Life Questions - 1886 Author:Minot Judson Savage Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: pay for her brains as Madame Anderson received for her muscle. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the one man, the one American, that Mr. Whittier says will be sure to be reme... more »mbered for a thousand years, for all his writings, all the magnificent wealth of his poetry and genius, has never received from his publishers so much as Madame Anderson made in a few days walking. Shall we blame the World? Here is the point — what shall we say? Has the world wronged Emerson ? I think not. It seems to me we must answer again just as we did before. There is not a child in Boston that would not pay more to see Punch and Judy than it would to see Hamlet. Shall we find any fault with the child ? We may, if we choose, find fault with the constitution of the universe that determines that the progress of life shall be by development from the simplest things up through childhood to appreciative, large-hearted, large-brained, manhood and womanhood. We may if we will, find fault with the constitution of the universe that determines that the progress of men on earth shall be from the smallest and lowest beginnings, up through the childhood of the race, and only after long ages attain the magnificence of heart and brain that is able to appreciate the highest and grandest things. But so long as the world is in its childhoodstage, so long as the great masses of men are in their childhood stage, we must expect them to be happy with childish things. But Emerson is not wronged. He has his reward. He is receiving it and will receive it in the ages that are to come. Would he exchange those wonderful poems, those marvellous essays, that seer-like insight, that genius of poetic and powerful expression, the place that he holds of love, of worship, in thousands of hearts that are capable of appreciating him — would he exch...« less