The American Scholar

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a very gifted writer, so good that his writing can be difficult to understand. One passage that stood out was when the school boy and the day were being compared and saying that they came from one root.  The school boy and day were symbolic of a leaf and a flower.  The root seems like it is the world itself, producing both man and time.  Man should respect nature and value it.  Nature and man have more in common then the man may realize, nature is the mind of the man.  This passage was difficult to follow because of all of the symbolism and way the sentences were written.