Sunday Firesides: Die Red

Emerson said that the average man is “born red, and dies gray.”

By this, he meant that when a baby arrives in the world, and inhales his first lungfuls of earthly air, the child turns ruddy in hue, flushed with the vigor and vitality of new life.

Thereafter, however, at least once the bloom of youth has expired, this scarlet sap slowly drains away.

Big que…