Self-Reliance

[m_ice]

Can somone answer the questions regarding the expert:

“There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but though his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is not which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that diving idea which each of us represents.”

Taken from “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Emerson


1. What is the tone?
2. What is the writer attitude?
3. What does the writer expect from the reader?

Thanks alot...

[lep250]

Hello,

Emerson expects the reader to figure out his/her own vocation by following his/her intuition. He believed that each person has something unique to bring to the table, but is is one's responsibility to earnestly figure that out instead of doing what is expected since it is the easier route.