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LETTERS 
 
 FROM / 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 TO / 
 
 A FRIEND /sfo^A^vsAX %t^ W e^-^j 
 1838-1853 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 CHARLES ELIOT NORTON 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK . 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1899 
 

 3.? 
 
 4 1838 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1S99, BY EDWARD W. EMERSON 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 WQOOHIfett «gj,^, 
 
 ^fe'?. 
 
 teCOND COPY, 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The letters and fragments of letters 
 here printed are part of the early records 
 of a friendship which, beginning when 
 Emerson was thirty years old, lasted un- 
 broken and cordial till his death. In 
 his well-known essay, Emerson has set 
 forth his conception of friendship in 
 what, with no derogatory intention, he 
 called "fine lyric words," and his ideal- 
 izing genius is nowhere more manifest 
 than in his depicting of it. For its per- 
 fection it must be free from the limita- 
 tions inevitable in all human relations. 
 It was never to be completely realized. 
 " We walk alone in this world," he says ; 
 3 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 "friends such as we desire are dreams 
 and fables." But though the ideal was 
 not to be attained, he prized, as few men 
 have prized, the blessing of such imper- 
 fect friendship as the artificial order of 
 society and the weakness of human na- 
 ture allow to exist, and rejoiced in it as 
 the symbol, at least, of that select and 
 sacred relation between one soul and an- 
 other " which even leaves the language 
 of love suspicious and common, so much 
 is this purer, and nothing is so much 
 divine." 
 
 It is thus that his letters to his friend? 
 may show Emerson in a clearer mirror 
 even than his poems and his essays. 
 They are at times his most intimat 
 expressions, the most vivid illustratior 
 of his essential individuality, an individ 
 ality so complete and absolute as to di 
 4 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 tinguish ijim from all other men in his 
 generation, and to give him place with 
 the few of all time who have had native 
 force sufficient to enable them to be 
 truly themselves, and to show to their 
 brother men the virtue of an independ- 
 ent spirit. 
 
 The friend to whom the letters in this 
 little volume were addressed was younger 
 than Emerson by nine years. At the 
 beginning of their friendship he had 
 lately returned from Europe, where he 
 had spent a year and a half under fortu- 
 nate conditions. Europe was then far 
 more distant from New England than it 
 is to-day, and more was to be gained from 
 -a visit to it. The youth had brought 
 back from the Old World much of which 
 Emerson, with his lively interest in all 
 things of the intelligence, was curious 
 
 5 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 and eager to learn. His own genius was 
 never more active or vigorous, and his 
 young friend's enthusiasm was roused by 
 the. spirit of Emerson's teaching as ex- 
 pressed in the famous Phi Beta Kappa 
 discourse in 1837, the lectures on Cul- 
 ture, delivered in Boston in the win- 
 ter of 1838, and the address before the 
 Cambridge Divinity School in July of 
 the same year. He did not fall into 
 the position of a disciple seeking from 
 Emerson a solution of the problems of 
 life ; but he brought to Emerson the 
 highest appreciation of the things which 
 Emerson valued, and knowledge of other 
 things of which Emerson knew little 
 but for which he cared much. He pos- 
 sessed, moreover, the practical qualities 
 and the acquaintance with affairs in 
 which Emerson was fortunately deficient, 
 6 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 but which he held in high respect. I say 
 fortunately deficient, in so far as they 
 might have detracted from that pure 
 idealism in which lay the unique charm 
 of Emerson's nature, and the originality 
 and permanence of his work. 
 
 These were happy conditions for the 
 relation to which they led. The friends 
 did not meet or correspond often enough 
 to dull its edge. 
 
 C. E. Norton. 
 
 May, 1899. 
 
 7 
 
LETTERS 
 
 Concord, August 16th, 1838. 
 
 Miss Fuller thinks you have so much 
 leisure, that you could come to Concord, 
 if you would. I am particularly at leisure 
 now, disposed to be grateful for all good 
 influences, and especially curious of in- 
 formation on art and artists, of which 
 however, I warn you, I know nothing. 
 Will you not in these circumstances come 
 and spend a day with me } If you are 
 at liberty Sunday, come out here Satur- 
 day afternoon, and we will gladly keep 
 you two nights. 
 
 R. Waldo Emerson. 
 9 
 
LETTERS 
 
 II 
 
 Concord, August z^th, 1839. 
 
 It is so seldom that I am in Boston 
 with any leisure to remain, that I please 
 myself with thinking I shall meet you 
 at $. B. K. at Cambridge. Do you not 
 go ? There is a warrant for good prose 
 and good poetry, I hope, in the names of 
 the workmen. If you are at leisure, pray 
 come. 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 10 
 
LETTERS 
 
 III 
 
 Concord, October 3^, 1S39. 
 
 Though I hate to acknowledge times as 
 much as Dr. Johnson did to own the exist- 
 ence of weather, yet it seems as if a cer- 
 tain perplexity were all but universal 
 among the contemplative class of persons 
 in this country at this moment ; — the 
 very children are infected with skepticism 
 and ennui. Even the active, except in a 
 very few happy instances, appear to owe 
 their health and efficiency to their forcing 
 the exercise of thought and the creative 
 arts. So general a mischief will be at- 
 tended by its own great advantages, and 
 meantime the more fortunate must wait 
 for the less with a sure trust in the re- 
 medial force of nature. To be sure, if 
 we outgrow our early friendships there 
 is no help, and undoubtedly where there 
 is inequality in the intellect we must re- 
 II 
 
LETTERS 
 
 sign them, but true society is so rare that 
 I think I could not afford to spare from 
 my circle a poet as long as he can offer 
 so indisputable a token as a good verse 
 of his relation to what is highest in 
 Being. It is possible that my love of 
 these gifts might enable me to be useful 
 to your friend if I knew him. As lovers 
 of Enghsh poetry we should certainly 
 have common ground enough to meet 
 upon. I seldom go into company in 
 Boston, but if I should have an oppor- 
 portunity of making his acquaintance, I 
 will not fail to use it. I shall not send 
 you to-day Henry Thoreau's verses, but 
 I think I shall send them soon, at least 
 the Elegy,! which pleases me best. 
 
 1 This was the poem printed under the title of Sympa- 
 thy in the volume of Thoreau's Letters, which was edited 
 by Mr. Emerson in 1865. 
 
 12 
 
LETTERS 
 
 IV 
 
 Concord, October 2';th, 1839. 
 
 I am happy in the new relations to 
 which you invite me by your persevering 
 kindness. I have your portfolio ^ in my 
 study, and am learning to read in that 
 book too. But there are fewer painters 
 than poets. Ten men can awaken me 
 by words to new hope and fruitful mus- 
 ing, for one that can achieve the miracle 
 by forms. Besides, I think the pleasure 
 of the poem lasts me longer. And yet 
 the expressive arts ought to go abreast, 
 and as much genius find its way to light 
 in design as in song — and probably does, 
 so far as the artist is concerned ; butjthe 
 eye is a speedier student than the ear ; by 
 a grand or a lovely form it is astonished 
 or delighted once for all and quickly ap- 
 peased, whilst the sense of a verse steals 
 
 1 Containing the large engravings of the ceiling of the 
 Sistine Chapel. 
 
 13 
 
LETTERS 
 
 slowly on the mind and suggests a hun- 
 dred fine fancies before its precise im- 
 port is finally settled. 
 
