no Christian Scientist can prove that Christ never had a stomach-
ache. The Architecture of Humanism [Footnote: Geoffrey Scott
(Constable & Co.)] tells us that "romanticism consists of...a
poetic sensibility towards the remote, as such." But is Plato a
classic or towards the remote? Is Classicism a poor relation of
time--not of man? Is a thing classic or romantic because it is or
is not passed by that biologic--that indescribable stream-of-
change going on in all life? Let us settle the point for "good,"
and say that a thing is classic if it is thought of in terms of
the past and romantic if thought of in terms of the future--and a
thing thought of in terms of the present is--well, that is
impossible! Hence, we allow ourselves to say, that Emerson is
neither a classic or romantic but both--and both not only at
different times in one essay, but at the same time in one
sentence--in one word. And must we admit it, so is everyone. If
you don't believe it, there must be some true definition you
haven't seen. Chopin shows a few things that Bach forgot--but he
is not eclectic, they say. Brahms shows many things that Bach did
remember, so he is an eclectic, they say. Leoncavallo writes
pretty verses and Palestrina is a priest, and Confucius inspires
Scriabin. A choice is freedom. Natural selection is but one of
Nature's tunes. "All melodious poets shall be hoarse as street
ballads, when once the penetrating keynote of nature and spirit
is sounded--the earth-beat, sea-beat, heart-beat, which make the
tune to which the sun rolls, and the globule of blood and the sap
of the trees."

An intuitive sense of values, tends to make Emerson use social,
political, and even economic phenomena, as means of expression,
as the accidental notes in his scale--rather than as ends, even