Monday, April 19, 2010

Is this a great quote or what?

In his letter to Randolph Ryer in January 1849, Thomas Starr King wrote (from Boston):



"Emerson gave us last Monday evening the most brilliant lecture I ever listened to from any mortal. It was on the identity of the laws of the mind with the laws of nature. He proved conclusively that man is only a higher kind of corn, that he is a squirrel gone up into the first class, that he is a liberated oyster fully educated, that he is a spiritualized pumpkin, a thinking squash, a graduated sun-flower, and inspired turnip. Such imagery, such wit, such quaint things said in a tone solemn and sublime! I have the most profound respect henceforth for every melon-vine as my ancestor (melancholic thought). I look upon every turtle as of kin. Tonight he lectures again. I fear I may lose it."

3 comments:

Lizard Eater said...

I now want to start a new blog, just so that I may call it "The Inspired Turnip."

My, I do feel like that some days.

Transient and Permanent said...

Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

Miss Kitty said...

I might have written those words myself--or some very similar--while enrolled in a graduate course on the Transcendentalists. :-)