I dreamed that I floated at will in the great Ether, and I saw this world floating also not far off but diminished to the size of an apple.

Then an angel took it in his hand and brought it to me and said, 'This must thou eat.'

And I ate the world.

Sources and Dates: Michael Dirda's Bound to Please (p.119), reviewing the biography Emerson: The Mind on Fire, by R.D. Richardson, 1995 (no page given for dream); online quotes attribute it to The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson v.7, page 525. Sadly, my library lacks vol. 7, but says it covers 1838-1842, so the dream can't be before Jan. 1838; and though I can't locate the full dream in Mind on Fire, page 329 quotes a manuscript referring to it, which Richardson dates to Nov. 1839.

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