Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal:
Precisely what the painter or the sculptor or the epic rhapsodist feels, I feel in the presence of this house, which stands to me for the human race, the desire, namely, to express myself fully, symmetrically, gigantically to them, not dwarfishly & fragmentarily. H.D.T., with whom I talked of this last night, does not or will not perceive how natural is this, and only hears the word Art in a sinister sense.
(The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 9:71)
