Upstream: Selected Essays

This essay focuses on the biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson and the lessons that Oliver has gleaned from his life and work. She explains that there are two versions of Emerson: The real-life man, and the mystical figure that has become a mentor for Oliver and others. Emerson believed that a human’s overarching purpose was a moral one. His life experiences led him to this conclusion.

He was born in 1803 in New England, and his childhood was rife with tragedy. His father, two sisters, and one brother died before Emerson had become an adult. Three other brothers died in early adulthood. He attended Harvard College and divinity school before taking a position as a preacher at the Second Church. He fell in love with a woman named Ellen Tucker, who died two years after they were married.

Oliver explains that all this grief turned Emerson away from the outer world, focusing his mind instead on the inner life. He traveled to Europe, where he was touched by its immersive history. When he returned to Concord, he married again and lived out the rest of his days quietly, thinking and writing. Emerson’s writing focused on deep questions with few answers: “Emerson, who does not advance straight ahead but wanders to all sides of an issue; who delivers suggestions with a kindly gesture—who opens doors and tells us to look at things for ourselves” (69).