the Thoreau Log.
26 October 1850. Concord, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal on 27 October:

  Rambling talk with H. T. last night, in accordance with my proposal to hold a session, the first for a long time, with malice prepense, & take the bull by the horns. We disposed pretty fast of America & England, I maintaining that our people did not get ripened, but, like the peaches & grapes of this season, wanted a fortnight’s more sun, & remained green,—whilst, in England, because of the density, perhaps, of cultivated population, more calorie was generated, & more completeness obtained. Layard is good example, both of the efficiency as measured by effect on the Arab, & in its reaction of his enterprise on him; for his enterprise proved a better university to him than Oxford or Sorbonne.  Henry thought, the English, “all train,” are mere soldiers, as it were, in the world. And that their business is winding up, whilst our pioneer is unwinding his lines.  I like the English better than our people, just as I like merchants better than scholars; for, though on a lower platform, yet there is no cant, there is great directness, comprehension, health, & success. So with English.

  Then came the difference between American & English scholars. H. said, the English were all bred in one way, to one thing, he had read many lives lately, & they were all one life, Southey, Campbell, Leigh Hunt, or whosoever, they went to Eton, they went to College, they went to London, they all knew each other, & never did not feel the ability of each. But here, Channing is obscure, Newcomb is obscure, & so all the Scholars are in a more natural, healthful & independent condition . . .

  Why are we so excellent at the humdrum of our musty household life, when quite aware of these majestic prerogatives? We do not try the virtue of the amulets we have. Thus we can think so much better, by thinking with a wise man. Yet we come together as a pair of six footers, always as six footers, & never on the ground of the immensities, which we have together authentically & awfully surveyed. Why not once meet & work on the basis of the Immensities, & not of the six feet?

  Yes, we have infinite powers, but cannot use them. When shall we attain our majority, & come to our estate? Henry admitted, of course, the solstice.

(The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 11:283-286)

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