206 FRESH FIELDS 



and rolling earthward, with wind, thunder, rain, 

 and hail. He reaches up to the Emersonian alti- 

 tudes, but seldom disports himself there ; never loses 

 himself, as Emerson sometimes does; the absorption 

 takes place in the other direction; he descends to 

 actual affairs and events with fierce precipitation. 

 Carlyle's own verdict, written in his journal on 

 Emerson's second visit to him in 1848, was much 

 to the same effect, and, allowing for the Carlylean 

 exaggeration, was true. He wrote that Emerson 

 differed as much from himself "as a gymnosophist 

 sitting idle on a flowery bank may do from a wearied 

 worker and wrestler passing that way with many of 

 his bones broken." 



All men would choose Emerson's fate, Emerson's 

 history; how rare, how serene, how inspiring, how 

 beautiful, how fortunate! But as between these 

 two friends, our verdict must be that Carlyle did 

 the more unique and difficult, the more heroic, 

 piece of work. Whether the more valuable and 

 important or not, it is perhaps too early in the day 

 to say, but certainly the more difficult and master- 

 ful. As an artist, using the term in the largest 

 sense, as the master-worker in, and shaper of, the 

 Concrete, he is immeasurably Emerson's superior. 

 Emerson's two words were truth and beauty, which 

 lie, as it were, in the same plane, and the passage 

 from one to the other is easy; it is smooth sailing. 

 Carlyle's two words were truth and duty, which lie 

 in quite different planes, and the passage between 

 which is steep and rough. Hence the pain, the 



