Centreville, July 24, P. M.
"Each and All" is a true poem and in Emerson's
best strain, — but don't misunderstand it; Emerson doesn't mean to bring in
question the reality of beauty, or the substantial truth of our youth's hopes,
but he has seen how unripe and childish is the desire to appropriate, and how
futile the attempt must always be. He does not lament over this, perhaps he
rather rejoices over it, — everything is ours to enjoy, nothing is ours to
encage; open, we are as wide as Nature; closed, we are too narrow to enjoy a
seashell's beauty.
I wonder whether you will ever like Wordsworth as much as I
do, — I wonder whether I liked him as much when I was “only nineteen.” He is
clumsy, prosy, and sometimes silly, but he is always self-respectful, serene,
and (what I like, even in a poet) responsible, — more of a man than any other
modern poet, if not so much of a “person” as some, — less exclusively human and
therefore more manly. I don't believe you’ll ever like him as much as I do.
Indeed in my heart I hope you will not; he is rather a cold customer, not an
ardent Protestant, and yet far from Catholic; but then he lived pretty high up
and a good deal alone.
SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of
Charles Russell Lowell, p. 281-2
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