rgotten also?

Emerson found more in Jones Very than has any one else; the poems of
Very that he included in "Parnassus" have little worth. A
comparatively unknown and now forgotten English writer also moved
Emerson unduly. Listen to this: "In England, Landor, De Quincey,
Carlyle, three men of original literary genius; but the scholar, the
catholic, cosmic intellect, Bacon's own son, the Lord Chief Justice on
the Muse's Bench is"--who do you think, in 1847?--"Wilkinson"! Garth
Wilkinson, who wrote a book on the human body. Emerson says of him in
"English Traits": "There is in the action of his mind a long Atlantic
roll, not known except in deepest waters, and only lacking what ought
to accompany such powers, a manifest centrality." To bid a man's stock
up like that may not, in the long run, be good for the man, but it
shows what a generous, optimistic critic Emerson was.

VII

In his published works Emerson is chary of the personal element; he
says: "We can hardly speak of our own experiences and the names of
our friends sparingly enough." In his books he would be only an
impersonal voice; the man Emerson, as such, he hesitated to intrude.
But in the Journals we get much more of the personal element, as would
be expected. We get welcome glimpses of the man, of his moods, of his
diversions, of his home occupations, of his self-criticism. We see him
as a host, as a lecturer, as a gardener, as a member of a rural
community. We see him in his walks and talks with friends and
neighbors--with Alcott, Thoreau, Channing, Jones Very, Hawthorne, and
others--and get snatches of the conversations. We see the growth of
his mind, his gradual emancipation from the bondage of the orthodox
traditions.

Very welcome is the growth of Emerson's appreciation of Wordsworth. As
a divinity student he was severe in his criticism of Wordsworth, but
as his own genius unfolded more and more he saw the greatness of
Wordsworth, till in middle life he pronounced his famous Ode the
high-water mark of English literature. Yet after that his fondness for
a telling, picturesque figure allows him to inquire if Wordsworth is
not like a bell with a wooden tongue. All this is an admirable
illustration of his familiar dictum: "Speak what you think now in hard
words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again,
though it contradict everything you say to-day."

In the Journals we see Emerson going up and down the country in his
walks, on