Ralph Waldo Emerson (Boston, 1803 - 1882, Concord, Massachusetts)
The Method of Nature, 1841
Ink on paper in leather binding, 26 x 28.5 x 1.5 cm (10 1/4 x 11 1/4 x 9/16 in.)
Blue Room
Commentary
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a central figure in the Transcendentalist movement. His writing is synonymous with its progressive social values and spiritual identification with the natural environment. This original manuscript contains an address given at a college in Maine in 1841 and shows signs of the author’s own edits. Isabella Stewart Gardner displayed this manuscript alongside materials related to other important American authors, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman, in the Blue Room.