...streets that most stories emanate and receive their wings. As Emerson wrote about his populist muse, "I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet...today, and you may have the antique and future worlds." Such was the case a number of years ago, in the small Nicaraguan city of Tipitapa, as I sat at the...

...near, the low, the common." Emerson, who on the evidence never embraced much of anybody, proclaims, "I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low." Of course, he is really referring to diction, and if "The American Scholar" has enduring validity,...