“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

On this day in 1803, Ralph Waldo Emerson was born. He would later go by his middle name, Waldo. This child, born right after the turn of the century, would go on to become one of America’s famous poets. His early life was filled with tragedy and loss, as many were during those years. It would take him on a journey into the ministry and after the death of his first wife, Ellen, at the early age of 20 years old, Emerson would begin to question the teachings of his church. Eventually he would leave the ministry and follow the latest trend – Transcendentalism – a specific movement in philosophy that started in the United States in  the early 1830s. This movement depended on the individuals’ capabilities to reach the truth, through their own opinions.

Emerson was a student at Harvard in 1821. After graduating right in the middle of his class, he went on to divinity school to study for the ministry in 1824. His first wife, Ellen died of Tuberculosis – one of the deadliest diseases of the day. Emerson’s mother came to live with her son and his young wife since she was already ill when they married. Ellen’s death deeply affected Emerson. He would visit her tomb regularly.

He was known to be an abolitionist during the Civil War and publicly declared his beliefs. Today he would probably be considered a liberal Democrat. He spent a great portion of his life doing public addresses at schools and to large audiences regarding his thoughts on the subject of slavery and topics of the day.

He married his second wife, Lydia, in 1835. They moved to Concord, Massachusetts and raised their family there. Later in his life, Emerson developed Aphasia, which caused his memory to fail. Eventually he would no longer lecture, because of the embarrassment of that stigma. He died on April 21, 1882, at the age of 79. His poetry would allow him to live on through the legacy of his words

Good-by, Proud World!
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Good-by, proud world! I’m going home:
Thou art not my friend, and I’m not thine.
Long through the weary crowds I roam;
A river ark on the ocean brine,
Long I’ve been tossed like the driven foam;
But now, proud world! I’m going home.

Good-by to Flattery’s fawning face;
To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
To upstart Wealth’s averted eye;
To supple Office, low and high;
To crowded halls, to court and street;
To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
To those who go, and those who come;
Good-by, proud world! I’m going home.

I’m going to my own hearthstone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone, –
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green, the livelong day,
Echo the blackbird’s roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and pride of man,
At the sophist schools and the learned clan;
For what are they all, in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?