And surely this journal entry should refute Henry James’s view that Emerson possessed no awareness of “the dark, the foul, the base”: “Now for near five years I have been indulged by the gracious Heaven in my long holiday in this goodly house of mine, entertaining and entertained by so many worthy and gifted friends, and all this time poor Nanny Barron, the mad-woman, has been screaming herself hoarse at the Poorhouse across the brook and I still hear her whenever I open my window.”
Bound to Please: An Extraordinary One-Volume Literary Education
Michael Dirda
from a review of:
Emerson: The Mind on Fire
by Robert D. Richardson, Jr.