The Conduct of Life Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IV CULTURE Can rules or tutors educate The semigod whom we await ? He must be musical, Tremulous, impressional, Alive to gentle influence Of landscape and ... more »of sky, And tender to the spirit-touch Of man's or maiden's eye : But, to his native centre fast, Shall into Future fuse the Past, And the world's flowing fates in his own mould recast. CULTURE THE word of ambition at the present day is Culture. Whilst all the world is in pursuit of power, and of wealth as a means of power, culture corrects the theory of success. A man is the prisoner of his power. A topical memory makes him an almanac; a talent for debate, a disputant; skill to get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar. Culture reduces these inflammations by invoking the aid of other powers against the dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers. It watches success. For performance, nature has no mercy, and sacrifices the performer to get it done; makes a dropsy or a tympany of him. If she wants a thumb, she makes one at the cost of arms and legs, and any excess of power in one part is usually paid for at once by some defect in a contiguous part. Our efficiency depends so much on our concentration, that nature usually in the instances where a marked man is sent into the world, overloads him with bias, sacrificing his symmetry to his working power.1 It is said a man can write but one book; and if a man have adefect, it is apt to leave its impression on all his performances. If she creates a policeman like Fouche,1 he is made up of suspicions and of plots to circumvent them. " The air," said Fouche, " is full of poniards." The physician Sanctorius spent his life in a pair of scales, weighing his food. Lord Coke valued Chaucer highly because the Canon Yeman's Tale illustrates the statute fifth Hen....« less