Lidian Jackson Emerson, “Transcendental Bible” (1841?)

Abstract LIDIAN JACKSON EMERSON (1802–1892), Waldo’s second wife, married him in 1835. Waldo changed her name from “Lydia” to “Lidian” upon their marriage, probably because the New England pronunciation of “Lydia Emerson” was awkward. Although she was quoted by a friend as saying Unitarianism was “cold and hard, with scarcely a firmament above it,” she was more religiously orthodox than her husband, and often expressed her concern that he had strayed too far from traditional Christianity in his personal religious quest. Her humorous comments show her wariness about how the “higher” faculties of the Transcendentalists may be leaving the heart behind as their heads seek the clouds.