He recommended
Shakespeare and Milton of course; Gibbon's "Decline and Fall"; Boswell's
"Life of Johnson"; Goethe's conversations with Eckermann and Goethe's
autobiography. "Faust" he spoke of in rather a slighting manner; he did
not think it possessed the eternal spirit. That so much of a puritan as
Emerson should have admired Goethe is as remarkable as Goethe's
admiration for so stanch an old puritan as Milton. The English writers
of his own time, with the exception of Carlyle and possibly Tennyson, he
did not like. He met Macaulay at one of Lady Holland's celebrated show
dinners, and conceived a decided aversion for him. Such severely
critical writers as Froude, Ruskin, and Matthew Arnold he never could
like. He once had an interview with Ruskin, but it did not prove to be
satisfactory. They differed on all points, and Ruskin complained that
Emerson did not understand him. Six months afterwards Emerson remarked
with his most amiable smile, "I expect Mr. Ruskin is still miserable
because I could not understand him." But Ruskin's province lay outside
of Emerson's, who cared little either for painting, sculpture, or music,
or even for literature considered as an art. He had in his study a copy
of Giotto's portrait of Dante which he evidently prized; and also
Raphael Morghen's engraving of Guido's Aurora: but these were presents
from his friends, and it is doubtful if he ever purchased a picture
himself.
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