ESSAYS

BY

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Merrill's English Texts

SELECTED AND EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION
AND NOTES, BY EDNA H.L. TURPIN, AUTHOR
OF "STORIES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY,"
"CLASSIC FABLES," "FAMOUS PAINTERS," ETC.

NEW YORK
CHARLES E. MERRILL CO.
1907

CONTENTS

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

Merrill's English Texts

This series of books will include in complete editions those masterpieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the use of schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes will be chosen for their special qualifications in connection with the texts to be issued under their individual supervision, but familiarity with the practical needs of the classroom, no less than sound scholarship, will characterize the editing of every book in the series.

In connection with each text, a critical and historical introduction, including a sketch of the life of the author and his relation to the thought of his time, critical opinions of the work in question chosen from the great body of English criticism, and, where possible, a portrait of the author, will be given. Ample explanatory notes of such passages in the text as call for special attention will be supplied, but irrelevant annotation and explanations of the obvious will be rigidly excluded.

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO.

Home of Emerson in Concord.

LIFE OF EMERSON

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, May 25, 1803. He was descended from a long line of New England ministers, men of refinement