...to occupy: never, to borrow from Bloom's preferred precursor, "in the instant of repose," but always "in the moment of transition from a past to a new...the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim" (Emerson 1957, 158). In this context, "influence" indeed becomes a term applicable to other voices...

...since its power derives from its own internal movements. To repeat Emerson in "Self-Reliance," "power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state." James's pragmatism looks back to the two American writers he most admired — Emerson with his transitions,...

...freedom from the positive. This objection is like something Emerson likes to say, as in "Self- Reliance": "This one fact the world hates; that the soul becomes; for that . . . shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside") The taint of villainy functions to acknowledge a background...

...(CW, 1:128). This translation is thinking, one that maintains its power by perpetuation, for "power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state" (CW, 2:4.0). But that perpetuation takes the form of permutation, of change from state to state, from...

...knew something about power too: "Power ceases in the instant of repose. It resides in the movement of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim."20 Not theoretical, not political, enough? Exactly so, 19 KSi. 20 Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance,"...

...architectural projections of an idea that preoccupied Emerson in all his work — the famous idea that "power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state" (CW2:40). What Emerson said of Plato's dialectic, he could as well have said of the passages: that...

...historical poetics, it coincides with what he calls "Power." As he explains in "Self-Reliance": "Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from the past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim" (W, 2: 69). Or, as...

...present, and what is called life and what is called death. Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the...fact the world hates; that the soul becomes; for that forever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame, confounds the saint...

...American imaginations. Emerson provides one key formulation of the metaphor in "Self-Reliance": "Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the...the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim" (EL 271). Repose is a figure here for the deadening grip of habit. Once we settle into a condition...

...present, to seize the day. "Life only avails, not the having lived," he says in "Self-Reliance." "Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the...from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf."16 Nature for Emerson was a theory of the nature of things - how things are; it was a guide to...