e is one, and the best, of a
small class extant here, who, nigh drowning in a black wreck of
Infidelity (lighted up by some glare of Radicalism only, now
growing _dim_ too) and about to perish, saved themselves into a
Coleridgian Shovel-hattedness, or determination to _preach,_ to
preach peace, were it only the spent _echo_ of a peace once
preached. He is still only about thirty; young; and I think
will shed the shovel-hat yet perhaps. Do you ever read
_Blackwood?_ This John Sterling is the "New Contributor" whom
Wilson makes such a rout about, in the November and prior month
"Crystals from a Cavern," &c., which it is well worth your while
to see. Well, and what then, cry you?--Why then, this John
Sterling has fallen overhead in love with a certain Waldo
Emerson; that is all. He saw the little Book _Nature_ lying
here; and, across a whole _silva silvarum_ of prejudices,
discerned what was in it; took it to his heart,--and indeed into
his pocket; and has carried it off to Madeira with him; whither
unhappily (though now with good hope and expectation) the Doctors
have ordered him. This is the small piece of pleasant news, that
two sky-messengers (such they were both of them to me) have met
and recognized each other; and by God's blessing there shall one
day be a trio of us: call you that nothing?

And so now by a direct transition I am got to the _Oration._ My
friend! you know not what you have done for me there. It was
long decades of years that I had heard nothing but the infinite
jangling and jabbering, and inarticulate twittering and
screeching, and my soul had sunk down sorrowful, and said there
is no articulate speaking then any more, and thou art solitary
among stranger-creatures? and lo, out of the West comes a clear
utterance, clearly recognizable as a _man's_ voice, and I _have_
a kinsman and brother: God be thanked for it! I could have
_wept_ to read that speech; the clear high melody of it went
tingling through my heart;--I said to my wife, "There, woman!"
She read; and returned, and charges me to return for answer,
"that there had been nothing met with like it since Schiller went
silent." My brave Emerson! And all this has been lying silent,
quite tranquil in him, these seven years, and the "vociferous
platitude" dinning his ears on all sides, and he quietly
answering no word; and a whole world of Thought has silently
built itself in these calm depths, and, the day being come, says