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Gifts: An Essay
Gifts: An Essay
Introductory Note
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, Mass., on May 25, 1803, the son
of a prominent Unitarian minister. He was educated at the Boston Latin School
and at Harvard College, from which he graduated at eighteen. On leaving
college he taught school for some time, and in 1825 returned to Cambridge to
study divinity. The next year he began to preach; and in 1829 he married Ellen
Tucker, and was chosen colleague to the Rev. Henry Ware, minister of the
historic church in Hanover Street, Boston. So far things seemed to be going
well with him: but in 1831 his wife died, and in the next year scruples about
administering the Lord`s Supper led him to give up his church. In sadness and
poor health he set out in December on his first visit to Europe, passing
through Italy, Switzerland, and France to Britain, and visiting Landor,
Coleridge, Wordsworth, and, most important of all, Carlyle, with whom he laid
the foundation of a life-long friendship. On his return to America he took
up lecturing, and he continued for nearly forty years to use this form of
expression for his ideas on religion, politics, literature, and philosophy. In
1835 he bought a house in Concord, and took there his second wife, Lidian
Jackson. The history of the rest of his life is uneventful, as far as external
incident is concerned. He traveled frequently giving lectures; took part in
founding in 1840 the Dial, and in 1857 the Atlantic Monthly, to both of which
he contributed freely, and the former of which he edited for a short time;
introduced the writings of Carlyle to America, and published a succession of
volumes of essays, addresses, and poems. He made two more visits to Europe,
and on the earlier delivered lectures in the principal towns of England and
Scotland. He died at Concord on April 27, 1882, after a few years of failing
memory, during which his public activities were necessarily greatly reduced.
At the time of Emerson`s death, he was recognized as the foremost writer
and thinker of his country; but this recognition had come only gradually. The
candor and the vigor of his thinking had led him often to champion unpopular
causes, and during his earlier years of authorship his departures from
Unitarian orthodoxy were viewed with hostility and alarm. In the Abolitionist
movement also he took a prominent part, which brought him the distinction of
being mobbed in Boston and Cambridge. In these and other controversies,
however, while frank in his opinions, and eloquent and vigorous in his
expression of them, he showed a remarkable quality of tact and reasonableness,
which prevented the opposition to him from taking the acutely personal turn
which it assumed in relation to some of his associates, and which preserved to
him a rare dignity.
Recognition of his eminence has not been confined to his countrymen.
Carlyle in Britain and Hermann Grimm in Germany were only leaders of a large
body of admirers in Europe, and it may be safely said that no American has
exerted in the Old World an intellectual influence comparable to that of
Emerson.
Gifts
Gifts of one who loved me, -
`Twas high time they came;
When he ceased to love me,
Time they stopped for shame.
It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world
owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into chancery, and
be sold. I do not think this general insolvency, which involves in some sort
all the population, to be the reason of the difficulty experienced at
Christmas and New Year, and other times, in bestowing gifts; since it is
always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts. But the
impediment lies in the choosing. If, at any time, it comes into my head, that
a present is due from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the
opportunity is gone. Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers,
because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the
utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern
countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a work-
house. Nature does not cocker us; we are children, not pets. She is not fond;
everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws.
Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of love and
beauty. Men use to tell us that we love flattery, even though we are not
deceived by it, because 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, 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.
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 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. 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 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. This 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, or payment
of black-mail.
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
giver. 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 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.
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, 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, this of being served, and the
debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap. A golden text for these gentlemen
is that which I so admire in the Buddhist, who never thanks, and who says, "Do
not flatter your benefactors."
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 goodwill 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.
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 you, and delight in you all
the time.
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