Civilization, Modern -- 19th century; Literature -- History and criticism
"How wise wast thou in thy youth, and as a flood filled with
understanding!
Thy soul covered the whole earth, and thou filledst it with dark
parables.
Thy name went far unto the islands, and for thy peace thou wast
beloved.
The countries marvelled at thee for thy songs and proverbs and
parables and interpretations."
And equally appropriate would be this Horatian line, also on Niebuhr's
monument:--
"Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tam cari capitis."
From a lifelong friend of Emerson I have just received a letter
containing these words, which, better than most descriptions, give the
character of his soul:--
"And so the white wings have spread, and the great soul has left us.
''Tis death is dead; not he.'
He had no vanity, no selfishness; no greed, no hate; none of the
weights that drag on common mortals. His life was an illumination; a
large, fair light; the Pharos of New England, as in other days our dear
brother called him. And this light shone further and wider the longer
it burned."
HARRIET MARTINEAU[45]
The whole work[46] is very interesting. How could it be otherwise, in
giving the history of so remarkable a life? The amount of literary work
which Miss Martineau performed is amazing. She began to write for the
press when she was nineteen, and continued until she could no longer
hold her pen. The pen was her sword, which she wielded with a warrior's
joy, in the conflict of truth with error, of right with wrong. She
wrote many books; but her articles in reviews and newspapers were
innumerable. We find no attempt in either part of this biography to
give a complete list of her writings. Perhaps it would be impossible.
She never seems to have thought of keeping such a record herself, any
more than a hero records the number of the blows he strikes, in battle.
No sooner had she dismissed one task than another came; and sometimes
several were going on together. Like other voluminous writers, she
enjoyed the exercise of her productive powers; and, as she somewhere
tells us, her happiest hours were those in which she was seated at her
desk with her pen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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