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"I love all men who dive" -Melville on his contemporar
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<div><font color="#0000FF">Melville On Ralph Waldo Emerson and his
Philosophy<br>
<br>
Nay, I do not oscillate in Emerson's rainbow, but prefer rather to
hang myself in mine own halter than swing in any other man's swing.
Yet I think Emerson is more than a brilliant fellow. Be his stuff
begged, borrowed, or stolen, or of his own domestic manufacture he is
an uncommon man. Swear he is a humbug -- then is he no common humbug.
Lay it down that had not Sir Thomas Browne lived, Emerson would not
have mystified -- I will answer, that had not Old Zack's father begot
him, old Zack would never have been the hero of Palo Alto. The truth
is that we are all sons, grandsons, or nephews or great-nephews of
those who go before us. No one is his own sire. -- I was very
agreeably disappointed in Mr Emerson. I had heard of him as full of
transcendentalisms, myths & oracular gibberish; I had only
glanced at a book of his once in Putnam's store -- that was all I
knew of him, till I heard him lecture. -- To my surprise, I found him
quite intelligible, tho' to say truth, they told me that that night
he was unusually plain. -- Now, there is a something about every man
elevated above mediocrity, which is, for the most part, instinctuly
perceptible. This I see in Mr Emerson. And, frankly, for the sake of
the argument, let us call him a fool; -- then had I rather be a fool
than a wise man. -- I love all men who dive. Any fish can swim
near the surface, but it takes a great whale to go down stairs five
miles or more; & if he don't attain the bottom, why, all the lead
in Galena can't fashion the plumet that will. I'm not talking of Mr
Emerson now -- but of the whole corps of thought-divers, that have
been diving & coming up again with bloodshot eyes since the world
began. I could readily see in Emerson, notwithstanding his merit, a
gaping flaw. It was, the insinuation, that, had he lived in those
days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable
suggestions. These men are all cracked right across the brow. And
never will the pullers-down be able to cope with the builders-up. And
this pulling down is easy enough -- a keg of powder blew up Block's
Monument -- but the man who applied the match, could not, alone,
build such a pile to save his soul from the shark-maw of the Devil.
But enough of this Plato who talks thro' his nose.</font></div>
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--Letter to Evert Duyckinck, March 3 1849</font><br>
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