folly, even to the extent of being ashamed of it.
"But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual; that is, must be elevation. At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door, and say, 'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me, I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near to me but through my act."
In something of an anarchistic mood Emerson declares: "Truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!"
To Emerson, All is One, and the soul in All. In his sketch of Plato he says: "The Same, the Same; friend and foe are of one stuff; the plowman, the plow, and the furrow, are of one stuff; and the stuff is such, and so much, that the variations of forms are unimportant."
He quotes the words of the Hindu divinity, Krishna, spoken to the sage: "You are fit to apprehend that you are not distinct from me. That which I am, thou art; and that also is this world, with its gods, and heroes, and mankind. Men contemplate distinctions, because they are stupefied with ignorance. … The
