Part 5 (1/2)
[This ust, 1834]
Dr Le Baron Russell, an intiives me some particulars with reference to the publication of ”Sartor Resartus,” which I will repeat in his oords:--
”It was just before the tie] that the 'Sartor Resartus' appeared in 'Fraser'
Emerson lent the numbers, or the collected sheets of 'Fraser,' to Miss Jackson, and we all had the reading of the persons interested in the literature of the day at that time you probably remember I was quite carried away by it, and so anxious to own a copy, that I determined to publish an American edition I consulted James Munroe & Co on the subject Munroe advised me to obtain a subscription to a sufficient number of copies to secure the cost of the publication
This, with the aid of some friends, particularly ofWhen this was accomplished, I wrote to Emerson, who up to this ti him to write a preface (This is the Preface which appears in the American edition, James Munroe & Co, 1836 It was omitted in the third American from the second London edition,[1] by the same publishers, 1840) Before the first edition appeared, and after the subscription had been secured, Munroe & Co
offered to assume the whole responsibility of the publication, and to this I assented
[Footnote 1: Revised and corrected by the author]
”This American edition of 1836 was the first appearance of the 'Sartor' in either country, as a distinct edition Some copies of the sheets froether and sent to a few persons, but Carlyle could find no English publisher willing to take the responsibility of printing the book This shows, I think, how s in this country than in England”
On the 14th of May, 1834, Emerson wrote to Carlyle the first letter of that correspondence which has since been given to the world under the careful editorshi+p of Mr Charles Norton This correspondence lasted from the date mentioned to the 2d of April, 1872, when Carlyle wrote his last letter to E sympathy with each other, in spite of a radical difference of temperament and entirely opposite views of life The hatred of unreality was upperenuine with E philosophers, find their counterparts in every thinking community Carlyle did not weep, but he scolded; Eravestfor the cloud to pass from his forehead The Duet they chanted was a Miserere with a Te Deum for its Antiphon; a _De_ _Profundis_ answered by a _Sursuround of my existence is black as death,” says Carlyle ”Come and live with land well enough to stay, one of these years; (when the 'History' has passed its ten editions, and been translated into as es) I will come and dith you”
Section 2 In September, 1835, Emerson was married to Miss Lydia Jackson, of Ply took place in the fine old mansion known as the Winslow House, Dr Le Baron Russell and his sister standing up with the bridegrooe, Mr and Mrs Emerson went to reside in the house in which he passed the rest of his life, and in which Mrs Ehter still reside This is the ”plain, square, wooden house,” with horse-chestnut trees in the front yard, and evergreens around it, which has been so often described and figured It is without pretensions, but not without an air of quiet dignity A full and well-illustrated account of it and its arrangeiven in ”Poets' Homes,”
by Arthur Gilman and others, published by D Lothrop & Company in 1879
On the 12th of September, 1835, Emerson delivered an ”Historical Discourse, at Concord, on the Second Centennial Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town” There is no ”htforward Address The facts are collected and related with the patience and sobriety which becaent, very useful, very inative Massachusetts Historical Society It looks unlike anything else E provided with abundant foot-notes and an appendix
One would almost as soon have expected to see Emerson equipped with a ed with annotations, and trailing a supplement after it Oracles are brief and final in their utterances Delphi and cumae are not expected to explain what they say
It is the habit of our New England towns to celebrate their oorthies and their own deeds on occasions like this, with ratitude and self-felicitation The discourses delivered on these occasions are co ht on heroes and heroines Concord is on the whole the land E, faithful a way as if he had been by nature an annalist But with this fidelity, we find also those bold generalizations and sharp picturesque touches which reveal the poetic philosopher
”I have read with care,” he says, ”the town records the picture of a coricultural, where no s; of a coreat simplicity of manners, and of a manifest love of justice I find our annals ood sense--The tone of the record rises with the dignity of the event These soiled and musty books are luminous and electric within The old town clerks did not spell very correctly, but they contrive to ible the will of a free and just cos) are such as to invite very ses of the town records contain the result I shall be excused for confessing that I have set a value upon any symptom of meanness and private pique which I have met with in these antique books, as proof that justice was done; that if the results of our history are approved as wise and good, it was yet a free strife; if the good counsel prevailed, the sneaking counsel did not fail to be suggested; freedom and virtue, if they triu testiround of assurance ofin this Address which the plainest of Concord's citizens could not read understandingly and with pleasure In fact Mr
E a poet and a philosopher, was also a plain Concord citizen His son tells s, and, though he never spoke, was an interested and careful listener to the debates on town matters That respect for ”mother-wit” and for all the wholesoh his writings was bred from this kind of intercourse with , and in whom, for that very reason, the native qualities cauise in their expression He was surrounded by men who ran to extremes in their idiosyncrasies; Alcott in speculations, which often led him into the fourth dimension of mental space; Hawthorne, who brooded himself into a dream--peopled solitude; Thoreau, the nullifier of civilization, who insisted on nibbling his asparagus at the wrong end, to say nothing of idolaters and echoes He kept his balance a them all It would be hard to find a overnment in a small community than is contained in this sie in treateneralities about the natural rights of ht of asserting the fairly to their natural duties So adoes on in a well-disposed community, displayed in the history of Concord's two hundred years of village life, that one of its wisest citizens had portions of the address printed for distribution, as an illustration of the A in Concord, E several successive winters; in 1835, ten Lectures on English Literature; in 1836, twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of History; in 1837, ten Lectures on Human Culture Some of these lectures inal titles; all of them probably contributed to the Essays and Discourses which we find in his published volu was held to celebrate the completion of the ht
For this occasion Emerson wrote the hymn made ever memorable by the lines:--
Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world
The last line of this hymn quickens the heartbeats of every Aht and expression Until the autumn of 1838, Eton, which desired him to become its pastor Mr Cooke says that when a lady of the society was asked why they did not settle a friend of Eed them to invite to their pulpit, she replied: ”We are a very simple people, and can understand no one but Mr
Emerson” He said of hi that he made his Sermons contribute to his Lectures, we need notreported
In March, 1837, Emerson delivered in Boston a Lecture on War, afterwards published in Miss Peabody's ”Aesthetic Papers” He recognizes war as one of the te civilization, to disappear with the advance of ress the hts, if he be of a sound body and e he makes no offensive demonstration, but is alert to repel injury, and of an unconquerable heart At a still higher stage he coion of holiness; passion has passed away from him; his warlike nature is all converted into an active medicinal principle; he sacrifices himself, and accepts with alacrity weariso attacked, he bears it, and turns the other cheek, as one engaged, throughout his being, no longer to the service of an individual, but to the coood of all men”
In 1834 Emerson's brother Edward died, as already one for his health In his letter to Carlyle, of November 12th of the same year, Emerson says: ”Your letter, which I received last week, ht in a solitary and saddened place I had quite recently received the news of the death of a brother in the island of Porto Rico, whose loss tosorrow” It was of him that Emerson wrote the lines ”In Memoriam,” in which he says,--
”There is no record left on earth Save on tablets of the heart, Of the rich, inherent worth, Of the grace that on him shone Of eloquent lips, of joyful wit; He could not frame a word unfit, An act unworthy to be done”