My title is borrowed from Irwin Edmon’s Introduction to a collection of Emerson’s Essays. From reading the first essay alone and from seeing that the others show the same lack of substantive content, I think the title may be taken seriously instead of rhetorically and that the writings of Emerson may be neglected without any material ignorance being sealed to one’s fate. By neglecting Emerson, there would be the prospective loss of some commentary that we might add, in some conversation that we might have, about an influential writer. We could humbly leave such commentaries to others, however, and then recommend instead, by the occasional remark, authors who provide more substance in their matter, and who are, therefore, more deserving of time and notice.
The essay that I chose to read among the twenty in the collection is the first one, called, History.
What was Ralph Waldo Emerson like? He did not like doing math or geometry; he found his Unitarian church too creed-oriented for his taste; and, most informingly, he regarded any adherence to form as ‘alien to the spirit of Christ’ (p. xviii, Biographical Note.) He was an Idealist and, weirdly but compatibly, a Transcendentalist. Knowing even this much—which is a lot—about his nonobjective propensities could never prepare the reader for an essay on history that is a polemical exercise against its existence. He is subtle about it; but that is his thesis. He wants history entirely out of mind. A thesis such as that is nothing less, almost, than stupor mundi (the marvel of the world.) This ‘historical’ essay is no more about history than fables are actual accounts. He names many places where pivotal events of the first rank took place. On just one page he mentions Babylon, Troy, Tyre, Rome, Gibeon, London, Paris, New York, Egypt, Gaul, England, Greece, Palestine, Italy, Spain, the Islands, and even the Garden of Eden. But all we are told about these places is that they ‘are passing already into fiction’ and that history is a subjective matter that is in ‘our private experience…only Biography’ (p. 6.) What he means by history becoming biography is impossible to fully tell. But the statement is a disdainful remark against the facts of history as they stand—facts that tend to make an individual uncomfortable. He says that the student of history should “esteem his own life in the text…not suffer himself to be bullied by kings and empires…He must attain and maintain that lofty sight where facts yield their secret sense” (pp. 5, 6.) Emerson wants all students to read history with a selfish eye—to read history as if the only thing that should be learned from it is something about the reader.
His view of history is conditioned by his transcendentalism and idealism. From his towering, condescending perspective, history is both looked down upon and reconceived. And is this not what students are being taught to do in the 21st century by their activist professors? Writers like Emerson are responsible for generating this negative education. His approach comes down to looking at history through the prism of private experience, or scruples and dreams, and thereby dismissing some facts and twisting others in order to make history serve whatever worldview the reader, or the teacher of readers, prefers.
One gets the impression by all the places mentioned in the essay that Emerson must have been a great traveler. He must have been a great reader too. Just on page 27 are found the names of Napoleon, Talbot, Henry VI, Columbus, Newton, Laplace, Davy, Gay Lussac, Handel, Watt, Fulton, Whittemore, and Arkwright. But all we learn from all of this namedropping is that Columbus must have been an explorer; Newton and Laplace, astronomers; and Handel, a composer. By the little bit of intelligence that is communicated, we suspect that some of the others might have been physicists and builders. But the information that is proffered is made so ambiguous that we cannot know for sure what the remaining persons did unless we look up the facts of history for ourselves. It may be that the essay is a demonstration of Emerson’s transcendental approach to history. There is good reason for the reader to doubt that the author of the essay is in possession of any worthwhile knowledge since he teaches nothing by his namedropping except how worthless his approach to history is. It is likely that Emerson knew next to nothing about the persons mentioned and the events that redounded to make their names memorable. Why believe a theory of how history should be interpreted (supposing we could grasp more than mere slivers of said theory) when we have a reasonable suspicion that the theorist does not know any more than the reader does about the subjects that he applies his theory to? I counted sixty-nine names in the space of thirty pages, but learned virtually nothing about anyone. Because of this vacuous recitation, anyone newly acquainted with Emerson must regard him as a writer who took no time to learn about any of the topics or persons that he subjected to his inscrutable theory. Many of the historical characters that he recites the names of have had nothing at all to do with any outstanding event. Is it perhaps because Emerson too busily consumed the empty additives of Hercules, Phoebus, and Orpheus that we find no speck of riboflavin in his History? No wonder his writing is called ‘mere spirit’ in the Bio (p. xxiv.) It never touches ground and it never materializes into thoughts that may be carried away. Is a philosopher not supposed to be something of a historian when philosophizing about what history is and means? If he gives us no good reason to trust his opinions, no knowledge or insight concerning noteworthy events and the personalities responsible for making them so, should his work be highly esteemed, scarcely regarded, or else brushed aside? Emerson knew just enough about history to make him detest the fact that history contains facts. Because he speaks of facts encumbering, tyrannizing, and dominating (p. 24), it is clear that he detests history. He is not enigmatic enough to be misunderstood on that point. “I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is,” he complains. Then further on, “How many times we must say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople!” (p. 29.) Mr. Emerson must think that the French Revolution, which centered in Paris, is nothing but ‘a shallow village tale.’ How wretched to have to mention it! There can be no doubt that his objections are rants against the existence of facts, for the man who wants history written in such a way that facts may be reduced to symbols (p. 29) must hate what literally happened. “What is history good for?” he seems, with sophisticated scorn, to ask. “I hold it to be the especial office of history, that virtuous actions be not buried in oblivion, and that men feel a dread of being deemed infamous by posterity for their evil words and actions” (Tacitus.) This is what history is good for. But history is good for even more than this: “We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old” (Psalm 44.1.) Spurgeon calls this ‘the story of God’s mighty acts.’ That is what history, at its best and highest, is good for. From that sermon: “Turn ye back then, to ancient records, and remember what God hath done. Will ye not remember what he did at the Red Sea, how he smote Egypt and all its chivalry, and covered Pharaoh’s chariot and horse in the Red Sea?” Anyone who undervalues history is a fool; and he who doesn’t read it is ignorant, as well as, in effect, ungrateful. Emerson’s detestation of history makes him dislikeable. Knowledge of history is a necessary pursuit. It is for avoiding past mistakes and for learning what to imitate in order to improve, succeed, and glorify God.
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