Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

ecause it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted.
Something like that pleasure, the flowers give us: what am I to whom
these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable gifts,[459]
because they are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic
values being attached to them. If a man should send to me to come a
hundred miles to visit him, and should set before me a basket of fine
summer-fruit, I should think there was some proportion between the
labor and the reward.

2. For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty every day,
and one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option, since if the
man at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you
could procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a
man eat bread or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is
always a great satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity
does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it
seems heroic to let the petitioner[460] be the judge of his necessity,
and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience. If it be
a fantastic desire, it is better to leave to others the office of
punishing him. I can think of many parts I should prefer playing to
that of the Furies.[461] Next to things of necessity, the rule for a
gift, which one of my friends prescribed, is that we might convey to
some person that which properly belonged to his character, and was
easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment
and love are for the most part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are
not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of
thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem;
the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the
sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a
handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it
restores society in so far to its primary basis, when a man's
biography[462] is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an
index of his merit. But it is a cold lifeless business when you go to
the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and
talent, but a goldsmith's. That is fit for kings, and rich men who
represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of
gold and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering,[463] or
payment of blackmail.[464]

3. The law of benefits is a difficult channel, which requires careful
sailing, or rude boats. It is not the office of a man to receive
gifts. How dare you give them? We wish to be self-sustained. We do not
quite forgive a forgiver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of
being bitten. We can receive anything from love, for that is a way of
receiving it from ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to
bestow. We sometimes hate the meat which we eat, because there seems
something of degrading dependence in living by it.

"Brother, if Jove[465] to thee a present make,
Take heed that from his hands thou nothing take."

We ask the whole. Nothing less will content us. We arraign society, if
it do not give us besides earth, and fire, and water, opportunity,
love, reverence, and objects of veneration.

4. He is a good man, who can receive a gift well. We are either glad
or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. Some violence, I
think, is done, some degradation borne, when I rejoice or grieve at a
gift. I am sorry when my independence is invaded, or when a gift comes
from such as do not know my spirit, and so the act is not supported;
and if the gift pleases me overmuch, then I should be ashamed that the
donor should read my heart, and see that I love his commodity, and not
him. The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me,
correspondent to my flowing unto him. When the waters are at level,
then my goods pass to him, and his to me. All his are mine, all mine
his. I say to him, How can you give me this pot of oil, or this flagon
of wine, when all your oil and wine is mine, which belief of mine this
gift seems to deny? Hence the fitness of beautiful, not useful things
for gifts. This giving is flat usurpation, and therefore when the
beneficiary is ungrateful, as all beneficiaries hate all Timons,[466]
not at all considering the value of the gift, but looking back to the
greater store it was taken from, I rather sympathize with the
beneficiary, than with the anger of my lord, Timon. For, the
expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually punished by the
total insensibility of the obliged person. It is a great happiness to
get off without injury and heart-burning, from one who has had the ill
luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business,[467] this of
being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap. A
golden text for these gentlemen is that which I admire in the
Buddhist,[468] who never thanks, and who says, "Do not flatter your
benefactors."

5. The reason of these discords I conceive to be, that there is no
commensurability between a man and any gift. You cannot give anything
to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts
you in debt by his magnanimity. The service a man renders his friend
is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend
stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve
his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my
friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small.
Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so
incidental and at random, that we can seldom hear the acknowledgments
of any person who would thank us for a benefit, without some shame and
humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct stroke, but must be content
with an oblique one; we seldom have the satisfaction of yielding a
direct benefit, which is directly received. But rectitude scatters
favors on every side without knowing it, and receives with wonder the
thanks of all people.

6. I fear to breathe any treason against the majesty of love, which is
the genius and god of gifts, and to whom we must not affect to
prescribe. Let him give kingdoms or flower-leaves indifferently. There
are persons from whom we always expect fairy tokens; let us not cease
to expect them. This is prerogative, and not to be limited by our
municipal rules. For the rest, I like to see that we cannot be bought
and sold. The best of hospitality and of generosity is also not in the
will, but in fate. I find that I am not much to you; you do not need
me; you do not feel me; then am I thrust out of doors, though you
proffer me house and lands. No services are of any value, but only
likeness. When I have attempted to join myself to others by services,
it proved an intellectual trick--no more. They eat your service like
apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel for you, and
delight in you all the time.

NATURE[469]

The rounded world is fair to see,
Nine times folded in mystery:
Though baffled seers cannot impart
The secret of its laboring heart,
Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast,
And all is clear from east to west.
Spirit that lurks each form within
Beckons to spirit of its kin;
Self-kindled every atom glows,
And hints the future which it owes.

1. There are days[470] which occur in this climate, at almost any
season of the year, wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the
air, the heavenly bodies, and the earth, make a harmony, as if nature
would indulge her offspring; when, in these bleak upper sides of the
planet, nothing is to desire that we have heard of the happiest
latitudes, and we bask in the shining hours of Florida and Cuba; when
everything that has life gives sign of satisfaction, and the cattle
that lie on the ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts. These
halcyons[471] may be looked for with a little more assurance in that
pure October weather, which we distinguish by the name of Indian
Summer.[472] The day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills
and warm wide fields. To have lived through all its sunny hours,