As much transitional surface as possible

Vincent Van Gogh Sower with Setting Sun, 1888

 Robert Richardson on Emerson

The combination of a commitment to the work of abolition and the publication of the new book of essays had a revitalizing effect on Emerson, enlivening his reading and sending him ranging ever farther afield. New readings overlapped old, familar books yielded fresh connections with the present, and books from one culture or era became newly applicable in another. This sort of cross-fertilization happened frequently for Emerson. This year, 1844, he gave it a name "croisements," crossings or crossbreeding. Its startling symbols for Emerson were "the seashore, and the taste of two metals in contact, and our enlarged powers. . . at the approach and at the departure of a friend." He felt these crossings or intersections most strongly perhaps in the "experience of poetic creativeness which is not found in staying at home, nor yet in traveling, but n transitions from one to the other." As he tried to court this crossroads experience, so he tried now to manage his whole life so as "to present as much transitional surface as possible." (404)