 Or is this wholly unjust to the noble 
 art of design and only showing that I 
 have a hungry ear but a dull eye ? I 
 shall keep your prints a little while, if 
 you can spare them, until I have got my 
 lesson by heart. Will you let me say 
 that I have conceived more highly of the 
 possibilities of the art sometimes in look- 
 ing at weather stains on a wall, or fantas- 
 tic shapes which the eye makes out of 
 shadows by lamplight, than from really 
 majestic and finished pictures.^ 
 
 1 This may remind the reader of the sentences in Leo- 
 nardo da Vinci's Treatise on Painting, in wliich he says (I 
 translate with some abridgment) : " I will not omit from 
 among these precepts one which, though it may seem small, 
 and even to be smiled at, is nevertheless of great utility 
 in rousing the genius to various inventions, and it is this : 
 If thou wilt look carefully at walls spotted with stains, or at 
 stones variously mixed, thou mayst see in them similitudes 
 of all sorts of landscapes, or figures in all sorts of actions, 
 and infinite things which thou mayst be able to bring into 
 complete and good form." 
 
 14 
 
LETTERS 
 
 Concord, November 26ih, 1839. 
 
 I confess I have difficulty in accepting 
 the superb drawing ^ which you ask me to 
 keep. In taking it from the portfoho, I 
 take it from its godhke companions to 
 put it where it must shine alone. Besides, 
 I have identified your collection with the 
 collector, I have been glad to learn to 
 know you through your mute friends. 
 They tell me very eloquently what you 
 iove, and a portfolio seems to me a more 
 expressive vehicle of taste and charac- 
 ter than a bunch of flowers. This beau- 
 tiful Endymion deserves to be looked on 
 by instructed eyes. But I shall not 
 resist your generosity, and indeed am 
 warmed at heart by your good will to me. 
 I assure myself that we shall have oppor- 
 tunity of being better friends presently. 
 
 1 A copy of the antique design. 
 
 IS 
 
LETTERS 
 
 But I will not understand an expression 
 of sadness in your letter as anything but 
 a momentary shade. For I conceive of 
 you as allied on every side to what is 
 beautiful and inspiring, with noblest pur- 
 poses in life and with powers to execute 
 your thought. What space can be allowed 
 you for a moment's despondency .-* The 
 free and the true, the few who conceive 
 of a better life, are always the soul of the 
 world. In whatever direction their activ- 
 ity flows, society can never spare them, 
 but all men feel even in their silent pre- 
 sence a moral debt to such — were it only 
 the manifestation of the fact that there 
 are aims higher than the average. In 
 this country we need whatever is gener- 
 ous and beautiful in character more than 
 ever because of the general mediocrity of 
 thought produced by the arts of gain. 
 With a few friends who can yield us the 
 luxury of sincerity and of a manly re- 
 sistance too, one can face with more cour- 
 age the battle of every day — and these 
 i6 
 
LETTERS 
 
 friends, it is a part of my creed, we always 
 find ; the spirit provides for itself. If they 
 come late, they are of a higher class. 
 Of your friends I have seen two, and you 
 have shown me the verses of another — 
 who certainly do no discredit to your 
 choice. In such a band I shall always be 
 happy to be numbered. 
 
 I have copied Thoreau's Elegy that I 
 told you pleased me so well. Some time 
 you shall give it, if you please, to Miss 
 Fuller. I am glad of the liberty to keep 
 the Portfolio until after Thanksgiving.^ 
 I will look and see if I have any notes on 
 any of the pictures worth sending. 
 
 1 " I turn the proud portfolios 
 Which hold the grand designs 
 Of Salvator and Guercino, 
 And Piranesi's lines." 
 
 Ode to Beauty. 
 
 17 
 
LETTERS 
 
 VI 
 
 Concord, Friday eve., December i^tk, 1839. 
 
 Since you please to ask it, you shall 
 have the old almanac about Edmund 
 Burke — the only presentable piece I 
 find of the series. I printed two in the 
 North American Review,^ It is droll to 
 send it to you : I dare not look into it : 
 but I doubt not you shall sleep the better 
 some night. I think I might qualify the 
 anodyne by sending you one of last win- 
 ter's composition, a piece which I wrote 
 with good heart, and trust you may find 
 some sp'arks still alive in the cinders. 
 The argument were fitter for rh)nne : but 
 that comes only by the special favor of 
 the skies. It is very pleasant to me to 
 write myself. . . . 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 
 1 One on Michelangelo in the number of the Review for 
 Jan., 1S37 ; the other on Milton in July, 1838. 
 18 
 
LETTERS 
 
 VII 
 
 Concord, Friday night, January I'jtk, 1840. 
 
 Read, my friend, whilst you read so 
 well, and continue to inform me of your 
 results. I like very well the criticism on 
 Antigone, and perhaps shall have some- 
 thing to add to it by and by. Good read- 
 ing is nearly as rare as good writing. I 
 believe they are both done usually by the 
 same persons. 
 
 Certainly we discover our friends by 
 the very highest tokens, and these not 
 describable, often not even intelligible, 
 but not the less sure to that augury which 
 is within the intellect and therefore 
 higher. This is to me the most attrac- 
 tive of all topics, and, I doubt not, when- 
 ever I get your full confession of faith, we 
 shall be at one on the matter. Because 
 the subject is so high and sacred, we 
 cannot walk straight up to it ; we must 
 19 
 
LETTERS 
 
 saunter if we would find the secret. 
 Nature's roads are not turnpikes but 
 circles, and the instincts are the only- 
 sure guides, I am glad if you have so 
 much patience as you say, it is the only 
 sure method that can be trusted. If men 
 are fit for friendship I think they must 
 see their mutual sympathy across the 
 unlikeness and even apathy of to-day. 
 But I see that I am writing sentences and 
 no letter, and as I wish you to like me, I 
 will not add another word. 
 
 R. W. E. 
 20 
 
LETTERS 
 
 VIII 
 
 Concord, /««« 22c? [1S40]. 
 
 Send me, I entreat you, a particular 
 verbal message by the bearer (for I will 
 not ask you to write) how you do, and 
 whether you are mending. 
 
 I am sad that you should be ill and 
 with that ugly pertinacious ague fever ; 
 but at home you will soon throw it off. 
 What can I do to amuse your imprison- 
 ment ? Can you read ? When you can, 
 I have a precious little old book that 
 might go in Alexander's casket with the 
 Iliad, that I will send you to look into. 
 
 Then I am just now finishing a Chap- 
 ter on Friendship (of which one of my 
 lectures last winter contained a first 
 sketch) on which I would gladly provoke 
 a commentary. I have written nothing 
 with more pleasure, and the piece is al- 
 ready indebted to you and I wish to swell 
 
LETTERS 
 
 my obligations. If I like it, when I read 
 it over, I shall send it to you. 
 
 When you can write without inconven- 
 ience, send me the shortest possible note 
 to certify me of your welfare. 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 
 22 
 
LETTERS 
 
 IX 
 
 Concord, July yih, 1840. 
 
