EMEESON 161 



deficiency here. You cannot have broad, massive 

 effect, deep lights and shade, or a torrent of power, 

 with such extreme refinement and condensation. 

 The superphosphates cannot take the place of the 

 coarser, bulkier fertilizers. Especially in poetry do 

 we require pure thought to be well diluted with the 

 human, emotional qualities. In the writing most 

 precious to the race, how little is definition and in- 

 tellectual formula, and how much is impulse, emo- 

 tion, will-character, blood, chyle, etc. ! We must 

 have liquids and gases and solvents. We perhaps 

 get more of them in Carlyle. Emerson's page has 

 more serene astral beauty than Carlyle's, but not 

 that intense blast-furnace heat that melts down the 

 most obdurate facts and characters into something 

 plastic and poetical. Emerson's ideal is always the 

 scholar, the man of books and ready wit; Carlyle's 

 hero is a riding or striding ruler, or a master worker 

 in some active field. 



The antique mind no doubt affords the true type 

 of health and wholeness in this respect. The Greek 

 could see, and feel, and paint, and carve, and speak 

 nothing but emotional man. In nature he saw no- 

 thing but personality, — nothing but human or super- 

 human qualities; to him the elements all took the 

 human shape. Of that vague, spiritual, abstract 

 something which we call Nature he had no concep- 

 tion. He had no sentiment, properly speaking, but 

 impulse and will-power. And the master minds 

 of the world, in proportion to their strength, their 

 spinal strength, have approximated to this type. 



