LETTER TO WALT WHITMAN.
CONCORD. MASSACHUSETTS,
21 July, 1855.DEAR SIR—
I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "LEAVES OF GRASS." I find it
the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very
happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of
what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the
temperament, were making our western wits fat and mean.
I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things
said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and
which large perception only can inspire.
I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground
somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but
the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and
encouraging.
I did not know until I last night saw the book advertised in a newspaper that I could trust the
name as real
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and available for a post-office. I wish to see my benefactor, and have felt much like striking my
tasks and visiting New York to pay you my respects.R. W. EMERSON. |
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