 I have delayed to thank you for the 
 good news you sent me of your new health 
 and strength, that I might send you the 
 manuscript which I have set my heart on 
 your reading. But it will not get quite 
 finished, though I have thought it all but 
 done, two or three times. Now will I do 
 just what you forbid me — I will keep the 
 paper and send the book — The Con- 
 fessions of Augustine — translated two 
 hundred years ago in the golden time 
 when all translations seemed to have the 
 fire of original works. You shall not be 
 alarmed at my zeal for your reading. You 
 shall only try your fortune in it. Some 
 cloudy morning when you cannot ride, 
 read twenty lines, and send it back with- 
 out criticism. I push the little antiquity 
 toward you merely out of gratitude to 
 23 
 
LETTERS 
 
 some golden words I read in it last sum- 
 mer. What better oblation could I oifer 
 the Saint than the opportunity of a new- 
 proselyte ? But do not read. Why read 
 this book or any book ? It is a foolish 
 conformity and does well for dead people. 
 It happens to us once or twice in a life- 
 time to be drunk with some book which j-H 
 probably has some extraordinary relative 
 power to intoxicate ns and none other : 
 and having exhausted that cup of en- 
 chantment we go groping in libraries all 
 our years afterward in the hope of being 
 in Paradise again. But what better sign 
 can the good genius of our times show 
 that the old creative force is ready to work 
 again, than the universal indisposition of 
 the best heads to touch the books even 
 of name and fame. 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 24 
 
LETTERS 
 
 X 
 
 Concord, /z^/^* li^th, Evening, 1840. 
 
 Your challenges are all too good to 
 remain unanswered. I acknowledge their 
 wit and force, and it is plain I must an- 
 swer them if I can — but not now. I 
 was so taken by the manner of the coun- 
 ter-statement in which too my quoted 
 statements wore a quite Irish look, that 
 I could not even recall the mood in which 
 I had written or the things I had said. 
 But though I do not much incline to 
 compare too suddenly the statements of 
 two parties, but rather leave each to 
 make his own in full, sure that at last 
 the qualification required to put it in 
 harmony with the other and with every 
 other will leap out, yet I have some 
 impatience to satisfy you, as I am con- 
 scious of simplicity in these sallies of 
 speculation. But to-night I am in no 
 25 
 
LETTERS 
 
 mood for writing and only wish to say 
 how much pleasure your letter gives me, 
 after fear for your sickness. — I have 
 got my " Essay on Friendship " now into 
 some shape, not yet symmetrical but 
 approximate to that, and though it is 
 longer than it was when I proposed to 
 send it to you, yet it shall go. I shall 
 not want it for some weeks. 
 
 R. W. E. 
 26 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XI 
 
 Concord, /z^/y iSi/i, 1840. 
 
 The reason why I am curious about you 
 is that with tastes which I also have, you 
 have tastes and powers and correspond- 
 ing circumstances which I have not and 
 perhaps cannot divine. Certainly we will 
 not quarrel with our companion that he 
 has more roots subterranean or aerial sent 
 out into the great universe to draw his 
 nourishment withal. The secret of vir- 
 tue is to know that the richer another is, 
 the richer am I ; — how much more if that 
 other is my friend. If you are a mighty 
 hunter, if you are a Mohawk Indian with 
 a string of equivocal, nay truculent-look- 
 ing hair-tufts at your belt, if we agree 
 well enough, to draw together, those wild 
 experiences of yours will add vivacity to 
 the covenant. So good luck to your fish- 
 ing! 
 
 27 
 
LETTERS 
 
 The D'Orsay portrait,^ I am sorry to 
 say, never came. Sumner thought it was 
 not quite ready from the printer's hand. 
 I have sent for it since, and I hope it will 
 arrive. 
 
 What can I tell you ? Not the small- 
 est event enlivens our little sandy village ; 
 we have not even rigged out a hay cart 
 for a whortleberry party. If I look out 
 of the window there is perhaps a cow ; 
 if I go into the garden there are cucum- 
 bers ; if I look into the brook there is a 
 mud turtle. In the sleep of the great 
 heats there was nothing for me but to 
 read the Vedas, the bible of the tropics, 
 which I find I come back upon every 
 three or four years. It is sublime as heat 
 and night and a breathless ocean. It 
 contains every religious sentiment, all the 
 grand ethics which visit in turn each 
 
 * 1 Count D'Orsay's portrait of Carlyle, which Carlyle had 
 thought of sending to Emerson by Mr. Charles Sumner, 
 on his return from Europe. See Carlyle's letters to Emer- 
 son in TAe Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, i. 299, 
 28 
 
LETTERS 
 
 noble and poetic mind, and nothing is 
 easier than to separate what must have 
 been the primeval inspiration from the 
 endless ceremonial nonsense which car- 
 icatures and contradicts it through every 
 chapter. It is of no use to put away the 
 book : if I trust myself in the woods or 
 in a boat upon the pond, nature makes 
 a Bramin of me presently : eternal neces- 
 sity, eternal compensation, unfathomable 
 power, unbroken silence, — this is her 
 creed. Peace, she saith to me, and purity 
 and absolute abandonment — these pen- 
 ances expiate all sin and bring you to the 
 beatitude of the "Eight Gods." 
 
 R. W. E. 
 29 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XII 
 
 This letter is just and wise and a true 
 refreshment. I believe I must not affect 
 to answer it. This is inquiry and in- 
 quirer that can never be otherwise than 
 self-solved, and they know it very well, 
 in what form soever they please to couch 
 their thinking. And yet one is tempted 
 to say, see here again what welcome evi- 
 dence to the old saw that the soul may 
 not sleep, may not remember, but must 
 live incessant. Not in his goals but in 
 his transition man is great, and the tru- 
 est state of mind rested in becomes false. 
 Our admiration accuses us. Instead of 
 admiring the Apollo, or the picture, or 
 the victory at Marengo, we ought to be 
 producing what is admirable, and these 
 things should glitter to us as hints and 
 stints merely. But these beautiful modes 
 30 
 
LETTERS 
 
 of the spul's expression are past — are 
 they ? Well : Vishnu has nine or ninety- 
 other incarnations, and is the lord of na- 
 ture and is the all-excluding beauty, in 
 every one. I like a geranium as well as 
 an oak, and cannot see why every man 
 should not have his new and private road 
 into the region of beautiful production, 
 as well as his indisputable access, on the 
 other side, to the cause of causes. 
 
 Not to-day but soon I think I will 
 copy out of a blotted manuscript a paral- 
 lel text of my own to these speculations of 
 yours. If it should chance to be a little 
 too old and long it may yet lull you on 
 the haycock. 
 
 R. W. E. 
 31 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XIII 
 
 Concord, March \st, 1841. 
 
 I return Beranger and the " Letters " 
 of Sand. I shall not, I see, read more at 
 present in either, if I should keep them 
 longer. I am content to accept your ac- 
 count of Beranger, who seems to me one 
 who does what he undertakes ; but though 
 we say " Well done " if we pass by, I think 
 we should not be much the poorer if we 
 never saw him. 
 
 I find myself, maugre all my philoso- 
 phy, a devout student and admirer of per- 
 sons. I cannot get used to them : they 
 daunt and dazzle me still. I have just 
 now been at the old wonder again. I see 
 persons whom I think the world would be 
 richer for losing ; and I see persons whose 
 existence makes the world rich. But 
 blessed be the Eternal Power for those 
 whom fancy even cannot strip of beauty, 
 and who never for a moment seem to me 
 profane. 
 
 R. W. E. 
 
 32 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XIV 
 
 Concord, Mo7iday eve., June 27, 1S41. 
 
 I thought as I walked in this amber 
 sunset, that I would send my voice across 
 these seventeen wide miles of hill and 
 dale and flower-bearing fields, to say. 
 Hail, Brother ! Keep as much kindness 
 for me in the corner of thy heart, as I 
 hold for thee. The day will yet come 
 when we shall celebrate it all. In truth, I 
 am very far from consenting to be for- 
 gotten by you, and in my lonely woods I 
 see you and talk with you so often, that 
 it seems to me that through some of the 
 fine channels which inform fine souls, 
 you must sometimes feel the influence. 
 Your frank kindness has been a bright 
 sign in my firmament, — and few beams 
 were ever so grateful. 
 
