[Footnote 71:  The moon.  The tides are caused by the attraction of the moon and the sun.  The attraction of the moon for the water nearest the moon is somewhat greater than the attraction of the earth’s center.  This causes a slight bulging of the water toward the moon and a consequent high tide.]

[Footnote 72:  Emerson frequently omits the principal verb of his sentences as here:  “In a century there may exist one or two men.”]

[Footnote 73:  This obscurely constructed sentence means:  “For their acquiescence in a political and social inferiority the poor and low find some compensation in the immense moral capacity thereby gained.”]

[Footnote 74:  “They” refers to the hero or poet mentioned some twenty lines back.]

[Footnote 75:  Comprehendeth.  Here used in the original sense to include.  The perfect man should be so thoroughly developed at every point that he will possess a share in the nature of every man.]

[Footnote 76:  By the Classic age is generally meant the age of Greece and Rome; and by the Romantic is meant the middle ages.]

[Footnote 77:  Introversion.  Introspection is the more usual word to express the analytic self-searching so common in these days.]

[Footnote 78:  Second thoughts.  Emerson uses the word here in the same sense as the French arriere-pensee, a mental reservation.]

[Footnote 79: 

“And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”
Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 1.

]

[Footnote 80:  Movement.  The French Revolution.]

[Footnote 81:  Let every common object be credited with the diviner attributes which will class it among others of the same importance.]

[Footnote 82:  Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774).  An eminent English poet and writer.  He is best known by the comedy “She Stoops to Conquer,” the poem “The Deserted Village,” and the “Vicar of Wakefield.”  “Of all romances in miniature,” says Schlegel, the great German critic, “the ‘Vicar of Wakefield’ is the most exquisite.”  It is probably the most popular English work of fiction in Germany.]

[Footnote 83:  Robert Burns (1759-1796).  A celebrated Scottish poet.  The most striking characteristics of Burns’ poetry are simplicity and intensity, in which he is scarcely, if at all, inferior to any of the greatest poets that have ever lived.]

[Footnote 84:  William Cowper (1731-1800).  One of the most popular of English poets.  His poem “The Task” was probably more read in his day than any poem of equal length in the language.  Cowper also made an excellent translation of Homer.]

[Footnote 85:  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).  The most illustrious name in German literature; a great poet, dramatist, novelist, philosopher, and critic.  The Germans regard Goethe with the same veneration we accord to Shakespeare.  The colossal drama “Faust” is the most splendid product of his genius, though he wrote a large number of other plays and poems.]