“Write
it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson, born on this date in 1803, was the
first American to advocate for Americans developing a writing style of their
own; to create “American” writing and not just copy that of their forebears
from other parts of the world.
He was born almost simultaneously with the commissioning of Lewis
and Clark's great expedition into the Louisiana Purchase. Thus,
as the Corps of Discovery was created to
open American frontiers, this great writer and thinker was born to a
similar pathway – only toward discovery of the written word.
Emerson was one of the first writers
to keep journals, influencing his friend Henry David Thoreau to do the
same. Emerson’s lifelong extensive
journals and notes ultimately were published in 16 volumes by Harvard
University Press and are considered to be his key literary works – even
though that was not his intent. “I just
wanted to maintain a record of the things that were important to my life,” he
wrote.
As it turned out, they are things that have
influenced generations of writers both in their content and the practice of
journaling itself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A teacher as well as writer and
scholar, he was a staunch supporter of education for girls and women and helped
found a Massachusetts school for girls.
And, from the mid-1840s on, he was a national leader of the abolitionist
movement. Known for his kindness and
support of others, he said simply, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you
never know how soon it will be too late.”
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