Emerson lived in Concord, Carlyle in Chelsea; to the casual reader these phrases convey the impression that the life of Emerson was in some way identified with and bounded by Concord; that the life of Carlyle was in some way identified with and bounded by Chelsea; that in some subtle manner the census of those two small communities affected the philosophy of the two men; whereas we know that for a long time the worlds in which they really did move and have their being so far overlapped that they were near neighbors in thought, much nearer than they would have been if they had "lived" in the same village and met daily on the same streets.
The directory gives a man's abode, but tells us nothing, absolutely nothing, about his life; the number of his house does not indicate where he lives.

It is possible to live in London, in Paris, in Rome without ever having visited any one of those places; in truth, millions of people really live in Rome in a truer sense than many who have their abodes there; of the inhabitants of Paris comparatively few really live there, comparatively few have any knowledge of the city, its history, its traditions, its charms, its treasures, but outside Paris there are thousands of men and women who spend many hours and days and weeks of their time in reading, learning, and thinking about Paris and all it contains,--in very truth living there.
Many a worthy preacher lives so exclusively in Jerusalem that he knows not his own country, and his usefulness is impaired; many an artist lives so exclusively in Paris that his work suffers; many an architect lives so long among the buildings of other days that he can do nothing of his own.

In fact, most men who are devoted to intellectual, literary, and artistic pursuits live anywhere and everywhere except at home.
The one great merit of Walt Whitman is that he lived in America and in the nineteenth century; he did not live in the past; he did not live in Europe; he lived in the present and in the world about him, his home was America, his era was his own.
If we have no national literature, it is because those who write spend the better part of their lives abroad; they may not leave their own firesides, but all their sympathies are elsewhere, all their inspiration is drawn from other lands and other times.
We have very little art, very little architecture, very little music of our own for the same reasons.

We have any number of painters, sculptors, composers, but few of them live at home; their sympathies are elsewhere; they seem to have little or nothing in common with their surroundings.

Now and then a clear, fresh voice is heard from out of the woods and fields, or over the city's din, speaking with the convincing eloquence of immediate knowledge and first-hand observation; but there are so few of these voices that they do not amount to a chorus, and a national literature means a chorus.
All this will gradually change until some day the preacher will return from Jerusalem, the painter from Paris, the poet from England, the architect from Rome, and the overwhelming problems presented by the unparalleled development and opportunities of America will absorb their attention to the exclusion of all else.
The danger of travel, the danger of learning, the danger of reading, of profound research and extensive observation, lies in the fact that some age, city, or country, some man or coterie of men, may gain too firm a hold, may so absorb the attention and restrict the imagination that the sense of proportion is lost.