Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, May 25, 1803. He was descended
from a long line of New England ministers, men of refinement and
education. As a school-boy he was quiet and retiring, reading a great
deal, but not paying much attention to his lessons. He entered Harvard
at the early age of fourteen, but never attained a high rank there,
although he took a prize for an essay on Socrates, and was made class
poet after several others had declined. Next to his reserve and the
faultless propriety of his conduct, his contemporaries at college
seemed most impressed by the great maturity of his mind. Emerson
appears never to have been really a boy. He was always serene and
thoughtful, impressing all who knew him with that spirituality which
was his most distinguishing characteristic.