silly people: Emerson 8/18/1830

I've a mind to do some entries from Ralph Waldo Emerson's Journals from day to day. He kept journals for many years so, for any given day, there are likely to be many choices. Here's a short one from 1830 for this day:

Bookline, August 18

The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and musquitoes and silly people.

Emerson was 27 when he wrote this. He had been appointed pastor of the Second Church, Unitarian, in Boston, and was madly in love with Ellen Tucker, whom he would wed a month hence.

Painting of Emerson in 1829 by Sarah Goodrich. {Source: The Ralph Waldo Emerson Society}