The one loves detail, hates abstraction, delights
to dwell on the minutiae of biography, and waxes eloquent even on dates.
The other, a brilliant though not always a profound generaliser, tells
us that we must "leave a too close and lingering adherence to facts, and
study the sentiment as it appeared in hope not in history ... with the
ideal is the rose of joy. But grief cleaves to names and persons, and
the partial interests of to-day and yesterday." The one is bent under a
burden, and pores over the riddle of the earth, till, when he looks up at
the firmament of the unanswering stars, he can but exclaim, "It is a sad
sight." The other is blown upon by the fresh breezes of the new world;
his vision ranges over her clear horizons, and he leaps up elastic under
her light atmosphere, exclaiming, "Give me health and a day and I will
make the pomp of emperors ridiculous." Carlyle is a half-Germanised
Scotchman, living near the roar of the metropolis, with thoughts of
Weimar and reminiscences of the Covenanting hills. Emerson studies
Swedenborg and reads the _Phaedo_ in his garden, far enough from the din
of cities to enable him in calm weather to forget them. "Boston, London,
are as fugitive as any whiff of smoke; so is society, so is the world."
The one is strong where the other is weak. Carlyle keeps his abode in
the murk of clouds illumined by bolts of fire; he has never seen the sun
unveiled.
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