 You two chosen and fortunate children 
 33 
 
LETTERS 
 
 for this present need nothing but your- 
 selves, and it is almost an intrusion to 
 come and see you, unless one can enter 
 gaily into the whole scenery of your en- 
 chanted isle. 
 
 Waldo E. 
 34 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XV 
 
 Nantasket Beach, July, 1S41. 
 
 My friend shall solve his own ques- 
 tions, as I suppose whoever makes a wise 
 inquiry only announces the problem on 
 which he is already busy and which he 
 will be the first to dispose of, and I shall 
 gladly attend all the steps of the solution. 
 But is it the picture of the unbounded sea, 
 or is it the lassitude of this Syrian sum- 
 mer, that more and more draws the cords 
 of Will out of my thought and leaves me 
 nothing but perpetual observation, per- 
 petual acquiescence and perpetual thank- 
 fulness ? Shall I not be Turk and fatal- 
 ist before to-day's sun shall set ? and in 
 this thriving New England too, full of 
 din and snappish activity and invention 
 and wilfulness. Can you not save me, 
 dip me into ice water, find me some gird- 
 ing belt, that I glide not away into a 
 35 
 
LETTERS 
 
 stream or a gas, and decease in infinite 
 diffusion ? Reinforce me, I entreat you, 
 with showing me some man, work, aim 
 or fact under the angle of practice ^ that I 
 may see you as an elector and rejector, 
 an agent, an antagonist and a commander. 
 I have seen enough of the obedient sea 
 wave forever lashing the obedient shore. 
 I find no emblems here that speak any 
 other language than the sleep and aban- 
 donment of my woods and blueberry pas- 
 tures at home. If you know the ciphers 
 of rudder and direction, communicate 
 them to me \vithout delay. Noah's flood 
 and the striae which the good geologist 
 finds on every mountain and rock seem 
 to me the records of a calamity less uni- 
 versal than this metaphysical flux which 
 threatens every enterprise, every thought 
 and every thinker. How high will this 
 Nile, this Mississippi, this Ocean, rise, 
 and will ever the waters be stayed } 
 
 Ah ! my friend, I fear you will think 
 that it is to little purpose that I have for 
 36 
 
LETTERS 
 
 once forsaken my house and crept down 
 hither to the water side, if I have not pre- 
 vailed to get away from the old dreams. 
 Well, these too have their golden side, 
 and we are optimists when the sun shines. 
 I give you joy of your garden or garden- 
 ette, but I wish to know how the street 
 and the work that is done in it look to 
 you. 
 
 You have been here ? It is a sunny 
 breezy place with delicious afternoons 
 and nights — to such as can be delighted. 
 There is one person in this neighborhood 
 whose work, you ought to see, if you have 
 not already seen them, Mr. Sprague, a 
 house painter of Hingham, who paints 
 birds as well as Mr. Audubon — I think, 
 perhaps very ignorantly. I was at his 
 house yesterday, and saw his portfolio. 
 I shall probably go home from here or 
 from Plymouth next Monday, and I mean 
 to stay at home till you come and see 
 me. 
 
 R. W. E. 
 37 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XVI 
 
 Concord, September zyth, 1841, Monday. 
 
 We all are dressed out in tendencies, 
 and are loved or rather tolerated for the 
 hopes we awaken. Our children are to 
 execute not what we foresaw, but what 
 our best moments promised to the eyes 
 that watched us. A fairer fortune I can 
 hardly ask for this newest born than that 
 she shall quickly fulfil in the common 
 daylight the fair and religious presenti- 
 ments with which her parents each and 
 both have adorned for me some hours of 
 solitude. So may it be and more also ! 
 And may each added hour decorate and 
 endear the house, which, I suppose, has 
 never before seemed lonely, but will now 
 look so in your retrospect. 
 
 Waldo E. 
 38 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XVII 
 
 Concord, October 23c?, 1841. 
 
 In our brown lowlands, in our parti- 
 colored woods, the passenger finds no- 
 thing but sparrows, crows, partridges, 
 and though nature has no rood of meadow 
 so empty but to the purged eye she can 
 crowd it with enchantments, — yet where 
 to find the euphrasy and rue that shall 
 make the purgation ? The laws of that 
 partial illumination which is permitted to 
 each of us, we do not know, and when 
 some gray rail-fence or tussuck of grass 
 has chanced to become a symbol to us 
 of things in life that are great and affect- 
 ing, we cannot repeat the vision or vary 
 the lesson. Once shut, the rock will not 
 open, but remains a rock. Strange magic 
 by which it draws us against hope to 
 hover and waste good time about the 
 same spots in the wish for new revela- 
 39 
 
LETTERS 
 
 tions ! But I have no secrets to tell you 
 from the Old Mother. None have lately 
 been told me. Lone and sad, sometimes 
 busy and glad, I walk under this broad 
 cope and these hospitable trees. They 
 never seem surprised at my thoughts and 
 seldom suffer their own to escape. Some- 
 times — rarely, I pity them. Often they 
 seem to pity me. They are a great con- 
 venience, they hide and separate men 
 who are often much better for being hid 
 and solitary. 
 
 But how absurd to be writing to you 
 on fields green or brown as a counterpart 
 to your city perambulations : as if nature 
 were less present in streets, as if the 
 country were not too strong for the lili- 
 put interference that strives to barricade 
 it out ; as if it did not force itself into 
 pits of theatres and cellars of markets, 
 as if the air, and darkness, and space 
 and time were not nature, — wild, untam- 
 able, all-containing Nature. You and I, 
 my friend, sit in different houses, and 
 40 
 
LETTERS 
 
 speak all day to different persons, but the 
 differences — make the most we can of 
 them — are trivial ; we are lapped at last 
 in the same idea, we are hurried along in 
 the same material system of stars, in the 
 same immaterial system of influences, to 
 the same untold ineffable goal. Let us 
 exchange now and then a word or a look 
 on the new phases of the Dream. 
 
 Waldo Emerson. 
 
 41 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Concord, November lyi, 1S41. 
 
 I was in town yesterday with the ex- 
 pectation of spending the night there 
 and, in that case, of seeing you at home, 
 but it happened that I ended my affairs 
 faster much than I looked for, and got 
 home here again at sLx o'clock, to learn 
 that a little maiden had been here just 
 one hour waiting to see her father. She 
 is so quiet and contented, so incommu- 
 nicable, deigning only the shortest and 
 most unsatisfactory glances at the large 
 and small beholders, that she interests 
 us all, if it were only by so much majesty. 
 And as I think that two months of 
 growth in your babe must have quite ob- 
 literated all first impressions by so many 
 newer and livelier, I will venture to tell 
 you another trait of this little self-pos- 
 sessed and most assured personage, that 
 42 
 
LETTERS 
 
 she seems -to me much more than a cen- 
 tury old — say many centuries, — the 
 hoariest antiquity, Father Apennine, or 
 the Jungfrau Mountain not older. — So 
 much for the little Lidian, the older one 
 (older by the almanac) is very well and 
 happily recruiting. The curiosity of the 
 brother and sister is inextinguishable. 
 
 I am just announcing my new course 
 of lectures — so far does the thirst of pub- 
 lishing my solitudes and the need some- 
 times felt by me of a stated task, add 
 even some small degree of superstition 
 of a necessity to speak what one fancies 
 people ought to hear, with other reasons, 
 drive me. 
 
 R. Waldo E. 
 43 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XIX 
 
 Concord, September \^th, 1842. 
 
