Concerned initially with how we reflect on solitude, the stars, and the grandeur of nature, this chapter turns from the universal world, symbolized in the stars that Emerson views at night, and focuses on how we perceive objects around us. Emerson speaks of the landscape in which he walks and how he, as a poet, can best integrate all that he sees. What is most important in this sequence is the similar ways we perceive the various objects — stars, the landscape, and the poet.
Emerson's gazing at stars is an example of nightly rediscovering the eternal — making each experience new — and continues the theme of progress from the introduction. Added to this theme is a second one, the theme of accessibility. Using stars as symbols of the universe, Emerson states that we take stars for granted because they are always present in our lives, no matter where we live. However, although they are accessible because we can see them, they are also inaccessible: Their distance from us makes them more elusive than we might imagine.
Emerson then moves from commenting on the faraway stars to discussing the immediate landscape around him. Creating a bond between stars and the landscape, he furthers the theme of a chain linking everything in the universe. Just as stars are accessible to all who will take the time to gaze at them, so too is the everyday landscape around us. Recalling the farms he sees while walking, Emerson encourages us to perceive nature as an integrated whole — and not merely as a collection of individual objects. He distinguishes between knowing who owns various farms and being able to see a unified landscape vista, of which the farms form but a single part.
