“The force of character is cumulative. All the
foregone days of virtue work their health into this. What makes the majesty of
the heroes of the senate and the field, which so fills the imagination? The
consciousness of a train of great days and victories behind. They shed an
united light on the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of
angels. That is it which throws thunder into Chatham's voice, and dignity into
Washington's port, and America into Adams's eye. Honor is venerable to us because
it is no ephemera. It is always ancient virtue. We worship it to-day because it
is not of to-day. We love it and pay it homage because it is not a trap for our
love and homage, but is self-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an old
immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person.” —U.S.
essayist, poet, philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), "Self-Reliance,"
in Essays, First Series (1841)
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