 All men, I suppose, suffer provocations, 
 from they know not whence, to thought 
 and to the Celestial Bounty ; but to the 
 most it is a sting so superficial, that it 
 blends with temperament and ends with 
 puberty ; but when those who are more 
 godlike hear the gods, the voices remain 
 like the sound of the sea in the seashell, 
 and these voices cheer them as they ap- 
 proach, and torment them as they depart 
 from their true home. I suppose there 
 are secret bands that tie each man to his 
 mark with a mighty force ; first, of course, 
 his Daemon, a beautiful immortal figure 
 whom the ancients said, though never 
 visible to himself, sometimes appeared 
 shining before him to others ; but, then, 
 with scarcely less potency the vehement 
 desires and good-will of others, expecting 
 44 
 
LETTERS 
 
 that of him 'which not his tongue but his 
 nature promises ; and these desires flow 
 to him often from such as cannot speak 
 to him, and yet have the dearest interest 
 in his success. Later, perhaps, these also 
 become visible to him and enhance the 
 joy of his victories. 
 
 W. 
 45 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XX 
 
 Thii^avei^fhia, January 24,tk, 1843. 
 
 I have found that I must be an ab- 
 sentee much longer than I thought when 
 I saw you last, and I grow affectionate 
 under the dispensation and write letters. 
 You are born and bred in the world — 
 and you probably by habit do set your ex- 
 pectations somewhat nearer to the mark 
 than such persons as I, who are always 
 victims of glare and superstition, and 
 must continually correct our overesti- 
 mates. Philadelphia, I fancied, was a 
 great unit, a less New York, if not so 
 large and populous, more majestic, a city 
 of rich repose. But after conversing now 
 with many persons here for a few days, 
 I cannot find at all any city, any unit. 
 A great multitude of houses, all nearly 
 alike, lying very peacefully together, — 
 but the tenants, from their number, very 
 46 
 
LETTERS 
 
 much unknown to each other, and not 
 animated by any common spirit, or by 
 the presence of any remarkable individ- 
 uals. In the absence of the usual excite- 
 ments of trade, the whole body certainly 
 wears a very lymphatic appearance ; one 
 might call it, but for the disrespect to 
 the divine sex, a very large granny. For 
 there seems an entire absence here of 
 any strenuous men or man or public 
 opinion ; a deference to the opinion of 
 New York ; a fear of Boston; and, in this 
 great want of thought, a very dull timidity 
 and routine among the citizens them- 
 selves. I have diligently inquired among 
 the intelligent for the more intelligent ; 
 asked every Greek, " who was the second 
 best in the camp } " yet have found no 
 At rides. Very fair and pleasant people, 
 but thus far, no originals. If the world 
 was all Philadelphia, although the poultry 
 and dairy market would be admirable, I 
 fear suicide would exceedingly prevail. 
 I look eagerly for the stars at night, for 
 47 
 
LETTERS 
 
 fear they would disappear in the dull air. 
 I have verified the fact of a sunrise and 
 sunset ; and the sea, though in a muddy 
 complexion, really finds its way to these 
 wharves. When you see what facts I 
 explore to sustain my faith, you will un- 
 derstand why in these extremes I should 
 convulsively write to you, to try if the 
 high world of man and friend still stands 
 fast. 
 
 I must thank the Quaker City, how- 
 ever, for a new conviction, that this 
 whim called friendship was the brightest 
 thought in what Eden or Olympus it first 
 occurred. I think the two first friends 
 must have been travellers. — I doubt 
 you think my practice of the finest art 
 to be bad enough, but friendship does not 
 ever seem to me quite real in the world, 
 but always prophetic ; and if I wrote on 
 the Immortality of the Soul, this would 
 be my first topic. Yet is nothing more 
 right than that men should think to ad- 
 dress each other with truth and the high- 
 48 
 
LETTERS 
 
 est poetry at certain moments, far as 
 their ordinary intercourse is therefrom 
 and buried in trifles. I will try if a man 
 is a man, I will know if he feels that 
 star as I feel it ; among trees, does he 
 know them and they him ? Is he at the 
 same time both flowing and fixed ? Does 
 he feel that Nature proceeds from him, 
 yet can he carry himself as if he were 
 the meanest particle ? All and nothing ? 
 These things I would know of him, yet 
 without catechism : he shall tell me them 
 in all manner of unexpected ways, in his 
 behaviour and in his repose. It is time 
 to end my letter, yet I have only come 
 to the beginning of that I had to say to 
 you, and I think to write again presently. 
 Your friend Waldo E. 
 49 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXI 
 
 Philadb-lphia, /an7iary zdth, 1S43. 
 
 Before my yet libellous letter was gone 
 to the Post Office came your letter of 
 kind inquiries, and as I am more amiable 
 than usual by reason of that absence I 
 told thee of, it was very heartily received. 
 But it shall not stop the stream of my 
 communications on the laws of love in 
 general and of my love in particular. I 
 have seen lately some good people and 
 Hew friendships are offered me. Then I 
 remember the saying, that love may be 
 increased, but not multiplied. What 
 have I to do with you, O kind stranger } 
 Some of the best of the children of men 
 have put their hands into mine. I will 
 deserve them and hold them fast. Is it 
 not something gross to be facile to new 
 impressions, before yet we have well 
 established ourselves in the love of those 
 SO 
 
LETTERS 
 
 whom -v^e esteem ? For Jean Paul says 
 rightly " It is easy to love, — but to es- 
 teem — ! " It is strange how people act 
 on me. I am not a pith ball nor raw 
 silk, yet to human electricity is no piece 
 of humanity so sensible. I am forced to 
 live in the country, if it were only that 
 the streets make me desolate. Yet if I 
 talk with a man of sense and kindness, 
 I am imparadised at once. Pity that this 
 light of the heart should resemble the 
 light of the eyes in being so external and 
 not to be retained when the shutters are 
 closed. Now that I am in the mood of 
 confession, you must even hear the whole. 
 It is because I am so idle a member of 
 society ; because men turn me by their 
 mere presence to wood and to stone ; be- 
 cause I do not get the lesson of the world 
 where it is set before me, that I need 
 more than others to run out into new 
 places and multiply my chances for ob- 
 servation and communion. Therefore, 
 whenever I get into debt, which usually 
 51 
 
LETTERS 
 
 happens once a year, I must make the 
 plunge into this great odious river of 
 travellers, into these cold eddies of hotels 
 and boarding houses — farther, into these 
 dangerous precincts of charlatanism, 
 namely, lectures, that out of all the evil I 
 may draw a little good in the correction 
 which every journey makes to my exag- 
 gerations, in the plain facts I get, and in 
 the rich amends I draw for many listless 
 days, in the dear society of here and there 
 a wise and great heart. I hate the details, 
 but the whole foray into a city teaches 
 me much. 
 
 I have seen more of the people here. 
 I have found out that the bay-like rivers 
 are really rivers, and the water is not 
 salt for twenty miles below Philadelphia, 
 and I suppose I ought to find out that 
 the men are. I am always sure to be 
 shown that there is no difference in places 
 and that the average of wit seldom varies. 
 
 Waldo E. 
 52 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXII 
 
 September T,otk [1842]. 
 
 Hawthorne and I visited the Shakers 
 at Harvard, made ourselves very much at 
 home with them, conferred with them on 
 their faith and practice, took all reason- 
 able liberties with the brethren, found 
 them less stupid, more honest than we 
 looked for, found even some humour, and 
 had our fill of walking and sunshine.^ 
 
 R. W. E. 
 
 1 Mr. Cabot's Memoir of Emerson (p. 373) contains a 
 fuller account of this visit to the Shakers and of the two 
 days' walk with Hawthorne, from the record of it made by 
 Emerson in his journal. " It was a satisfactory tramp. 
 We had good talk on the way," wrote Emerson of it, 
 twenty-two years later, after Hawthorne's death. 
 
