First Things RSS Feed - Walter A. McDougall https://www.firstthings.com/author/walter-a-mcdougall en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:54:28 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/walter-a-mcdougall 60 Our Stillborn Renaissance https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/04/our-stillborn-renaissance https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/04/our-stillborn-renaissance Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400 Waldo—as the seventeen-year-old Ralph Waldo Emerson took to calling himself—was one of eight children raised by a stern minister given over to Unitarianism, that “feather-bed to catch a falling Christian.” When the pater died in 1811, the household was reduced to a genteel poverty, over which ruled the sternly devout widow and a lugubrious aunt eager to die.

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