The tone of Emerson's essay is melancholic—he is, after all, dealing with his grief over his son's death. However, the essay is never despairing. Rather, Emerson always follows up the saddest moments with hopeful interjections. For example, at the end of the essay, he insists that everyone has the capacity for great happiness:
Patience and patience, we shall win at the last. We must be very suspicious of the deceptions of the element of time. It takes a good deal of time to eat or to sleep, or to earn a hundred dollars, and a very little time to entertain a hope and an insight which becomes the light of our life.
Emerson acknowledges that most of our lives are spent doing mundane things that feel interminable. Each day, we must work, sleep, and find a way to sustain ourselves. He urges readers to be patient. While we may not be able to see a light at the end of the "stairway" we are all climbing, we can bring light into the present by taking a simple moment to "entertain a hope and an insight."
Emerson's strategy of finding light in dark moments is his personal solution to his grief, but it is also a philosophical position that draws on Stoicism and Skepticism. Popularly, Stoicism and Skepticism are associated with unfeeling and even negativity. But Emerson, who was himself a minister and had formal training from the Harvard Divinity School, is referring to them in a more traditional religious and philosophical sense. The ancient Greek philosophy of Stoicism held that a good life could be achieved through the consistent practice of virtue, regardless of a person's material circumstance or life events. Skepticism, meanwhile, is a Western philosophical belief that certain knowledge about anything is impossible. Emerson never expected to lose his son, and he now must try to make the most of his life in the wake of this loss. He suggests that living virtuously and accepting uncertainty about what is to come opens the door onto the happiness that can be found in simple moments.