 53 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Concord, February ist, 1844. 
 
 Here are the six volumes of " Con- 
 suelo." I like nothing in the whole so 
 well as the first volume, though there are 
 good things in every part. The criticism 
 on styles in art was all luminous, and the 
 relations of art and artists to life and so- 
 ciety are strongly sketched. Then how 
 much the writer enjoys the bringing to- 
 gether of two superior persons, and paint- 
 ing their instant intimacy and good under- 
 standing. There is a good deal of con- 
 fused and factitious matter in the Count 
 Albert, and one wants to say to him with 
 Dr. Johnson, " Clear your head of non- 
 sense." No, it was Fox said so to Napo- 
 leon. And most of the characters have 
 a dim unsubstantial look, and one fears 
 to spy the " stars dim twinkling through 
 their forms." Yet I think Sand shows 
 54 
 
LETTERS 
 
 herself to be a real person, one whose 
 opinions will always interest you, one of 
 the persons on the planet best worth 
 speaking to. Waldo E. 
 
 55 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Concord, December i^th, 1S44. 
 
 Mr. Hoar has just come home from 
 Carolina, and gave me this morning a 
 narrative of his visit.^ He has behaved 
 admirably well, I judge, and there were 
 fine heroic points in his story. One ex- 
 pression struck me, which, he said, he re- 
 gretted a little afterwards, as it might 
 sound a little vapouring. A gentleman 
 who was very much his friend called him 
 into a private room to say, that the dan- 
 
 1 Of the Hon. Samuel Hoar, and of his experience in 
 Charleston, S. C, when sent thither as commissioner of 
 Massachusetts, Mr. Emerson told, twelve years after the 
 date of this letter, in a speech at Concord. It is printed in 
 the tenth volume of his works, the volume entitled Lec- 
 tures and Biographical Sketches. Samuel Hoar " was 
 born under a Christian and humane star, full of mansuetude 
 and nobleness, honor and charity ; and whilst he was will- 
 ing to face every disagreeable duty, whilst he dared to do 
 all that might beseem a man, his self-respect restrained him 
 from any foolhardiness." 
 
 56 
 
LETTERS 
 
 ger from the populace had increased to 
 such a degree that he must now insist on 
 Mr. Hoar's leaving the city at once, and 
 he showed him where he might procure a 
 carriage and where he might safely stop 
 on the way to his plantation, which he 
 would reach the next morning. Mr. 
 Hoar thanked him, but told him again 
 that he could not and would not go, and 
 that he had rather his broken scull should 
 be carried to Massachusetts by somebody 
 else, than to carry it home safe himself 
 whilst his duty required him to remain. 
 The newspapers say, following the 
 Charleston papers, that he consented to 
 depart : this he did not, but in every in- 
 stance refused, — to the Sheriff, and act- 
 ing Mayor, to his friends, and to the com- 
 mittee of the S. C. Association, and only 
 went when they came in crowds with 
 carriages to conduct him to the boat, 
 and go he must, — then he got into the 
 coach himself, not thinking it proper to 
 be dragged. 
 
 57 
 
LETTERS 
 
 There was an account in the news- 
 papers some months since of a Sheriff 
 Batterman who was sent to serve a writ 
 on the Rensselaer tenants in New York. 
 I remember talking with Mr. Hoar one 
 day, long before he was appointed to 
 this mission, on that account. I told him 
 I should like to give a vote for that Mr. 
 Batterman for President of the U. S. Mr. 
 Hoar fully entered into my respect for 
 the officer, as indeed his own character 
 would lead him to. He has had now a 
 good occasion to breathe his own virtue. 
 Our politics promise to give us fine gym- 
 nastic culture if we are inclined. 
 
 I have no literature, I believe, to offer 
 you in return for your good news of Goe- 
 the. I read lately Alexander Henry's 
 book of travels in America in 1766, &c. 
 which I think the best book about the 
 Indians I have seen. Yet I have never 
 read Catlin. But I prize every book of 
 facts, I believe, much more than practi- 
 cal men, so-called, do. Much the best 
 58 
 
LETTERS 
 
 society I have ever known is a club in 
 Concord called " the Social Circle," con- 
 sisting always of twenty-five of our citi- 
 zens — doctor, lawyer, farmer, trader, 
 miller, mechanic, &c., solidest men who 
 yield the solidest gossip. Harvard Uni- 
 versity is a wafer in comparison with the 
 solid land which my friends represent. 
 I do not like to be absent from home on 
 Tuesday evenings in winter. 
 
 R. Waldo E. 
 59 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXV 
 
 Concord, February^ 1845. 
 
 Have you ever heard W. Phillips ? I 
 have not learned a better lesson in many 
 weeks than last night in a couple of hours. 
 The core of the comet did not seem to 
 be much, but the whole air was full of 
 splendours. One orator makes many, 
 but I think this the best generator of 
 eloquence I have met for many a day 
 and of something better and grander than 
 his own. 
 
 Waldo E. 
 60 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Concord, /4/ri/ 30^/;, 1844. 
 
 The reluctant spring has yielded us 
 some golden days and I do not know any 
 idleness so delicious as dilettanteism in 
 fruit trees. Grafting and pruning turn a 
 day into pure dream, and seem to promise 
 the happy operator a dateless longevity, 
 inasmuch as it appears to be a suspen- 
 sion of all expenditure : only he must not 
 cut his fingers. 
 
 Did you read Vestiges of Creation ? I 
 am told the journals abound with stric- 
 tures, and Dr. Jackson told me how shal- 
 low it was, but I find it a good approxi- 
 mation to that book we have wanted so 
 long, and which so many attempts have 
 been made to write (by Mr. J. Herschel 
 and Mrs. Somerville, and all the Bridge- 
 water Treatises, &c., &c.), a digest namely, 
 of all the recent results in all the depart- 
 61 
 
LETTERS 
 
 merits of Science. All the competitors 
 have failed, and perhaps it needs a poet 
 for a task like this, but this new Vyvyan, 
 if it be he, has outdone all the rest in 
 breadth and boldness, and one only wants 
 to be assured that his facts are reliable. 
 I have been reading a little in Plato (in 
 translation, unhappily) with great com- 
 fort and refreshment of mind, as always 
 happens to me in that quarter. The Cor- 
 respondence of Goethe and Schiller gave 
 me little pleasure. I shall delight to hear 
 from you. 
 
