of this jejune rule of three faction, the capacities remain. The child asks you for a story and is thankful for the poorest. It is not poor to him, but a symbol all radiant with meaning. The man asks you for leave to be a poet and to paint things as they ought to be for a few hours. The youth asks for a poem. The stupidest wish to go to the theatre. We must have idolatries, mythologies, some swing and verge for the eternal and creative power lying coiled and cramped here, driving us to insanity and crime if it do not find vent."
DOMESTIC LIFE
Mr. Emerson seems to have first treated this subject in a lecture called "Home" in the course on Human Life given in Boston in the winter of 1838-39. A passage from this lecture survives in the present essay and another in that on Education, in Lectures and Biographical Sketches. Probably the same, with suitable changes for an English audience, was the lecture called "Domestic Life," one of the three given in Exeter Hall.
The lecture in its present form was read to Mr. Parker's Society in the Music Hall in Boston, November 13, 1859.
Mr. Emerson was an eminently domestic man, more so than might be inferred from his writings, unless perhaps where in them he speaks of little children. In his home he was loved and loving, a good householder, if a poor farmer. His housekeeping was simple but hospitable. He was esteemed by his neighbors, and, though he served himself by preference, was cared for by servants with affectionate respect.
But by force of character and will he succeeded in keeping
