The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson edited by Ralph L. Rusk. Columbia University Press. Six volumes. $30.00
One who remembers the exact apologia which “Uriel” sent the Rev. Henry Ware after the Divinity School Address remembers a letter as much a classic in kind as Johnson’s to Lord Chesterfield; and such a one hears of six new volumes of Emersonian correspondence with expectation of numerous additional specimens of self-awareness translated into a finely lapidary art. The expectation is ungratified: the page opened at random anywhere in the six volumes is likely to prove flat, stale, and unprofitable to one who reads, like Emerson himself, for lustres. One must subdue his pitch, moderate his pace, adjust himself to patience and persistence in order to have due profit from these volumes.
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