 R. W. E. 
 62 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Concord, March 25, 1847. 
 
 I have had two letters from you which 
 were both most welcome. You shall 
 surely keep the books as long as you 
 read them. We can like any book so 
 little while ! Though its pages were cut 
 out of the sky, and its letters were stars, 
 in a short time we cannot find there, with 
 any turning of leaves, the celestial sen- 
 tences or the celestial scents we certainly 
 found there once ; and I am of opinion 
 that relatively to individual needs, the 
 fiery scriptures in each book either disap- 
 pear once for all from the context after a 
 short time, or else have a certain inter- 
 mittency and periodical obscuration, like 
 "revolving lights." Perhaps too, there 
 are cycles of epiphany and eclipse in 
 book shops. Certainly I have seen no- 
 thing that craved to go to . . . since you 
 63 
 
LETTERS 
 
 gave me leave to look for you. But I 
 shall not yet quite resign my commission. 
 Theodore Parker and others are con- 
 sidering just now, once more, the practi- 
 cability of a new Quarterly Journal, and 
 they seek for an editor. They came to 
 me and then to C. Sumner. I promised 
 my best help, but no editorship. ^ Sum- 
 ner declined also. Then I am invited on 
 some terms — not yet quite definite and 
 attractive enough — to England, to lec- 
 ture : in Manchester and Birmingham, 
 and Carlyle promises audiences in Lon- 
 don.2 But though I often ask where 
 shall I get the whip for my top, I do not 
 yet take either of these. The top be- 
 lieves it can fly like the wheel of the Sis- 
 ters, with a poise like a planet and a hum 
 
 1 This project took form in the Massachusetts Quar- 
 terly Review, the first number of which, with Parker, Em- 
 erson, and J. E. Cabot as co-editors, appeared in December, 
 1847. It was mainly supported by Mr. Parker, and lived 
 for three years. See Life and Correspondence of Theo- 
 dore Parker, by John Weiss, i. 266-26S. 
 
 2 The invitation was finally accepted, and Emerson sailed 
 for Europe in October. 
 
 64 
 
LETTERS 
 
 like the spheral music, yet it refuses to 
 spin. I have read in the Cosmogonists 
 that every atom has a spiral tendency, an 
 effort to spin. I think over all the shops 
 of power where we might borrow that 
 desiderated push, but none entirely suits 
 me. The excursion to England and far- 
 ther draws me sometimes, but the kind 
 of travel I should prize, the most liberal, 
 that made it a liberty and a duty to go, is 
 not to be found in hospitable invitations. 
 And if I could really do as I liked, I 
 should probably turn towards Canada, 
 into loneliest retreats, far from cities and 
 friends who do not yield me what they 
 would yield to any other companion, and 
 I believe that literary power would be 
 consulted by that course and not by the 
 public road. — iWhen my meditations draw 
 to any head, I shall hasten to apprise 
 you, and perhaps I shall, if they do not. 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 R. W. E. 
 6s 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 London, March 20th, 1S48. 
 
 It was a great pleasure to see your 
 handwriting the other day, for the first 
 time for long. A day or two afterwards 
 I saw Mrs. Butler, who had also news 
 from you, which she promised to share if 
 I would come and see her. But I fear 
 she has already left town and I have 
 not used my privilege. She will quickly 
 come back, they said, I made a point 
 first of seeing her as Cordelia, with Mac- 
 ready for Lear, and I found them both 
 excellent. 
 
 What shall I say to you of Babylon } 
 I see and hear with the utmost diligence, 
 and the lesson lengthens as I go ; so that, 
 at some hours, I incline to take some 
 drops of or grains of lotus, forget my 
 home and selfish solitude, and step by 
 step establish my acquaintance with Eng- 
 66 
 
LETTERS 
 
 lish society. There is nowhere so much 
 wealth of talent and character and social 
 accomplishment, every star outshone by 
 one more dazzling, and you cannot move 
 without coming into the light and fame 
 of new ones. I have seen, I suppose, 
 some good specimens, chiefly of the lit- 
 erary-fashionable and not of the fashion- 
 able sort. Macaulay is quite the king of 
 every circle where he goes, by the splen- 
 dor and the speed of his talking. He 
 has the strength of ten men, I may well 
 say, and any table-talk of his is an ex- 
 ploit to found a reputation on. Mr. Hal- 
 lam is affable, but comparatively quiet. 
 Bunsen is reputed a man of learning and 
 wide information and is much a man of 
 society, but he talked little when I saw 
 him. Milnes is the most gentle friendly 
 all-knowing little-caring omnipresent per- 
 son that can be. You see him so often 
 that you think it must be Boston, not 
 London. Lord Morpeth's virtues give 
 him the highest consideration, both in 
 67 
 
LETTERS 
 
 public and in private circles. Mr. Charles 
 Austin is a lawyer of great reputation, 
 and of special talent that makes him 
 the only fit match for Macaulay. Mil- 
 man is a very polished man and Mrs. 
 Milman a superior woman, and they are 
 the centre of a distinguished circle. Car- 
 lyle does not very often dine out or go to 
 breakfasts, so that I do not well know 
 how he, who is a wonderful talker, man- 
 ages his tomahawk among these Romans. 
 I have seen also Lady Harriet Baring, 
 esteemed the wittiest woman in London, 
 and am to dine with her this week, — a 
 lady in great respect. Kinglake I have 
 seen, a sensible man enough, but he does 
 not look the Eothen ; and Barry Corn- 
 wall, at whose house I found him and 
 Thackeray, you should never mistake for 
 a poet. They have all carried the art 
 of agreeable sensations to a wonderful 
 pitch, they know everything, have every- 
 thing, they are rich, plain, polite, proud 
 and admirable. But though good for 
 68 
 
LETTERS 
 
 them, it ^ ends in the using. I shall or 
 should soon have enough of this play for 
 my occasion. The seed-corn is oftener 
 found in quite other districts. But I am 
 very much struck with the profusion of 
 talent which allows everybody to be igno- 
 rant of the authors of paragraphs, arti- 
 cles and books, which all read with ad- 
 miration, but have not any guess of the 
 writer. Tennyson, whom I wished to see 
 more than any other, is in Ireland, and I 
 fear I shall miss him. I saw Wordsworth 
 to very good purpose in Westmoreland, 
 and all the Scottish gods at Edinburgh. 
 Perhaps it is no fault of Britain, — no 
 doubt it is because I grow old and cold, — 
 but no persons here appeal in any man- 
 ner to the imagination. I think even that 
 there is no person in England from whom 
 I expect more than talent and information. 
 But I am wont to ask very much more 
 of my benefactors, — expansions that 
 amount to new horizons. But this is 
 very idle gossip, and when I come home, 
 69 
 
LETTERS 
 
 I will mend it by giving you all my im- 
 pressions of this fine people — if I can 
 remember them. Meantime do not fail 
 to write me immediately.^ 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 
 1 Much of the contents of this letter may be found de- 
 veloped in Emerson's Etiglish Traits. The contempora- 
 neously recorded impressions were but little modified by 
 retrospection. 
 
 70 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXIX 
 
 At Sea [on the homeward voyage]. 
 
 Steamship Evkofa, /u/y 22a?, 1848. 
 
 The daily presence and cheerful smiles 
 of your brother make it almost impera- 
 tive, if I had not besides a just debt, to 
 write you a page, and it will be some 
 sunshine in these head winds and long 
 disgust of the sea, to remember all the 
 gallery of agreeable images that are wont 
 to appear with your name. What games 
 we men so dumb and lunatic play with 
 one another ! What is it or can it be to 
 you that through the long mottled trivial 
 years a dreaming brother cherishes in a 
 corner some picture of you as a type or 
 nucleus of happier visions and a freer 
 life. I am so safe in my iron limits from 
 intrusion or extravagance, that I can well 
 afford to indulge my humor with the 
 figures that pass my dungeon window, 
 71 
 
LETTERS 
 
 without incurring any risk of a ridiculous 
 shock from coming hand to hand with 
 my Ariel and Gabriel. Besides, if you 
 and other deceivers should really not have 
 the attributes of which you hang out the 
 sign, you were meant to have them, they 
 are in the world, and it is with good rea- 
 son that I rejoice in the tokens. Strange 
 that what is most real and cordial in ex- 
 istence should lie under what is most 
 fantastic and vanishing. I have long ago 
 found that we belong to our life, not that 
 it belongs to us, and that we must be 
 content to play a sort of admiring and 
 secondary part to our genius. But here, 
 to relieve you of these fine cobwebs, 
 comes an odd challenge from a fellow 
 passenger to play chess with him ; me 
 too, who have not played chess, I sup- 
 pose, for twenty years. 'T is of a piece 
 with the oddity of my letter, and I shall 
 accept that, as I write this. Shadows 
 and shadows. Never say I did it. Your 
 loving fellow film. 
 
