Emerson was far from knowing this, but
he felt that something was wrong. He wrote to Carlyle, "We have a most
unfit man for President." On another occasion he wrote, "Politics are
now in such a condition that the best principles are in one party, and
the best men in the other." He appears to have voted with the best men.
Again he would say, "If we can only once get the best man at the head of
affairs we should be only too glad to turn everything over to him."
Emerson, however, did not allow these theories to affect his practice.
He always voted the whig ticket till 1844, and after that the free-soil
and republican tickets.
It was the same with his doctrine of living according to nature. He
never thought of doing this himself, except so far as a sensible mode of
life and unaffected behavior may be considered so. He was the most
conventional man in Concord, and as scrupulous of etiquette as an
English clergyman. He was oftener seen with a silk-hat--what Mr. Howells
calls a cylinder-hat--than any other person in the town. In his later
years he declined to wear a wig, because it was not according to nature;
but neither had he formerly worn a beard, which was quite as little
according to nature.
In his earlier writings he celebrates the advantages of living in the
country, but at sixty he concludes that the city is after all the best,
if one has sufficient means,--especially for women, who require a
current of human life to keep their minds healthy and cheerful.
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