The career
of a great man should rouse us to a like assertion of ourselves. We ought
not to obey, but to follow, sometimes by not obeying, him. "It is the
imbecility not the wisdom of men that is always inviting the impudence of
power."
It is obvious that many of these views are in essential opposition to the
teaching of Carlyle; and it is remarkable that two conspicuous men so
differing and expressing their differences with perfect candour should
have lived so long on such good terms. Their correspondence, ranging
over thirty-eight years (begun in 1834, after Emerson's visit to
Craigenputtock, and ending in 1872, before his final trip to England),
is on the whole one of the most edifying in literary history. The
fundamental accord, unshaken by the ruffle of the visit in 1847, is a
testimony to the fact that the common preservation of high sentiments
amid the irksome discharge of ordinary duties may survive and override
the most distinct antagonisms of opinion. Matthew Arnold has gone so far
as to say that he "would not wonder if Carlyle lived in the long run by
such an invaluable record as that correspondence between him and Emerson
and not by his works." This is paradoxical; but the volumes containing
it are in some respects more interesting than the letters of Goethe and
Schiller, as being records of "two noble kinsmen" of nearer intellectual
claims.
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