Norwich bulletin., 1922-07-26
Famous Literary Mysteries
WHO WROTE THIS EPIGRAMq


 For years a controversy has been go- ing on as to who was the author of the following epigram:
 If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon or make a pet- ter mouse trap than his neighb9:, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make beaten path to his door,
 For many years this erigram was credited to Emerson. Everybody see-l- ed to take for granted that he had writ ten it.. or said it, but as all of Emerson'g essays and speeches have been printed, researchers were unable to find 1t ainorg his writings. nor was there produced any authority to show that he had ac.- uallyzwritten 1t more than that, it was along the clever style of the famous essayist.
 Then someone suddenly discovere1 ] that a New York preacher had used t in his sermon, and Dr. Paxton was credited with being the source of tins popular epigram. When this new source was brought out the Emersonites. who had believed that to their idol belonged the credit for a quarter of a century, again got busy searching his works to find it. Then Fra Elbertus, of East Aurora fame, entered the arena anl stated, as there had been so much con troveFsy as to the author, he was will 1 ing to father it.
 Mrs. Sarah S. B. Yule in a book en- titled Borrowings" which was compil- ed in 1889, credits the remarks to En- erson, but she does not state where ;t l is to be found, and she was probably 1 only following out a general impression. In recent years, however, the credit has 1 been given to Dr. John B. Paxton, who was pastor of the West Presbyterian church, New York city, from 1882 to 1 1883.
 The authority for this discovery is Calvin Dill Wilson, of Glendale, Ohio While Mir. Wilson could not say jus.
 where it was to be found, he was ot the impression that it had been puE-
 lished in the Treasury Magazine in 1883 1 and that it occurred in a sermon CT. i titled "The Unbid9en Christ"
 1 Copies of this magazine are still ir existence. and upon examination the l nearest approach that could be faunf I to the originol in any of pr. Paxton. sermons was the following: | You may begin business in any ob i scure place but if there is ability power and a mastery of affairs in you
 then all the steamboats on the rivel will whistle for you and the railroads I say come over and manage us. Yoi
 cannot be hid. On the other hand, i \ you have nothing the world wants, ]; you have no power to paint piceur or manage business, you are hidden
 already. You may live in your fron windows and drive on Fifth avenuG but you are hid"
 While this quotation expresses
 similar thought, it is not nearly S clever as the original Recently the- appears the xJournals of Emers or f never before published, and in ther appears on page 52S of Volume 8, GOV . ering Emerson's journal written i 1855, the following memorandum, io, ted down by the Sage of Concord: If a man has grown corn. or WOO,
 or boars, or pigs, to sell or can max
 better chairs and knives, crucibles q
 church organs than anybody else, yo
 will find broad, well-beaten road ol hls house, though it be in the wood f And if man knows the law, peo5, will find it out though he live in pine shanty, and resort to him" q This is nearer the actual quota Ii 3l but the Journal does not use the wor
 mouse trap" It so closely paralIe
 the quotation which Mrs Yule creGit
 to him in her book of Borrowings : however, and which, to the best of ht ' memory and belief, she copied into hs s. handbook from an address delivered |
 Emerson that it would seem to estabIi> r Emersons authorship beyond reasonab ;-i doubt.