ESSAYS.
Reading edition
Next to Shakspeare's Plays, Emerson's Essays and Lectures are to me the richest inspiration. At every turn new and delightful paths open before the mind; and the poetic feeling and imagery are often of the best. Only the music and the power of discriminating the wheat from the chaff were lacking to have made one of the world's greatest poets. To pour into the life the spirit of Emerson, Bacon, and Montaigne is a liberal education in itself. Addison's "Spectator" is inimitable in its union of humor, sense, and imagination. A number of eminent men, Franklin among them, have referred to it as the source of their literary power.
Read these essays: R. D. C. G.