child cannot really affect someone. Losing a child is not much different than losing a piece of property, Emerson claims. With this, Emerson echoes the ancient Stoics, suggesting that the tragedy is an inconvenience but does not affect the state of one’s soul. Waldo haunts “Experience” in other places, too, particularly when Emerson denounces the capacity of doctors and scientists to understand human nature and also when Emerson considers the phenomenon of people who die young and do not fulfill their full potential.
Waldo Emerson Quotes in Experience
The Experience quotes below are all either spoken by Waldo Emerson or refer to Waldo Emerson. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Experience Quotes
The lords of life, the lords of life,—
I saw them pass,
In their own guise,
Like and unlike,
Portly and grim,
Use and Surprise,
Surface and Dream,
Succession swift, and spectral Wrong,
Temperament without a tongue,
And the inventor of the game
Omnipresent without name;—
Some to see, some to be guessed,
They marched from east to west:
Little man, least of all,
Among the legs of his guardians tall,
Walked about with puzzled look:—
Him by the hand dear nature took;
Dearest nature, strong and kind,
Whispered, “Darling, never mind!
To-morrow they will wear another face,
The founder thou! these are thy race!”
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Emerson’s “Experience” begins with this long poetic epigraph. The poem summarizes the essay to come, particularly the first section, which dwells on the nature of human experience. (The second section of the essay, while continuing to explore the same theme, also offers preacherly advice on how to make the most of that experience.) The poem describes the forces, or “lords,” that control human life. These are “Use,” or habit, which dictates much of human behavior, and “Surprise,” the unpredictable encounters that Emerson believes determines the character of most experience and makes prediction impossible. Because reality for people is only ever Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accusamus harum. Accusantium iusto voluptas. Totam quae corporis. Impedit non ut. Incidunt rerum est. Aperiam doloremque eum. Animi soluta perspiciatis. Ut minima autem. Modi omnis iure. Sint qui qui. Qui similique praesentium. Ex consequatur magnam. Aliquid iste enim. Sequi aut maxime. Adipisci voluptate et. Voluptas suscipit alias. In et eveniet
There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that there, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me, is how shallow it is. […] Souls never touch their objects. An innavigable sea washes with silent waves between us and the things we aim at and converse with. Grief too will make us idealists. In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate,—no more. I cannot get it nearer to me. […] It does not touch me: some thing which I fancied was a part of me, which could not be torn away without tearing me, nor enlarged without enriching me, falls off from me, and leaves no scar. It was caducous. I grieve that grief can teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into real nature. […] Nothing is left us now but death.
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Emerson begins “Experience” by noting that many people have an intuitive sense that they are not in contact with reality. They search for the “sharp peaks and edges of truth” in extreme experiences, like grief. But Emerson, who has recently experienced extreme grief with the death of his son, Waldo, argues that grief actually reveals the precise opposite: that real life is entirely out of reach. This is because the subject, or the individual, is always fundamentally separate from the object, or what they experience. Emerson writes that the gap is like an “innavigable sea,” an expanse whose vastness prevents Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae
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Waldo Emerson Character Timeline in Experience
The timeline below shows where the character Waldo Emerson appears in Experience. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Experience
...“sharp peaks and edges of truth,” in suffering and grief. Emerson, who lost his son Waldo in 1842, speaks from personal experience when he claims that, instead of bringing him to...
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...of him, connected to his soul in some direct way, but says that in reality Waldo “falls off from me, and leaves no scar.” Even the events that seem most important...
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