STATEN ISLAND, October 17, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I went with my pupil to the Fair of the American
Institute, and so lost a visit from Tappan, whom I met returning from
the Island. I should have liked to hear more news from his lips,
though he had left me a letter and the _Dial_, which is a sort of
circular letter itself. I find Channing's[33] letters full of life,
and I enjoy their wit highly. Lane writes straight and solid, like a
guide-board, but I find that I put off the "social tendencies" to a
future day, which may never come. He is always Shaker fare, quite as
luxurious as his principles will allow. I feel as if I were ready to
be appointed a committee on poetry, I have got my eyes so whetted and
proved of late, like the knife-sharpener I saw at the Fair, certified
to have been "in constant use in a gentleman's family for more than
two years." Yes, I ride along the ranks of the English poets, casting
terrible glances, and some I blot out, and some I spare. McKean has
imported, within the year, several new editions and collections of old
poetry, of which I have the reading, but there is a good deal of chaff
to a little meal,--hardly worth bolting. I have just opened Bacon's
"Advancement of Learning" for the first time, which I read with great
delight. It is more like what Scott's novels _were_ than anything.
I see that I was very blind to send you my manuscript in such a state;
but I have a good _second_ sight, at least. I could still shake it in
the wind to some advantage, if it would hold together. There are some
sad mistakes in the printing. It is a little unfortunate that the
"Ethnical Scriptures" should hold out so well, though it does really
hold out. The Bible ought not to be very large. Is it not singular
that, while the religious world is gradually picking to pieces its old
testaments, here are some coming slowly after, on the seashore,
picking up the durable relics of perhaps older books, and putting them
together again?
Your Letter to Contributors is excellent, and hits the nail on the
head. It will taste sour to their palates at first, no doubt, but it
will bear a sweet fruit at last. I like the poetry, especially the
Autumn verses. They ring true. Though I am quite weather-beaten with
poetry, having weathered so many epics of late. The "Sweep Ho!" sounds
well this way. But I have a good deal of fault to find with your "Ode
to Beauty." The tune is altogether unworthy of the thoughts. You slope
too quickly to the rhyme, as if that trick had better be performed as
soon as possible, or as if you stood over the line with a hatchet, and
chopped off the verses as they came out, some short and some long. But
give us a long reel, and we'll cut it up to suit ourselves. It sounds
like parody. "Thee knew I of old," "Remediless thirst," are some of
those stereotyped lines. I am frequently reminded, I believe, of Jane
Taylor's "Philosopher's Scales," and how the world
"Flew out with a bounce,"
which
"Yerked the philosopher out of his cell;"
or else of
"From the climes of the sun all war-worn and weary."
I had rather have the thought come ushered with a flourish of oaths
and curses. Yet I love your poetry as I do little else that is near
and recent, especially when you get fairly round the end of the line,
and are not thrown back upon the rocks. To read the lecture on "The
Comic" is as good as to be in our town meeting or Lyceum once more.
I am glad that the Concord farmers plowed well this year; it promises
that something will be done these summers. But I am suspicious of that
_Brittonner_, who advertises so many cords of _good_ oak, chestnut,
and maple wood for sale. _Good!_ ay, good for what? And there shall
not be left a stone upon a stone. But no matter,--let them hack away.
The sturdy Irish arms that do the work are of more worth than oak or
maple. Methinks I could look with equanimity upon a long street of
Irish cabins, and pigs and children reveling in the genial Concord
dirt; and I should still find my Walden Wood and Fair Haven in their
tanned and happy faces.
I write this in the corn-field--it being washing-day--with the
inkstand Elizabeth Hoar gave me;[34] though it is not redolent of
corn-stalks, I fear. Let me not be forgotten by Channing and
Hawthorne, nor our gray-suited neighbor under the hill [Edmund
Hosmer].
* * * * *
This letter will be best explained by a reference to the _Dial_ for
October, 1843. The "Ethnical Scriptures" were selections from the
Brahminical books, from Confucius, etc., such as we have since seen in
great abundance. The Autumn verses are by Channing; "Sweep Ho!" by
Ellen Sturgis, afterwards Mrs. Hooper; the "Youth of the Poet and
Painter" also by Channing. The Letter to Contributors, which is headed
simply "A Letter," is by Emerson, and has been much overlooked by his
later readers; his "Ode to Beauty" is very well known, and does not
deserve the slashing censure of Thoreau, though, as it now stands, it
is better than first printed. Instead of
"Love drinks at thy banquet
_Remediless_ thirst,"
we now have the perfect phrase,
"Love drinks at thy _fountain_
_False waters of thirst_."
"The Comic" is also Emerson's. There is a poem, "The Sail," by William
Tappan, so often named in these letters, and a sonnet by Charles A.
Dana, afterwards of the _New York Sun_.