WorkRalph Waldo Emerson

“Domestic Life" lecture / essay”

"Domestic Life" lecture / essay (delivered c. 1840–43; published in Society and Solitude, 1870) Inferred

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) · delivered c. 1840–43; published in Society and Solitude, 1870

InferredThe first quotation ('Marriage should be a covenant...calm continuing inevitable benefactor') corresponds verbatim to the published text of Emerson's 'Domestic Life' essay (Society and Solitude, 1870),. The second quotation ('Was it not enough that souls should meet in a law...true nuptials of minds') has the unmistakable character of Emerson's journal entries on love and marriage from the early 1840s; it may appear in unpublished journal material rather than the published essay.

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Notebooks

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n.d.—

Notebook 1842

p41

excerpted · quoted · readManuscript page

“Marriage should be a covenant to secure / to either party the sweetness, and the / handsomeness of being a calm continuing / inevitable benefactor to the other" / "Was it not enough that souls should meet / in a law, in a thought, obey the same / love, demonstrate the same idea; / these alone are the true nuptials of / minds,”

Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook 1842." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (90); Box 6.

Inferred The first quotation ('Marriage should be a covenant...calm continuing inevitable benefactor') corresponds verbatim to the published text of Emerson's 'Domestic Life' essay (Society and Solitude, 1870),. The second quotation ('Was it not enough that souls should meet in a law...true nuptials of minds') has the unmistakable character of Emerson's journal entries on love and marriage from the early 1840s; it may appear in unpublished journal material rather than the published essay.

Also on p. 42 Fuller attributes two further sentences to '(W)' = Waldo: 'Genius is usually drest in sickness for a coat' and 'I marry you for better, not for worse / I marry impersonally.' These are also Emerson aphorisms/sayings recorded from conversation or lecture.