The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-05-23
CARLYLE and Emerson
london speetator.l

This correspondence 1.-THE correspon-
dence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo
Emerson is less interesting as a cores
pondence than it is as affording traits of the
two correspondents. On the whole, we
have seldom read any correspondence be-
tween men Of the same mark in which there
is less real answering Of one mind to the
other. We do not mean, OF course, that
either Carlyle or Emerson is wanting in in
terest for the other. Quite the reverse
Each is supremacy interesting 10 the o.her
But they live in such different planes that
neither helps the other at all With the
thoughts with which he is struggling, so that
the letters appear to be written rather in the
hope of affording each a glimpse into the
world in which the other is liying-a glimpse
which each knows that the other will value
than with any hope of contributing what
shall help the other in his thoughts, or what
will elicit from the other what shall help the
writer. Considering that Carlyle is always
telling Emerson that 10 other person on this
planet appears to understand him so well as
Emerson-a compliment, by the way, which
Emerson never reciprocates-.t is a great ey-
idence of the supreme loneliness Of which
Carlyle so constantly complains, that he new
er once appeals to Emerson to help him in
any train of thought, and that il never
seems to occur to either that any such help
would be possible on either side.
This correspondence Is not so much a cor
respondence in any true intellectual sense as
deliberate exchange of monologues, $50 far
as Il is not an elaborate series of benefieent
business arrangemt nts for Cariyle's benefit
promoted by the disinterested and generous
care of Emerson.) Each is content to exhi-
bit his own state of mind to the other, well
convinced of the interest with which the ex-
hbition of that state of mind will be re-
ceived, but apparently without any expecia-
ton or wish that his friend will be able to Of
fer any effectual aid. In part, this is due TO
the fact, which Emerson had apparently
more or less clearly grasped-that Carlyle is
not so much thinker as an imaginer--one
who fills In the detail and color of all such
physical and spiritual scenery as is suited to
his genius, but who deliberately refuses TO
apply his mind at Ell to any kiud of scenery
physical or spiritual-whch 1t does not
suit his genius 10 take into consideration.
For instance, one would have supposed that
one who in theory had so much respect for
the dumb, inarticulate side Of man as
Carlyle, would not have counted it the great
sin of the universe that there was so little
Of articulate speech In it, and so much
speech in 1t, and so much speechthat missed
its true mark altogether Yet, as a matter
of fact, this charge against the universe that
1t hardly even dimly guesses its own wants,
and at all events cannot articnlately state
them, is a sort of parrot-cry with Carlyle
that Is repeated in nine-tenths Of his letters
with more or less vehemence, ard reiterated
in many of them till we are quite sick Of II.
'sIn Carlyle, as in Byron,' wrote Emerson,
one is more struck with the rhetoric than
the matter. He has manly superiority rath-
er than intellectually, and so makes good
hard hits all the time. There is more char
acter than intellect In every sentence, herein
strongly resembling Samue' Johnson" That
is perfectly true, but there is also more Inn
agining power-within specific and rather
limited area--that even character. Hence
CarIyle's letters, Ike his books are not so
much embodied thoughts as efforts at in
sight and at picturesque delineation Of what
he saw. Emerson, on the contrary, though
not, in the opinion of the present writer, a
great philosophic thinker, was very admir-
able critic.