...xviii ure RALPH WALDO EMERSON A suhtle chain of countless rings The next unto the farthest hrings. The eye reads omens where it goes, And speaks all languages the rose, And striving to he man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form Introduction OUR ACE IS RETROSPECTIVE. It builds...

...these possibilities. In this regard, the key text is found in his Introduction to the essay "Nature." Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes hiographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face;...

...monde ancien . . . Tu en as assez de vivre dans I'antiquite grecque et romaine. Apollinairc, "Zone" Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres...fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. Emerson, "Nature" The inescapable presence of Rome's past has overwhelmed many sensitive visitors to...

...getting late, and we're almost ready." A couplet— she couldn't remember whose— ran through her head. A subtle chain of countless rings The next unto the farthest brings . . . Lat lifted the baby to his lap, on his face such a look of proud affection that she was almost...

...death' " (W 293). 9. The worm striving to be man is an allusion to Emerson's epigraph to "Nature": "A subtle chain of countless rings / The next unto...the worm / Mounts through all the spires of form." 10. Clara Barrus, Burroughs's biographer and literary executor, gives one instance where an irate reader...

...Self-moved, fly-to the doors, Nor sword of angels could reveal What they conceal. 1847 MOTTO TO "NATURE" A subtle chain of countless rings The next unto the...man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form. 1849 DAYS Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching...

...individual—his escape from history. In the midst of a people without history, Emerson could still say: Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres...biographies, histories and criticism. The foregoing generation beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy...

...own ideal."124 But how in evolution could we do that? Were we even more amazing than Emerson's worm? And striving to be man the worm mounts through all the spires of form.123 Evolutionary low life worming its way into high society? That was silly. But Haeckel's version...

...has brought about a similar shake-up in many a reader as well. "Our age is retrospective," he begins. "It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism." Emerson clears the agenda with a dismissive sweep, pointing out that "the foregoing generations beheld...

...experience, or a worship of dead forms. Thus his famous complaint and proposal at the beginning of Nature: Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why...