Let him not intermeddle with this? What does "this" refer to?

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Context:

He only is fit for this society who is magnanimous; who is sure that greatness and goodness are always economy; who is not swift to intermeddle with his fortunes. Let him not intermeddle with this. Leave to the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the births of the eternal. Friendship demands a religious treatment. We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected. Reverence is a great part of it. Treat your friend as a spectacle. Of course he has merits that are not yours, and that you cannot honor, if you must needs hold him close to your person. Stand aside; give those merits room; let them mount and expand. Are you the friend of your friend's buttons, or of his thought? To a great heart he will still be a stranger in a thousand particulars, that he may come near in the holiest ground. Leave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as property, and to suck a short and all-confounding pleasure, instead of the noblest benefit.

by Emerson

More:
http://www.emersoncentral.com/friendship.htm

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Type: Question • Score: 3 • Views: 604 • Replies: 14

[+3] - Tes yeux noirs - 08/17/2015Ori, you often ask questions like this. We can use demonstratives like this, that, those to point to ideas previously expressed or mentioned. The piece is an extended discussion of...

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@oristarA,

This reads like crap to me.
It is not a worthy text. It is a wordy and self-important text.

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@McTag,

McTag wrote:

This reads like crap to me.
It is not a worthy text. It is a wordy and self-important text.

Emerson was Harvard professor for a time; he was the idol of Andrew Carnegie, whose address - The Road to Success quotes Emerson's famous point -"No one can cheat you from success except yourself".

1 Reply

@oristarA,

Mr Carnegie (another Scot) evidently liked him better than I do.

I suppose it seems odd because it's very old-fashioned prose. I wouldn't bother with it, if I were you. Maybe somebody else will answer your question.

1 Reply

@McTag,

McTag wrote:

Mr Carnegie (another Scot) evidently liked him better than I do.

I suppose it seems odd because it's very old-fashioned prose. I wouldn't bother with it, if I were you. Maybe somebody else will answer your question.

His arguments seem to be meditation-based, while Stephen Hawking's to be science-based. The latter sounds far greater powerful in wisdom and enlightenment to me. Emerson's alone in his thinking journey, while Hawking collects all strengths out of scientific discoveries made by the scientists around the world. Hawking wins!

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Ori, you often ask questions like this. We can use demonstratives like this, that, those to point to ideas previously expressed or mentioned.

The piece is an extended discussion of "Friendship", as the title makes clear.

He only is fit for this society who is magnanimous; who is sure that greatness and goodness are always economy; who is not swift to intermeddle with his fortunes. Let him not intermeddle with this. (I.e. friendship)

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@oristarA,

The link was helpful.

In the example where you're asking what ''this'' refers to, "this" is friendship.

The entire piece is a meditation on friendship.

2 Replies

@ehBeth,

I'm not sure that the word "intermeddle" has been seen since it left Emerson's quill.

Good thing, too.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

The link was helpful.

In the example where you're asking what ''this'' refers to, "this" is friendship.

The entire piece is a meditation on friendship.

Cool.
The beginning of the chapter in the link is a poem, which runs as in the quote below.
I wonder why the author has used "he was fled", but not just "he fled"?

Quote:

Friendship

from Essays: First Series (1841)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs,
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
I fancied he was fled,
And, after many a year,
Glowed unexhausted kindliness
Like daily sunrise there.
My careful heart was free again, �
O friend, my bosom said,
Through thee alone the sky is arched,
Through thee the rose is red,
All things through thee take nobler form,
And look beyond the earth,
And is the mill-round of our fate
A sun-path in thy worth.
Me too thy nobleness has taught
To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden life
Are through thy friendship fair.

1 Reply

@oristarA,

He was fled = he had gone. He was absent. He left, probably in a hurry, hence "fled".
"He fled" does not say enough, on its own.

2 Replies

@McTag,

McTag wrote:

He was fled = he had gone. He was absent. He left, probably in a hurry, hence "fled".
"He fled" does not say enough, on its own.

Thanks.
Who glowed in "And, after many a year,
Glowed unexhausted kindliness
Like daily sunrise there"?
The lover? Or I?

1 Reply

@McTag,

Quote:

He was fled = he had gone

At the time, "he was gone" would have been considered quite natural.

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@oristarA,

Kindliness glowed, unexhausted, like daily sunrise.

1 Reply

@McTag,

McTag wrote:

Kindliness glowed, unexhausted, like daily sunrise.

Whose kindliness then? Mine? Or "the lover's"?

1 Reply

@oristarA,

It's quite a difficult text, to be sure.

Quote:

The lover rooted stays.
I fancied he was fled,
And, after many a year,
Glowed unexhausted kindliness
Like daily sunrise there.
My careful heart was free again,

If you want to assign the kindliness to any one person, it would be the lover I suppose, since "The lover, rooted, stays. I fancied he was fled."
But he wasn't. Hooray.
"My careful heart was free again, "

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Let him not intermeddle with this? What does "this" refer to?

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