Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-09-01
An Emersonian, Essay on Culture.

Waldo Emerson, in the Atlantic Monthly, we
make these extracts:
Akin to the benefit of foreign travel. the
aesthetic value Of railroads is to unite the
advantages of town and country life neither
of which we can spare. A man should live
in or uear-A large town, because, let his own
genius be what Il may, II will repel quite as
much of agreeable and valuable talent as it
draws, and, ip a city, the total attraction of
all the citizens is sure to conquer, first or
last every repulsion, and drag the NEST inn
probable hermit within its walls some day
In the year. In town he can find the swim
ming-school, the gymnasium, the dancing
master, the shooting-galery, opera, theatcr
and panorama the, chemists shop the mu-
scum of natural history, the gallery of fue
arts, the national orators in their turn. for
eign travellers, the libraries, and his club. In
the country be can find solitude and reading
manly labor, cheap living, and his old shoes,
moors for game, hills for geology, and
groves for devotion. Aubrey writes, 81
have heard Thomas Hobbies say, that in the
Earl of Devon's house, in Derbyshire, there
was good library and books enough for
him, and his LOrdship stored the library
with what books 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 Q moss on them, like an
old paling in an orchard"
Cities give us collision. 'Tis said, London
and New York take the nonsense out of a
man. A great part of our education is SYM
pathetic and social. Boys and girls who
have been brought up with well-informed
and superior people show in their manners
an inestimable grace. Fuller says, that
EQr IF
from the King of Spain every time he put
off his hat" You can not have one we'll
bred man without whole society of such.
They keep each other up to any high point.
Especially women: il requires great many
cultivated women-sal0ons of bright, ele-
CANT reading women, accustomed to ease
and refinement to spectacles, pictures,
sculpture, poetry, and to elegant society-in
order that you should have one Madame de
Stael. The head of 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 businessmen of each
seetion-and one can hardly suggest for an
apprehensiye man more searching culture
Besides, we must remember the high social
possibilities of a million of men The hest
bribe which London 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 romantic character to
exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the
hero may hope TO confront their counter
parts. g"
wish cities would teach their best les
son-ofq quiet manners. 1t is the foible es-
pecially of American youth-pretension.
The mark of the man of the world is absence
ofpretension. He does not make a speech; he
takes a low business-tone, avoids ali brag, is
nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at ALL
performs much, speaks in monosyllables,
hugs his fact. He calls his employment by
IFS lowest name, and so takes from evil
tongues their sharpest weapon. His con-
veTsation clines TO the weather and the news,
yet be allows himself TO be surprised into
thought, and the unlocking of his learning
and philosophy. How the Imagination is
piqued by anecdotes ofsome great man pass
ing ipcognitO, as king in gray clothesi-of
Napoleon affecting plain suit at his glitter
ing levee-of Bprns, or Scott, or Beethoven,
or Wellington. or Goethe, or any container
OF transceDdent power, passing for nobody
OF Epeminondas, HWho never saws auy thing
but will listen eternallyr'-of Goethe, who
preferred trifing subjects and common ex-
pressions in intercourse with strangers, worse
rather than better clothes, and to appear a
little more capricious than he wasl There
are advantages in the old hat and box-coat.
have heard that, throughout this country,
certain respect is paid to good broaacl0th
but dress makes little restraint; men will
not commit themselves. But the box-coat is
like wiDe; Il unlocks The tongue, and men
say what they think. Az old poet says:
SEQ far and 90 Hparing;
For you'll find ID certain,
The poorer and the baser you APPEAR
The more you'll !, ok through stil"'
Not much more otherwise Mines writes in
the "LRy Of the Humble
.sTc me men are tr what they are,
They wear no msshs with me-"
Tis odd that our people should have, not
water on the brain, but little gas there.
sbrewd foreigner said OF the Americans,
that "whateyer they say has a little air of a
speech" Yet one of the traits down in the
books rs distinguishing The Anglo-Saxon, is
a trick Of seli7disparaeement. To he sure,
in old, dense countries, among a million of
good coats, fine coat comes to be no dis.
tinction, and you find humorists. In an
English party, man with no marked man
ners OF features with face like red dough
unexpectedly discioses wit. learning, wide
range of topics, and personal familiarity with
good men in all parts of the world, until you
think you have fallen upon some illuStrious
pefCnaRe. Can II be that the American
forest has refreshed some weeds of old Pict-
lsh 1arnaIi' m just ready TO die out-the love
of the scarlet feather, Of beads. and tinsel?
The Italians are fond of red clothes. peaeocIx-
plumes. sndembroideryi and rememher, one
rainy LncrBibR IN the city of Palermo the
street was ip blaze with scarlet umbrellas.
The english have plain taste. The euui-
pages Of the graDdees are plain.
gorgeous livery Indicates new and awk-
ward city-wealth Mr. Pitt, like Mr.. Pym.
thought the title of Mister" good against
any king IN Europe, They have piquei
themselves on governing the whole world in
the poor, plain, dark committee room which
the H0ust OiCommons sat in before the FIRE.
bile We want cities as the centers where
the best things are found, cities degrade as
by 1Dagnifying tri6es. The countryman
finds the town a cbop-honse, a barber shop
He has lost the lines Of grandeur Of the horf
zon, hills and plalns, and with them, sobriety
and elevation he hascome among supple,
glib-foBeped tribe, who LIVE for show. seryile
TO public opinion. Life Is dragged down 10
fraeas ofpitifnT cares aad disasters You
say the gods 0ughtfQ iespeet a Me whose
objects ere their own; but In cities they haze
hetrnyed yeu % a cloud of iinsigniacaat aa-
n'gAnees. q. - ~ AEe - -
KOssuth and Klapka, Aad dlalArge body of
Hungarian. refpgees The laifer miliisrily