Talks with Ralph Waldo Emerson Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CRITICISM CRITICISM. A Group of students were in the habit of assembling in one of the larger college-rooms for purposes of practice in debate ; and one af... more »ternoon Mr. Emerson came quietly in (but not without having been solicited time and again). He refused to permit the discussion to stop, but, seating himself on a sofa, he gave straight attention to the speakers. It was our custom to appoint at the beginning of each session a critic to perform at its close the duties indicated by the name. After the abbreviated exercises were ended, at our intercession, Mr. Emerson, from his seat, offered some comment, ending in the announcement of certain laws of criticism which undoubtedly prescribed his own attitude and method. I well remember the shrewd listening that his opening words disclosed. How surprised we were to hear him even repeat the names of two or three (of previous acquaintancewith him, however) who had spoken after his arrival! " Why should not," he asked, "advantages be bartered like commodities ? You have sufficient for all your speeches if they are rightly distributed. Let A purchase a little fluency from B , and C some earnestness from X , who might make a good investment by securing a bit of A 's spare accuracy. If this could be accomplished, and B and C exchange, the one a little logic for the other's abundant energy, you would have a most excellent debate." After a few words more in the same humorous and good-natured strain, he continued more gravely— " I was interested in your critic's report. But there are nine of you here; then there should be nine critics. It is possible that you associate a wrong meaning with this word. I observed that your critic noted such minutiae as that a certain word was pronounced wrong; that a plural ver...« less