The Conduct Of Life Book

This is a book Emerson wrote in the latter years of his career, and it really shows how much he's changed both as a person and in his philosophy. He's become more balanced, more practical, less radical, less idealistic. You can't find a more practical topic than the conduct of life! Some of these essays, like Behavior, in which he discusses the importance of proper etiquite, is a 180 from his earlier writings.

The classic Emerson is still noticeable in this book. In Fate, he argues how there are general tendencies and laws in all parts of nature and human conduct, which on a large enough scale serves as a sort of fate even though the individual still has free will. Considerations comes the closest to classic Emerson, with lines like "Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them." The book ends with the dreamy, speculative Emerson of the early years. Noticeably missing is Emerson's iconic eloquence. Every line of his early writing was like a line of poetry. This book is eloquent, but not nearly as eloquent as his early writing.

So there's a reason why all Emerson quotes come from his early writing, which was profound, poetic, and radical. I find it interesting that most people would say they value balance and maturity, and yet they find themselves most inspired by radical, idealistic philosophy. People seem to get most fired up by ideas they have no intention to live up to, from thinkers who themselves didn't live up to them. Isn't that odd?

This is a good book, and maybe it's sad that a writer has to have all of their writing meticulously compared with their early writing. After a writer makes their mark with something profound, they are expected to never change, which is silly and unreasonable. But we readers can't help it. We've come to expect a certain quality from a writer, and feel disappointed if later work is not as good as earlier works.