a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

I have, for various reasons, had several conversations lately all in some way related to neighborhood, or home. Growing up in very small towns in South Dakota, my entire life (for better and for worse-though mainly for the better) was neighborhood. This morning I was reading Emerson's "Considerations by the Way" from "Conduct of Life."
One of his most accessible essays, it is full of wisdom and, unfortunately, some of his more negative provincialism. As usual, I focused on the former, including this on living in neighborhoods...

"It makes no difference, in looking back five years, how you have been dieted or dressed; whether you have been lodged on the first floor or the attic; whether you have had gardens and baths, good cattle and horses, have been carried in a neat equipage, or in a ridiculous truck: these things are forgotten so quickly, and leave no effect. But it counts much whether we have had good companions, in that time; -- almost as much as what we have been doing. And see the overpowering importance of neighborhood in all association. As it is marriage, fit or unfit, that makes our home, so it is who lives near us of equal social degree, -- a few people at convenient distance, no matter how bad company, -- these, and these only, shall be your life's companions: and all those who are native, congenial, and by many an oath of the heart, sacramented to you, are gradually and totally lost. You cannot deal systematically with this fine element of society, and one may take a good deal of pains to bring people together, and to organize clubs and debating societies, and yet no result come of it. But it is certain that there is a great deal of good in us that does not know itself, and that a habit of union and competition brings people up and keeps them up to their highest point; that life would be twice or ten times life, if spent with wise and fruitful companions...

The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear, alike in the poverty of the obscurest farm, and in the miscellany of metropolitan life, and that these few are alone to be regarded, -- the escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are; and love of what is simple and beautiful; independence, and cheerful relation, these are the essentials, -- these, and the wish to serve, -- to add somewhat to the well-being of men."

Blessings