tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post179280334688907745..comments2024-03-28T05:13:13.921-04:00Comments on Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Take that!Frank Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18410473158808750903noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-83290537444820814252011-06-21T20:14:21.464-04:002011-06-21T20:14:21.464-04:00Emerson on Austen, "The one problem in the mi...Emerson on Austen, "The one problem in the mind of the writer . . . is marriageableness" reminds me of John Jay Chapman on Emerson:<br /><br />"If we take two steps backward from the canvas of this mortal life and glance at it impartially, we shall see that these matters of love and marriage pass like a pivot through the lives of almost every individual, and are, sociologically speaking, the <i>primum mobile</i>. of the world. The books of any philosopher who slurs them or distorts them will hold up a false mirror to life. If an inhabitant of another planet should visit the earth, he would receive, on the whole, a truer notion of human life by attending an Italian opera than he would by reading Emerson's volumes. He would learn from the Italian opera that there were two sexes; and this, after all, is probably the fact with which the education of such a stranger ought to begin."<br /><br />(In <i>Emerson and Other Essays</i>, courtesy of the Gutenberg Project.)Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14819154529261482038noreply@blogger.com