Emerson’s First Journey to Europe

In October 1832, Emerson resigned as pastor of the Second Church in Boston and sailed for Europe on Christmas Day. Ellen Tucker Emerson, his wife of less than two years, had passed away in 1831 and Emerson was in deep mourning.

Emerson suddenly decided to go to Europe to receive relief from an illness and to hopefully meet with writers he viewed as kindred spirits. It was his first trip to Europe, but not his last – he subsequently made two additional visits.

His ship landed in February on the island of Malta and he stayed in Italy until June. In March he climbed Mt. Vesuvius, writing in his journal, “We got to the top & looked down into the red & yellow pits the navel of this volcano.”

He met with the writer Walter Savage Landor and explored Florence, Rome, Venice and Milan. In Paris he visited the Jardin des Plantes. The massive botanical garden had a powerful effect on Emerson. He wrote, “I feel the centipede in me – cayman, carp, eagle, & fox. I am moved by strange sympathies, I say continually ‘I will be a naturalist.’”

When he arrived in England, he sought out the writers Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth and Thomas Carlyle (in Scotland). Coleridge he found “old and preoccupied” and was frustrated that it was very much a one-sided conversation.

Eager to meet Carlyle and Wordsworth, he wrote, “Am I, who have hung over their works in my chamber at home, not to see these men in the flesh, and thank them, and interchange some thoughts with them, when I am passing their very doors?” Emerson made the long trek to visit Carlyle at his farm, which was south of Glasgow. The meeting was the start of a lifelong and cherished friendship between the two great writers. Emerson wrote, “The comfort of meeting a man of genius is that he speaks sincerely…”

His final visit was to the acclaimed poet William Wordsworth. While enjoying his visits with Wordsworth and Coleridge, he was less impressed than he expected. Leading him to understand that ‘ordinary’ people could succeed with trust in themselves. A few years later Emerson wrote, “Meek young men grow up in libraries believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote those books.”

Emerson wrote as he waited for his return voyage to America, “I thank the Great God who has led me through this European scene, this last schoolroom in which he as pleased to instruct me…” He continued, “The comfort of meeting men of genius such as these is that they talk sincerely, they feel themselves to be so rich that they are above the meanness of pretending to knowledge which they have not, and they frankly tell you what puzzles them. But Carlyle – Carlyle is so amiable that I love him.”

All quotations are from Emerson’s journals.

The Trip to California

In 1871, Mr. Emerson was invited to join John M. Forbes (Emerson’s daughter Edith’s father-in-law) and family on a train trip to California. Encouraged by his wife Lidian, daughter Ellen and son Edward to make the journey, Emerson left Boston on April 11, 1871. His plan was to combine the trip with some lectures.

The first stop of significance was Salt Lake City, where Emerson met Brigham Young, the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The meeting was brief but Young’s secretary recognized Emerson and remarked, “is this the justly celebrated Ralph Waldo Emerson?” From there the journey continued. They arrived on April 21 in San Francisco. He gave four lectures in San Francisco. Subsequently the party moved on to Yosemite Valley.

He was enthusiastic about California’s beauty, writing home, “if we were all young, -- as some of us are not – we might each of us claim his quarter-section of the Government, & plant grapes & oranges, & and never come back to your east winds & cold summers.” He spent ten days in the Yosemite and Mariposa regions and was filled with admiration of the beautiful mountains and trees.

A young – and as yet relatively unknown – John Muir heard that Emerson was in Yosemite. John Muir was a naturalist, champion of the creation of national parks and a co-founder of the Sierra Club. Muir had read Emerson extensively and was greatly influenced by his writing and requested a meeting, which was held on May 9. Muir then traveled with the Emerson party through Yosemite, giving him more time with the man he so admired.

Muir later wrote of Emerson, “Emerson was the most serene, majestic, sequoia-like soul I ever met. His smile was as sweet and calm as morning light on Mountains. There was a wonderful charm in his presence; his smile, serene eye, his voice, his manner, were all sensed at once by everybody. I felt here was a man I had been seeking. There Sierra, I was sure, wanted to see him, and he must not go before gathering them an interview! A tremendous sincerity was his. He was as sincere as the trees, his eye sincere as the sun.”

On returning to San Francisco, Emerson gave two more lectures before heading home. He arrived back in Concord on May 30. Emerson started a list of “My Men” starting with Thomas Carlyle and ending with John Muir.