“It [providence] has shown the heaven and earth to every child, and filled him with a desire of the whole; a desire raging, infinite; a hunger, as of space to be filled with planets; a cry of famine, as of devils for souls. Then for the satisfaction, – to each man is administered a single drop, a bead of dew of vital power, per day, a copy as large as space, and one drop of the water of life in it.
….
In every house…this chasm is found – between the largest promise of ideal power, and the shabby experience”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Writings p376