[Footnote 669: Dr. Johnson is reported to have said, etc. Dr.
Samuel Johnson was an eminent English scholar of the eighteenth
century. In this, as in many other instances, Emerson quotes from his
memory instead of from the book. The words of Dr. Johnson, as reported
by his biographer Boswell, are: "Accustom your children constantly to
this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it,
say it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check
them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."]

[Footnote 670: Rifle. A local name in England and New England
for an instrument, on the order of a whetstone, used for sharpening
scythes; it is made of wood, covered with fine sand or emery.]

[Footnote 671: Last grand duke of Weimar. Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach is a
grand duchy of Germany. The grand duke referred to was Charles
Augustus, who died in 1828. He was the friend and patron of the great
German authors, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland.]

[Footnote 672: The Raphael in the Dresden gallery. The Sistine
Madonna, the most famous picture of the great Italian artist,
Raphael.]

[Footnote 673: Call a spade a spade. Plutarch, the Greek historian,
said, "These Macedonians ... call a spade a spade."]

[Footnote 674: Parts. A favorite eighteenth century term for
abilities, talents.]

[Footnote 675: We have found out, etc. Emerson always insisted that