Big .emacs files

If you have a big .emacs file you should compile the Lisp into a file (estart.elc, say) by copying ~/.emacs into ~/estart.el (the `.el' extension denotes `Emacs Lisp') then using M-x byte-compile-file on this to create ~/estart.elc (the `.elc' extension denotes `Emacs Lisp Compiled') so that in your .emacs file you can just have (load ``~/estart.elc'').