A SUNDAY IN CHEYNE ROW. 229 



them, according to occasion ; " do this as I am doing 

 it, or trying to do it, and I shall like you better. It 

 is well to know that nature will make good compost 

 of the carcass of an Oliver Cromwell, and produce a 

 cart-load of turnips from the same ; but it is better to 

 appreciate and make the most of the live Oliver him- 

 self. " A faculty is in you for a sort of speech which 

 is itself action, an artistic sort. You tell us with 

 piercing emphasis that man's soul is great ; show us 

 a great soul of a man, in some work symbolic of 

 such ; this is the seal of such a message, and you will 

 feel by and by that you are called to do this. I long 

 to see some concrete Thing, some Event, Man's Hope, 

 American Forest, or piece of Creation, which this 

 Emerson loves and wonders at, well Emersonized, 

 depicted by Emerson, filled with the life of Emerson 

 and cast forth from him, then to live by itself." 

 Again : " I will have all things condense themselves, 

 take shape and body, if they are to have my sym- 

 pathy ; I have a body myself ; in the brown leaf, sport 

 of the Autumn winds, I find what mocks all prophe- 

 syings, even Hebrew ones." " Alas, it is so easy to 

 screw one's self up into high and even higher alti- 

 tudes of Transcendentalism, and see nothing under 

 one but the everlasting snows of Himmalayah, the 

 Earth shrinking to a Planet, and the indigo firma- 

 ment sowing itself with daylight stars ; easy for you, 

 for me ; but whither does it lead ? I dread always, 

 to inanity and mere injuring of the lungs ! " with 

 more of the same sort. 



