Painted portrait of Emerson with dark swept hair, in a black coat and stock, against a deep moss green ground

Portraits · Philosophers & essayists · XI of XII

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803–1882 · Essayist and poet

The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson · lecture, New England Reformers, 1844

Ralph Waldo Emerson said this in a lecture in Boston in March 1844, printed the same year in his Essays: Second Series.

He gives the words to the Law of the world: work in every hour, paid or unpaid, whether you plant corn or write epics, and you cannot escape the reward.

'New England Reformers', a lecture read at Amory Hall, Boston, 3 March 1844, in Essays: Second Series (Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1844), first edition, p. 311.

The originals

Sepia photograph of Emerson in a dark coat and high collar — **The likeness**PHOTOGRAPHED BY JOSIAH JOHNSON HAWES · 1857Our portrait is painted after it.Public domain (1857 daguerreotype by Southworth & Hawes, Boston; albumen print 1880).

A handwritten letter on folded paper, dated Concord, 24 February 1870, and signed R. W. Emerson — **A letter from Concord, 1870**A letter written at Concord on 24 February 1870 to Richard Henry Dana, signed R. W. Emerson.Autograph letter to Richard Henry Dana, Concord, 24 February 1870. Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site (Dana family papers), via NPGallery, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.