Alcott said that he
carried slips of paper with him on which to jot down these
considerations by the way. Thus he came to value books too much from a
single point of view, and his friends were sometimes surprised at what
he recommended them to read. He would estimate a second-rate novel like
"Christie Johnstone" above Thackeray's "Newcomes."
However, it may generally be said that the greater and more high-minded
an author might be the better was Emerson a judge of him. He liked in a
writer what he called the eternal spirit, that is, what makes his work
valuable for all time. He prized Plato, Shakespeare, and Goethe above
others; and gave the next place to Homer, Dante, and Swedenborg. He gave
Carlyle a very high rank: considered his history of Frederick the Second
even better than Thucydides. During the last year of his life, when he
had almost lost his memory for names and people, he said to a visitor
who called on him, "I have lately been reading a most interesting book
about--" he hesitated for some time, "the greatest man that has lived
for more than two centuries." Then he walked across the room and
pointing to a long row of books added, "About that man." His friend
looked and saw it was an edition of Goethe's forty volumes. Grimm's
lectures on Goethe had lately been published.
The colored students of Howard University requested Emerson to give them
a conversation on books, and tell them what they had better read; and
he, remembering his own maxim, that the greatest prudence lies in
concentration, limited himself purposely to a very few.
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