名人轶事:Ralph Waldo Emerson

（单词翻译）

By Richard Thorman

25 Sep 2004, 20:22 UTC

Broadcast: September 26, 2004

(THEME)

VOICE ONE:

I'm Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA.

Today we tell about the life of Nineteenth Century philosopher¹ and writer

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

VOICE ONE:

The United States had won its independence from Britain just twenty-two years

before Ralph Waldo Emerson was born. But it had yet to win its cultural

independence. It still took its traditions from other countries, mostly from

western Europe.

What the American Revolution did for the nation's politics, Emerson did for

its culture.

When he began writing and speaking in the eighteen thirties, conservatives²

saw him as radical³ -- wild and dangerous. But to the young, he spoke⁴ words of

self-dependence -- a new language of freedom. He was the first to bring them

a truly American spirit.

He told America to demand its own laws and churches and works⁵. It is through

his own works that we shall look at Ralph Waldo Emerson.

VOICE TWO:

Ralph Waldo Emerson's life was not as exciting as the lives of some other

American writers -- Herman Melville, Mark Twain or Ernest Hemingway. Emerson

traveled to Europe several times. And he made speeches at a number of places

in the United States. But, except for those trips, he lived all his life in

the small town of Concord⁶, Massachusetts.

He once said that the shortest books are those about the lives of people with

great minds. Emerson was not speaking about himself. Yet his own life proves

the thought.

VOICE ONE:

Emerson was born in the northeastern city of Boston, Massachusetts, in

eighteen oh three. Boston was then the capital of learning⁷ in the United

States.

Emerson's father, like many of the men in his family, was a minister of a

Christian⁸ church. When Emerson was eleven years old, his father died. Missus

Emerson was left with very little money to raise her five sons.

After several more years in Boston, the family moved to the nearby town of

Concord. There they joined Emerson's aunt, Mary Moody⁹ Emerson.

VOICE TWO:

Emerson seemed to accept the life his mother and aunt wanted for him. As a

boy, he attended Boston Latin¹⁰ School. Then he studied at Harvard University.

For a few years, he taught in a girls' school started by one of his brothers.

But he did not enjoy this kind of teaching¹¹. For a time, he wondered what he

should do with his life. Finally, like his father, he became a religious

minister. But he had questions about his beliefs and the purpose of his life.

VOICE ONE:

In eighteen thirty-one, Ralph Waldo Emerson resigned as the minister of his

church because of a minor¹² religious issue. What really troubled him was

something else.

It was his growing belief that a person could find God without the help of an

organized church. He believed that God is not found in systems and words, but

in the minds of people. He said that God in us worships¹³ God.

Emerson traveled to Europe the following year. He talked about his ideas with

the best-known European writers and thinkers of his time. When he returned to

the United States, he married and settled in Concord. Then he began his life

as a writer and speaker.

VOICE TWO:
Ralph Waldo Emerson published his first book, Nature, in Eighteen thirty-six.

It made conservatives see him as a revolutionary. But students at Harvard

University liked the book and invited him to speak to them.

His speech, "The American Scholar," created great excitement among the

students. They heard his words as a new declaration¹⁴ of independence -- a

declaration of the independence of the mind.
VOICE ONE:

"Give me an understanding of today's world," he told them, "and you may have

the worlds of the past and the future. Show me where God is hidden...as

always...in nature. What is near explains what is far. A drop of water is a

small ocean. Each of us is a part of all of nature."

Emerson said a sign of the times was the new importance given to each person.

"The world," he said, "is nothing. The person is all. In yourself is the law

of all nature."

Emerson urged students to learn directly from life. He told them, "Life is

our dictionary." #p#副标题#e#

VOICE TWO:

The following year, Emerson was invited to speak to students and teachers at

the Harvard religious school. In his speech, he called for moral¹⁵ and

spiritual rebirth. But his words shocked members of Harvard's traditional

Christian church. He said churches treated religion as if God were dead.

"Let mankind stand forevermore," he said, "as a temple returned to greatness

by new love, new faith, new sight."

Church members who heard him speak called him a man who did not believe in

God. Almost thirty years passed before Harvard invited Emerson to speak there

again.

VOICE ONE:

Away from Harvard, Emerson's speeches became more and more popular. He was

able to make his living by writing and speaking. "Do you understand Mister¹⁶

Emerson?" a Boston woman asked her servant. "Not a word," the servant

answered. "But I like to go and see him speak. He stands up there and looks

as if he thought everyone was as good as he was."

Many people, especially the young, did understand Emerson. His ideas seemed

right for a new country just beginning to enjoy its independence -- a country

expanding in all directions.

Young people agreed with Emerson that a person had the power within himself

to succeed at whatever he tried. The important truth seemed to be not what

had been done, but what might be done.

VOICE TWO:

In a speech called "Self-Reliance" Ralph Waldo Emerson told his listeners,

"Believe your own thoughts, believe that what is true for you in your private

heart is true for all men."

Emerson said society urges us to act carefully. This, he said, restricts¹⁷ our

freedom of action. "It is always easy to agree," he said. "Yet nothing is

more holy than the independence of your own mind. Let a person know his own

value. Have no regrets. Nothing can bring you peace but yourselves."

VOICE ONE:

The eighteen fifties were not a peaceful time for America. The nation was

divided by a bitter argument about slavery.


Most people in the South defended slavery. They believed the agricultural

economy of the South depended on Negro¹⁸ slaves. Most people in the North

condemned¹⁹ slavery. They believed it was wrong for one man to own another.

Emerson was not interested in debates or disputes²¹. But he was prepared to

defend truth, as he saw it.

Emerson believed that the slaves should be freed. But he did not take an

active part in the anti-slavery movement. All his beliefs about the

individual opposed the idea of group action -- even group action against

slavery.

As the dispute²⁰ became more intense²², however, Emerson finally, quietly, added

his voice to the anti-slavery campaign. When one of his children wrote a

school report about building a house, he said no one should build a house

without a place to hide runaway²³ slaves.

VOICE TWO:

Emerson's health began to fail in the early eighteen seventies. His house was

partly destroyed by fire. He and his wife escaped. But the shock was great.

Friends gave him money to travel to Egypt with his daughter. While he was

gone, they rebuilt his house.

Emerson returned to Concord. But his health did not improve. He could no

longer work. In April, eighteen eighty-two, he became sick with pneumonia²⁴. He

died on April twenty-seventh. He was seventy-nine years old.

VOICE ONE:

Ralph Waldo Emerson's death was national news. In Concord and other places,

people hung black cloth on houses and public buildings as a sign of mourning.

His friends in Concord walked to the church for his funeral service. They

carried branches of the pine trees that Emerson loved.

After the funeral, Ralph Waldo Emerson was buried in Concord near the graves²⁵

of two other important early American writers -- Henry David Thoreau and

Nathaniel Hawthorne.

(THEME)

VOICE TWO:

This Special English program was written by Richard Thorman. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Shirley Griffith. Join us again next week for another People in

America program on the Voice of America.