Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-08-28
From the Atlantic Monthly for September.
Culture.
BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Culture.
BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Akin to the benefit of foreign travel, the
aesthetic value of railroads is to unite the ad-
vantages of town and country life, neither of
which we can spare. A man should live in
or near q large town, because, let his own
genius be what it may, it will repel quite as
much of agreeable and valuable talent as it
draws, and, in city the total attraction of all
the citizens is sure to conquer, first or last
every repulsion, and drag the most improbable
hermit within its walls some day in the year
In town he can find the swimming school, the
gymnasium, the dancing master, the shooting
gallery, opera, theater and panorama, the
chemist shop, the museum of natural history,
the gallery OF line arts, the national orators in
their turn, foreign Travellers the libraries, and
his club. In the country he can find solitude
and reading, manly labor, cheap living, and
his old shGes-moors for game, hills for geoo-
gy, and groves for devotion. Aubrey writes,
81 have heard Thomas Hobbies say that in the
Earl of DevOn's house, in Derby shire, there
was good library and books enough for him,
and his lordshp stored the library with v hat
hooks he thought fit to be bought. But the
want OF good conversation was a very great
Inconvenience, and, though he conceived he
could order his thinking as well as another,
yet he found great defect In the country,
in long time, for want of good conversation,
ones understanding and invention contract
moss on them, like an old paing in an
orchard"
Cities give us collision. IT'S said, London
and New York take the nonsense out of a man.
A great part of our education is sympathetic
ana social. Boys and girls who have been
brought up with well informed and superior
people, show in their manners an inestmabe
grace Fuller says, that William, Earl of
tln lyro,r 4
every time he put off his hat" You cannot
have one well bred man without whole soci-
ETY. of such. They keep each other up to any
high point. Especially women it requires a
great many cultivated women, saloons of
bright, elegant, reading women, accustomed
ease and refinement, to spectacles, pictures,
sculpture, poetry, and to elegant society in
order that you should have one Madame dc
Stael. The head of a commercial house, or
leading lawyer or politician, is brought into
daily contact with troops Of men from all parts
OF the country,-and those too, the driving.
wheels, the business men OF each section,-apd
one can hardly suggest for an apprehensiTc
man more searching culture. Besides, we
must remember the high social possibilities of
a million of men. The best bride which Lon
don offers to day to the imagination is, that in
such vast variety of people and conditions,
one can believe there is room for persons of
[oliail'lc cialacter 10 exist ana tnat 'he poet
the sue, anu tlle nero may nope 10 CONFRONT
thtit counteIPalts'
WISH cl!lties would teaeh ther pest les
son,Do quiet manners IL Is Inc loiole es-
Pecially ol Alnelican youtn} Ipretensloh'
Inc marx OF 'nG man Oh Tue woriu Is absence
OF pre'eili1h' ne uoeS not make speech
ne taxes low puslness-tope' aVoluS all Drag
Is hoDouy' dresses Plaihiys promises not an
Perlollis iiucn SPEAKS III ilolloSy l'|oes' mugs
MS lact. ne calls MS enlploymeuC by us low
est naie' anu 80 taxes ilol eVll tongues their
enarpes. weapon. MS onEeIsa'ion clllgs 10
the "e4'hel anu tne news, YET ne allo"s mini
sen 10 De surprised mo lnoqght' ana 'hG I'M
!GcNlls oi ms learning ana piillosophy' NOW
the Inauguration Is plqueu ny anecdotes OF
some great man passing ihcoghlto, as KING IN
gray CLONES or Napoleon Affecting PLAIN
SUIT at MS gltterlhg ievee !-of Burns, or
Scott, or Beethoven, or Wellington, or Goethe,
or any container OF transccndent power, pas
sing for nobody !--ot Lmminondas, who
never say anything, but will listen etenally
OF Goethe, VINO preferred trlfllng subjects and
common expressions in intercourse with
strsnpers Uorsa thor than hottar olotbos
onJ e ,,,,,,oon :, I;.,I. - -: - - -,
anu :" %PPe"l d Httie iioie c@Pi!c tiai nc
J t 7 - IeI - - ~ ''
anu IVA S"al' nave he"Iu 'iia'' tlIouenou'
the country, certain respect is paid to
good broadclOth but dress makes little re-
straint. men will NOT commit themselves But
tba Lnx.coot ;o l;I,a vine. IL IwlnnLs ,Io