Ralph Waldo Emerson

“ Channing, he had hinted to him that he was afraid he loved Christianity for what was lovely and excellent, — he loved the good in it, and not the true; and I tell you, sir, that I have known ten persons who loved the good, for one person who loved the true; but it is a far greater virtue to lovethe true for itself alone, than to love the good for itself alone. He (Coleridge) knew all about Unitarianism perfectly well, because he had once been a Unitarian, and knew what quackery it was. ”

“ He was already turning his eyes towards London with a scholar's appreciation. London is the heart of the world, he said, wonderful only from the mass of human beings. He liked the huge machine. Each keeps its own round. The baker's boy brings muffins to the window at a fixed hour every day, and that is all the Londoner knows or wishes to know on the subject. But it turned out good men. He namedcertain individuals, especially one man of letters, his friend, the best mind he knew, whom London had well served.
On the 28th August, I went to Rydal Mount, to pay my respects to Mr. Wordsworth. ”

“ He worships a man that will manifest any truth to him. At one time he had inquired and read a good deal about America. Landor's principle was mere rebellion, and that he feared was the American principle. The best thing he knew of that country was, that in it a man can have meat for his labor. ”

“ And I fear they lack a class of men of leisure, — in short, of gentlemen, — to give a tone of honor to the community. I am told that things are boasted of in the second class of society there, which, in England, — God knows, are done in England every day, — but would never be spoken of. In America I wish to know not how many churches or schools, but what newspapers? ”

“ The thing done avails, and not what is said about it. An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the censures. ”

“ My friend, Colonel Hamilton, at the foot of the hill, who was a year in America, assures me that the newspapers are atrocious, and accuse members of Congress of stealing spoons!' He was against taking off the tax on newspapers in England, which the reformers represent as a tax upon knowledge, for this reason, that they would be inundated with base prints. ”

“ This recitation was so unlooked for and surprising, — he, the old Wordsworth, standing apart, and reciting to me in a garden-walk, like a schoolboy declaiming, — that I at first was near to laugh; but recollecting myself, that I had come thus far to see a poet, and he was chanting poems to me, I saw that he was right and I was wrong, and gladly gave myself up to hear. I told him how much the few printed extracts had quickened the desire to possess his unpublished poems. He replied, he never was in haste to publish ”

“ Sin is what he fears, and how society is to escape without gravest mischiefs from this source —— ? He has even said, what seemed a paradox, that they needed a civil war in America, to teach the necessity of knitting the social ties stronger. `There may be,' he said, `in America some vulgarity in manner, but that's not important. ”

“ The young scholar fancies it happiness enough to live with people who can give an inside to the world; without reflecting that they are prisoners, too, of their own thought, and cannot apply themselves to yours. The conditions of literary success are almost destructive of the best social power, as they do not leave that frolic liberty which only can encounter a companion on the best terms. ”

“ I have, however, found writers superior to their books, and I cling to my first belief, that a strong head will dispose fast enough of these impediments, and give one the satisfaction of reality, the sense of having been met, and a larger horizon. ”

“ Like most young men at that time, I was much indebted to the men of Edinburgh, and of the Edinburgh Review, — to Jeffrey, Mackintosh, Hallam, and to Scott, Playfair, and De Quincey; and my narrow and desultory reading had inspired the wish to see the faces of three or four writers, — Coleridge, Wordsworth, Landor, De Quincey, and the latest and strongest contributor to the critical journals, Carlyle ”

“ He said, "Yes, they are better." He preferred such of his poems as touched the affections, to any others; for whatever is didactic, — what theories of society, and so on, — might perish quickly; but whatever combined a truth with an affection was [ktema es aei] , good to-day and good forever. He cited the sonnet "On the feelings of a high-minded Spaniard," which he preferred to any other, (I so understood him,) and the "Two Voices;" and quoted, with evident pleasure, the verses addressed "To the Skylark." ”

“ When he stopped to take breath, I interposed, that, "whilst I highly valued all his explanations, I was bound to tell him that I was born and bred a Unitarian." "Yes," he said, "I supposed so;" and continued as before. ”

“ He still returned to English pauperism, the crowded country, the selfish abdication by public men of all that public persons should perform. `Government should direct poor men what to do. Poor Irish folk come wandering over these moors. ”