EMERALD ISLE 8 EMERSON light blue, yellow or white, the colors of the beryl. The finest emeralds are found in Peru, but they occur in various other places. In heraldry, the term designates the green tincture in coat-armor; vert. EMERALD ISLE, an epithet applied to Ireland, from the freshness and bright color of the verdure, produced by the abundant heat and moisture continually reaching it from the Atlantic. This epi- thet was first used by Dr. W. Drennan (1754-1820), in his poem entitled "Erin." EMERALD MOTH, the name given to the genus HipjMrchus; the large emer- ald moth is the Hipparchus papilio- narius. The wings are 2 or 2% inches icross their surface, grass-green, with ■:wo rows of whitish spots, and a green- ish-yellow fringe. Its antennae are red- dish-brown. The caterpillar feeds on the leaves of the elm, the alder, the beech, the lime, etc. The moth is principally found in England and in southern Scotland. EMERITUS (e-mer'i-tus), a name given to Roman soldiers who had ful- filled the legal term of military service. It is now applied in colleges and univer- sities to professors who, after meritori- ous services, are honorably discharged on account of age, etc. EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, an American essayist, poet, and philosopher, born in Boston, May 25, 1803. Seven generations of his ancestors had been clergymen; he inherited a tradition of scholarship and heroic living, and was himself trained to continue the tradition. He knew few pleasures in boyhood; he was quiet and studious, though not bril- liant; he worked his way through Har- vard. In 1829 he was ordained minister of the Second Church of Boston, mar- ried, and settled down, apparently, to the life of his ancestors. After three years, however, he resigned, being unable to follow the forms and ceremonies of the church. He spent a time in Europe, where he was more interested in person- alities than in the sort of thing usually looked for by tourists. He met Carlyle, then unknown, who exerted a profound influence upon him. He brought out Carlyle's books in America, where they had a greater sale than in England, and a lifelong correspondence was carried on by the two friends. In 1835 he returned to Concord, to the Old Manse, where he studied and wrote. For the anniversary of Lexington, April 19, 1836, he composed the hymn which has become famous. He did a little lec- turing, was interested in gardening, bought several tracts of land, studied Nature rather than books. At length he published (1836) his first important book, a slender volume entitled "Nature,'* which, with his oration on the American Scholar (1837) and an address delivered at Dartmouth in 1838, forms an intro- duction to his philosophy. In the first of these he urged the divinity of the soul and its capacity to attain all knowl- edge; the conception of Nature as a gi- gantic shadow of God, able to unlock powers of the soul either as energy or as knowledge; and the idea that God, by these means, teaches the soul directly. Thus each man may build his own world, casting aside external authority and all tradition. In the Harvard address on the American Scholar he puts Nature a3 first of the influences on the scholar's RALPH WALDO EMERSON development; the second influence is the mind of the past, able to inspire and to call forth latent powers, though not to dominate the active soul; the third is action, since the idea that scholarship means seclusion from the world is wrong. The scholar must guide men by showing them realities underneath appearances; he must be free and brave; so shall he help to make a nation of men. The Dart- mouth College address supplements these ideas, especially the belief that the chief duty of the educated man is to project his own soul into the universe — the past, the realm of external nature, the realm
