The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-03-03

Stubb's Brother, etc. Cloth, illustrated. New
York: Harper Il Brothers; Portland. Loring,
Short & Harmon.
Carlyle-Emerson.
Bxtracts From Forty Years Cores
pondence.
The correspondence of Carlyle and Emer-
son, edited by Charles Eliot Norton, is about
to be published by ]. R. Osgood & Co. The
New York Tribune has advance sheets of
the work, from which it gives several col
umns of extracts. Subjoined are some of
the more interesting passages:
SOME ENGLISH CELEBRITIES.
Carlyle to Emerson, 1886. Ibid tell
you that saw Wordsworth this winter?
Twice, at considerable length; with almost
no disappointment. he is natural man
(Which means whole immensities here and
now); flows like natural well. yielding
mere esomeness--thuuah, as 1t would
not but seem to me. in small quantity and
astoEishingly diluted. Franker utterances Of
mere garrulties and even platitudes never
heard from any man; at least never whom
could honor for uttering them. am thank
full for Wordsworth; as in ~reat darkness
and perpetual sky rockets and coruscations,
one were for the smallest clear-burning far
thing candle. S, utbey's complex
ion is still healthy mahogany brown, with
fleece of white hair and eyes that seem ran
ming at full gallop. Leigh Hunt, imam of
genius in the shape of a Cockney," is my
near neighbor, full of ouips and cranks,
with good humor and no common sense.
Old Rogers, with his pale head, white, bare
and cold as snow, will work on you with
those large blue eyes, cruel, sorrowful, and
that sardonic self-chin.
WEBSTER.
Carlyle to Emerson, 1880 Not many
days ago saw at breakfast the notablest Of
all your notabilities, Daniel Webster. He
is magnificent specimen; you might say to
all the world: this is your Yankee English
man; such Limbs we make in Yankeeland!
AS a Logic-fencer, Advocate or Parliament
tary Hercules one would incline to back
him at first sight against all the extant
world. The tanned complexion, that amor
phous erag-like face; the dull black eyes un-
der their precipice of brows, like dull anthra-
cite furnaces, needing only TO be blown;
the mastiff-m0uth, accurately closed. |
have not traced as much of silent Berserkir
rage, that remember of in any other man.
Il guess should not like to be your Niger
Webster is not loquaci Jus, but he is peril
nent, conclusive; dignifed, perfectly well
bred man, though not English in breeding;
man worthy of the best reception from us.
and meeting such, understand. He did
dot speak much with me that morning, bat
seemed not at all to dislike me. mediate
whether it is fit or not fit that l should
seek out his residence, and leave nv card,
too, before go? Probably not, for the man
is political, seemingly, altogether; has been
at the Queens levee, ETC., etc. 1t is simply
as mastiff-mouthed man that he is inter-
esting to me, and not otherwise at all.
Emerson to Carlyle, 1839.l--I cannot tell
you how glad am that you have seen my
brave Senator, and seen him as see him.
ALI my DAYS have wished that he should
go to England, and never more than when
listened two or three times to debates ia the
House of Commons. We send out usually
mean persons as public agents, mere parti-
sans, for whom lean only hope that no man
with eyes will meet them; and now those
thirsty eyes, those portr aIt-eating, portrait
painting eyes IF thine, those fatal percep-
oiOho, AdFC LafiCu Ault Ou tiiC Sfcdg ~ outdu
which l followed alb nut all my young days,
from Court House to Senate Chamber from
caucus to street. He has his own sins, no
doubt, is no saint, is prodigal. He has
drunk this rum of party, too, so long that
his strorg head is soaked, sometimes even
ike the snft sponges, but the ''man's a man
for a. that" Better, he is great boy-as
willful, as nonchalans, and good humored.
But you must hear him speak, not show
speech, which he never does well, but with
cause he can strike stroke like smith.
owe to him hundred fine hours and two
or three moments of eloquence. His voice
in great house is admirable. am sorry
II you decided not to visit him. He loves
man, too. lido not know him, but my BROTH
or Edward read law with him and loved
him, aud afterward, In sick and unfortuu ate
days, received the steadiest kindness from
him.
D'oRsAY AND LANDoR.
Carlyle to Emerson, 1910. las to the
D'Orsay portrait, it is real curiosity
Count D. Orsay the Emperor of European
handles, portraying the prophet of spirit
ual sansculottisml He came rolling down
hither one day, many months ago, in his
to the bedazzlefnent of all by-
ISLANDERS; found me in dusty grey-plaid dres-
sing gown, grim as the spirit of Presbyteri-
anism, (my wife said), and contrived to get
along well enough with me. found him a
man worth talking to, once and away; a man
of decided natural gifts, every utterance of
his containing In 1t Wild caricature like
ness of some object or other; a dashino
man, who might, some twenty years sooner
born, have become one OF Bonaparte's mar
shals, and is, alas--Count D'Orsayi Tho
portrait he dashed off in some twenty min
utes II was dining there to meet Landori.
we have not CHANGED to meet together since |
and refused to undergo any more eight |
O clock dinners for such an object. Now, if |
do not send you the portrait, after al?
Of Lander / have not got much |
benefit either We met first, some four |
years ago, on Cheyne Walk here, a tall. |
broad, burly man, with grey hair and large, |
l1erce-rolling eyes, Of the most restless, i'm |
petuous vivacity, not TO be held In by The |
most perfect breeding-expressing itself in |
superlatives, indeed in reckless |
exaggeration, no" and then in dry, sharp
laugh, not OF sport, but OF mockery; wild |
man, whom no extent of culture had been
able to tame! His intellectual faculty
seemed to me to be weak in proportion to
his violence of temper; the Judgment ne
gives abou. anything is more apt tobe wrong
than ri 1ht--as the inward whirIwind shows
him this side or the other of the object, and
sides of an object sre all that he sees.
He Is not an original man; in most cases one
but signs over the spectacle of commonplace
torn to rags. find him painful as writer:
like a soul ever promising to take wing into
The Either, yet never doing it; ever splash
ng web-footed into the terene mud, and on
U oh; pr bov tho NOR ho |
Two new tragedies of his that read lately
ire the fara stuff that l have seen fer
ong not an inGot; alb, no, distracted coil
If wire drawings salable in no market. Poor
Landor has left his wife (who 10 said to be
. fool in Italy, with his children, who would