Professor Elam

But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy me something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith’s.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Essay on Gifts, 1844

Rachel’s good post about Black Friday calls to mind Emerson’s wonderful essay on gifts, I post it every year about this time. You can read it here. Note he comments that the world seems so ready to go into bankruptcy that according to many it should be sold, so desperate are the times.  Notably this essay from the second series was written in 1844.  Amid the worries about sub prime and the declining dollar, his first line is most appropriate, 164 years ago!

Read and enjoy and poss it on to some child ( age 6-60) bemoaning that they are without the latest thingamajig or watchyamacallit.