Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson.1860â?"1866

The Civil War is a pervasive presence in the journals in this volume. "The war searches character," Emerson wrote. Both his reading and his writing reflected his concern for the endurance of the nation, whose strength lay in the moral strength of the people. He read military biographies and memoirs, while turning again to Persian, Chinese, and Indian literature. The deaths of Clough, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and his aunt Mary Moody Emerson prompted him to reread their letters and journals, remembering and reappraising.< /p>