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The Conduct of Life

Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Essays
  • Book language: English
  • 194 pages

The Conduct of Life is a collection of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson, first published in 1860. It reflects on how to live well, addressing themes such as fate, power, wealth, culture, behavior, and beauty. Worth listening to for its thoughtful meditations on human character and society.

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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.

Opening of the book

THE

CONDUCT OF LIFE.

BY

R. W. EMERSON.

BOSTON:

JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,

LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & Co.

1871.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by

R. W. EMERSON,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts

CONTENTS.

I. Fate

II. Power

III. Wealth

IV. Culture

V. Behavior

VI. Worship

VII. Considerations by the Way

VIII. Beauty

IX. Illusions

I.

FATE.

Delicate omens traced in air

To the lone bard true witness bare;

Birds with auguries on their wings

Chanted undeceiving things

Him to beckon, him to warn;

Well might then the poet scorn

To learn of scribe or courier

Hints writ in vaster character;

And on his mind, at dawn of day,

Soft shadows of the evening lay.

For the prevision is allied

Unto the thing so signified;

Or say, the foresight that awaits

Is the same Genius that creates.

FATE.

It chanced during one winter, a few years ago, that our cities were

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