Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) began his career as a teacher and became an essayist, poet, philosopher and leader of the Transcendentalist movement. He urged his readers to accept fully the truths and beauty emanating from nature, to break from the staid ideas of Continental philosophy and to see the world with fresh eyes. Jeffrey S. Cramer is Curator of Collections at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods.