An encouraging word from Emerson

My friend Emerson (and he is a friend, though we live so far apart in time) lends reassurance across the years, this morning, via Emphatically Emerson, page 174. Writing in 1848, he says:

“Happy is he who looks only into his work to know if it will succeed, never into the times or public opinion; and who writes from the love of imparting certain thoughts and not from the necessity of sale — who writes always to the unknown friend.”

It could have been written this day expressly for me, the writer of books that few buy but some few treasure — or for you, regardless whether you write or blog or speak and regardless whether you have an audience.

Or, to paraphrase Henry Thoreau, “write not the times; write the eternities.”

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