Near the end of 1829 he met his future wife, Ellen Tucker. She quickly became the love of his life, but their marriage was cut short by her constant health problems and eventual death in 1931. In a letter to his brother Edward he wrote, “Her loss is a universal loss to me. It makes all life little worth…” (#2 p.36). Her death led him to question Christianity and he resigned from the ministry in 1832. Although he continued to deliver sermons after her death, they became much more critical of God and the Church, including quotes like, “the good man reveres himself” (#3) and “the highest revelation is that God is in every man” (#3). One particularly nasty accusation was that “They will have Christ for a Lord and not for a brother. Christ preaches the greatness of man, but we hear only the greatness of Christ” (#3). This hypocrisy would slowly lead to him writing more and more for himself, and less and less for sermons.

This time of inner-though is what led him to publish his first book, Nature. He had a new wife, Lydia Jackson, and a new son, Waldo, and he felt that it was time to publish his beliefs. It was a great book in its own right, but more importantly it set down the philosophies that his later works would build on. This was the first of a wave of books.

In 1940 he helped launch the Dial alongside Margaret Fuller, who would become a lifelong friend. It became an outlet for any thing having to do with Transcendentalism, a movement that Emerson had unknowingly created. Their ideals were much like his, except they wanted to live based on the ideals, whereas he just wanted to feel them (#2 p.67). Here is where we begin to see “an unusually large gap, even a contradiction, between his teachings and his experience” (#1). He became frustrated with his inability to realize his beliefs. “He lacks all power to realize his larger ambitions and feels himself drifting…before the inexorable flow of time” (#1).

Soon he published his most important book, titled Essays. These treatises, especially Self-Reliance, are full of amazing quotes and ideas, which have become infamous throughout the world. Lines like, “My life is for itself and not for spectacle” (#4) and “Speak your latent conviction and it shall be the universal sense” (#4) are priceless attacks against conformity and stupidity that are unequaled by even the greatest of authors.

Beyond his own mind, Emerson got ideas from the many houseguests that were constantly visiting. Nearly all of the greatest writers of the time came to spend time with him, and it was through these guests that he gained a new perspective on genius. These experiences finally led him to pen such lines as, “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men, that is genius” (#4).

Beyond his common sense, though, he also had a very cynical side. “No one has expected more of man, few have found him less competent” (#1). In Self-Reliance he wrote, “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against every one of its members” (#4) and in his journal he wrote, “I’ve never known a man who had so much good accumulated upon him…yet, leave me alone for a few days, and I creep about as if in expectation of a calamity” (#3). This paranoia is humorous coming from a man of such genius and comprehension…

As he got older he continued to publish, but the Transcendentalist movement died away and none of his works had as much impact as Self-Reliance. The one notable event was his speech before the graduating class of Harvard Divinity College, where he caused an uproar by speaking against conformity and aspects of the Church. The commotion would eventually die away, leaving him to himself again.

The last few years of his life were spent enjoying nature and writing in his journals, where some of his most significant quotes can be found. On April 27, 1882 he would finally pass away. After over forty years of writing and speeches, he had left plenty for us to remember him by, and he assumed his place as the most important writer in American history.

Source #1 - "Emerson's Tragic Sense" from Emerson: A Collection of Critical Essays by Stephen E. Whicher
Source #2 - Emerson, Our Contemporary by August Derleth
Source #3 - Emerson's Journals
Source #4 - Emerson's Self-Reliance