...sage advice as to how to find the best material for understanding the world in which we live: study "the meal in the firkin; the milk in the pan; the...news of the boat; the glance of the eye; the form and gait of the body." Walt Whitman insisted that a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels....

...the Phi Beta Kappa celebration of 1837, was startling. I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. Give me insight into...news of the boat; the glance of the eye; the form and gait of the body; . . . 14 Emerson immediately provides the response to the rhetorical question posed...

...Arabia; what is Greek art, or Provencal Minstrelsy; I embrace the common. I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. Give me insight into today, and you may have the antique and future worlds.10 Proponents of popular culture argue that true insight into any era of culture can be gained...

...contradictory American mission. The artist was to engage the palpable actualities of everyday life — "the meal in the firkin; the milk in the pan; the...news of the boat; the glance of the eye; the form and gait of the body," in Emerson's litany — yet these were merely appearances to be penetrated en route...

...the poet's celebration." 13 So Emerson's example in "The American Scholar" (1837)—as he tells over "The meal in the firkin; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street" 14 —belongs, for Tomlinson, in his introduction to the Selected Poems of Williams, with the "list"...

...become the subject of educated, elite attention. He proposes a new task for the American scholar: 31 What would we really know the meaning of? The meal...news of the boat; the glance of the eye; the form and gait of the body; — show me the ultimate reason of these matters; — show me the sublime presence...

..."What would we really know the meaning of?" asked Emerson sweeping aside the long descent of erudition. "The meal in the firkin; the milk in the pan; the...news of the boat; the glance of the eye; the form and gait of the body."7 Though he was indubitably "very respectable," Emerson anticipated Hemingway's preference...

...Domestically, the origins of realism can be traced back through famous passages of Ralph Waldo Emerson (such as "What would we really know the meaning of? The meal...firkin; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street . . .") and Joel Barlow's "Hasty Pudding," arriving ultimately at 1610 or 1607 (if we settle for English-language...

...experience, so much of the wilderness have I vanquished and planted. . . ." "Life is my dictionary." "Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds. ..." These and many other such familiar epigrams are eloquent expressions of the practical idealism...

...Arabia; what is Greek art, or Provençal minstrelsy; I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. Give me insight into...would we really know the meaning of? The meal in the firken; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street; the news of the boat; the glance of the eye;...