 72 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXX 
 
 Sea Weeds. — Two very good men ^ 
 with whom I spent a Sunday in the coun- 
 try near Winchester lately, asked me if 
 there were any Americans, if there were 
 any who had an American idea ? or what 
 is it that thoughtful and superior men 
 with us would have ? Certainly I did not 
 retort, after our country fashion, by defy- 
 ing them to show me one mortal Eng- 
 lishman who did not live from hand to 
 mouth but who saw his way. No, I as- 
 sured them there were such monsters 
 hard by the setting sun, who believed in 
 a future such as was never a past, but 
 if I should show it to them, they would 
 think French communism solid and prac- 
 ticable in the comparison. So I sketched 
 
 1 These two good men were Carlyle, and Mr. (afterward 
 Sir Arthur) Helps. The conversation is recorded in Eng- 
 lish Traits, ch. xvi. 
 
 73 
 
LETTERS 
 
 the Boston fanaticism of right and might 
 without bayonets or bishops, every man 
 his own King, and all cooperation neces- 
 sary and extemporaneous. Of course my 
 men went wild at the denying to society 
 the beautiful right to kill and imprison. 
 But we stood fast for milk and acorns, 
 told them that musket-worship was per- 
 fectly well known to us, that it was an 
 old bankrupt, but that we had nev-er seen 
 a man of sufficient valor and substance 
 quite to carry out the other, which was 
 nevertheless as sure as Copernican as- 
 tronomy, and all heroism and invention 
 must of course lie on this side. 'T is 
 wonderful how odiously thin and pale this 
 republic dances before blue bloodshot 
 English eyes, but I had some anecdotes 
 to bring some of its traits within their 
 vision, and at last obtained a kind of al- 
 lowance ; but I doubt my tender converts 
 are backsliding before this, — But their 
 question which began the conversation 
 was so dangerous that I thought of no 
 74 
 
LETTERS 
 
 escape but to this extreme and sacred 
 asylum, and having got off for once 
 through the precinct of the temple, I 
 shall not venture into such company 
 again, without consulting those same 
 thoughtful Americans, whom their in- 
 quiry concerned. And you first, you who 
 never wanted for a weapon of your faith, 
 choose now your colors and styles, and 
 draw in verse, or prose, or painted out- 
 line, the portrait of your American. 
 
 Forgive these ricketty faltering lines 
 of mine ; they do not come of infirm faith 
 or love, but of the quivering ship. 
 Ever your friend, 
 
 R. W. E. 
 75 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXXI 
 
 Concord, July i2ih, 1S49. 
 
 The Club is not so out at elbows as 
 your friend fancied, for besides other 
 good men whom I do not remember, 
 Cabot was there, who is always bright, 
 erect, military, courteous and knowing, 
 a man to make a club. Then Hillard, 
 Lowell, Longfellow, and other men of 
 this world, have all shown themselves 
 once — and, with a little tenderness and 
 reminding, will all learn to come. There 
 is a whole Lili's Park,^ also with tusks 
 and snakes of the finest description. Be- 
 lief is the principal thing with clubs as 
 well as in trade and politics. And really 
 we have already such good elements 
 nominally in this, that the good luck of 
 
 1 " Lili's Park " is a half-humorous poetic autobiographic 
 allegory of Goethe's, in which he represents himself as the 
 bear in subjection to Lili's charm. 
 76 
 
LETTERS 
 
 a spirited ' conversation, or one or two 
 happy rencontres would now save it. 
 Henry James of New York is a member, 
 and I had the happiest half hour with 
 that man lately, at his house, so fresh 
 and expansive he is. My view now is to 
 accept the broadest democratic basis, and 
 we can elect twenty people every month, 
 for years to come, and yet show black- 
 balls and proper spirit at each meeting. 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 77 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Concord, July jgt/t, 1849. 
 
 The Horticultural paper never came, 
 and I am left to guess your opinions on 
 Downing. Do not fail to inquire on your 
 side, for my postmaster is positive here. 
 — I send you, I am ashamed it is so late, 
 with Dr. Carlyle's compliments, a copy 
 of his Dante.^ The Doctor's presenta- 
 tions are slow, fault of the Harpers, who 
 forget their author for a time. But the 
 book is worth waiting for, the most con- 
 scientious of translations. Confirm me, 
 if you can, in my estimate of it. I read 
 it lately by night, with wonder and joy 
 at all his parts, and at none more than at 
 the nerve and courage which is as essen- 
 tial to poet as to soldier. Dante locked 
 the door and put the key in his pocket. 
 I believe, we value only those who do so. 
 
 R. W. E. 
 
 1 Dr. John Carlyle's excellent translation of the Inferno, 
 published in this country by Harper & Brothers. 
 
 78 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Concord, February 2^tk, 1850. - 
 
 I saw Longfellow at Lowell's two days 
 ago, and . he declared that his faith in 
 clubs was firm. " I will very gladly," 
 he said, "meet with Ward and you and 
 Lowell and three or four others, and dine 
 together." Lowell remarked, " Well, if 
 he agrees to the dinner, though he re- 
 fuses the supper, we will continue the 
 dinner till next morning ! " — Meantime, 
 as measles, the influenza and the maga- 
 zine appear to be periodic distempers, so, 
 just now, Lowell has been seized with 
 aggravated symptoms of the magazine, — 
 as badly as Parker or Cabot heretofore, 
 or as the chronic case of Alcott and me. 
 He wishes to see something else and 
 better than the Knickerbocker. He came 
 up to see me. He has now been with 
 Parker, who professed even joy at the 
 79 
 
LETTERS 
 
 prospect offered him of taking off his 
 hea\y saddle, and Longfellow fosters his 
 project. Then Parker urges the forming 
 of a kind of Anthology Club ^ : — so out 
 of all these resembling incongruities I do 
 not know but we shall yet get a dinner 
 or a ^' Nodes." 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 R. W. E. 
 
 1 The Anthology Club was a club of men of letters 
 which had existed in Boston in the early years of the cen- 
 tury. Emerson's father was one of its members, and editor 
 for a time of the journal. The Monthly Anthology, from 
 which the club took its name. 
 80 
 
LETTERS 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 Concord, November zzd, 1853. 
 
 My little household is grown much less 
 by the loss of my Mother, She was born 
 to live. She lived eighty-four years, yet 
 not a day too long, and died suddenly 
 and unexpectedly at the last. She was 
 born a subject of King George, was bred 
 in the Church of England, and, though 
 she had lived through the whole existence 
 of this nation, and was tied all round to 
 later things, English traditions and cour- 
 tesies and the Book of Common Prayer 
 clung to her in her age, and, had it been 
 practicable, it would have seemed more 
 fit to have chanted the Liturgy over her, 
 and buried her in her father's tomb under 
 Trinity Church, 1 R. W. E. 
 
 1 In Mr. Cabot's Memoir of Emerson (p. 572) is a letter 
 to his brother W'Uliam, three days earlier in date than the 
 preceding, which contains similar expressions concerning 
 his mother's death. " Her mind and her character were of 
 a superior order, and they set their stamp upon manners 
 of peculiar softness and natural grace and quiet dignity." 
 Ibid., p. 37. 
 
 81 
 
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