Ralph Waldo Emerson

CHAPTER I

THE APPROACH TO EMERSON

“_But, critic, spare thy vanity, Nor show thy pompous parts, To vex with odious subtlety The cheerer of men’s hearts._”

So Emerson writes of the Persian poet Saadi who “sat in the sun” and with smiling lips uttered his thoughts to whosoever chose to listen. He had nothing to prove, nothing to apologize for, nothing to lament.

“Deno...