English Traits Summary and Analysis

This lengthy essay is the result of two trips Emerson made to England, in 1833 and 1847. On his first trip, he was unknown and unpublished but made friends with many English writers including William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. On his second trip as a published author, he was warmly received. He notes in his essay that the modern English race is a polyglot of Anglo-Saxons, Romans, French, Danish and Celtic strains and through this admixture a hardy, durable race has emerged. Emerson links race to various civilizations around the world, but then acknowledges that race is fluid and not an accurate measurement of human capabilities. Seven hundred-year-old bronze monuments of crusaders at English churches show the same faces as those of modern English—"an expression blending good nature, valor and refinement."

While the Englishman is of a happy...