The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. by Ralph Waldo Emerson;Thomas Carlyle
page 259 of 327 (79%)
page 259 of 327 (79%)
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acclamation, and signify, by crowning him with oakleaves, their
joy that such a head existed among them, and sympathizing and much-reading America would make a new treaty or send a Minister Extraordinary to offer congratulation of honoring delight to England, in acknowledgment of this donation,--a book holding so many memorable and heroic facts, working directly on practice; with new heroes, things unvoiced before;--the German Plutarch (now that we have exhausted the Greek and Roman and British Plutarchs), with a range, too, of thought and wisdom so large and so elastic, not so much applying as inosculating to every need and sensibility of man, that we do not read a stereotype page, rather we see the eyes of the writer looking into ours, mark his behavior, humming, chuckling, with under-tones and trumpet-tones and shrugs, and long-commanding glances, stereoscoping every figure that passes, and every hill, river, road, hummock, and pebble in the long perspective. With its wonderful new system of mnemonics, whereby great and insignificant men are ineffaceably ticketed and marked and modeled in memory by what they were, had, and did; and withal a book that is a Judgment Day, for its moral verdict on the men and nations and manners of modern times. --------- * In the first edition, this extract was printed from the original Diary; it is now printed according to the copy sent abroad. -------- And this book makes no noise; I have hardly seen a notice of it in any newspaper or journal, and you would think there was no such book. I am not aware that Mr. Buchanan has sent a special |
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