Holmes' biography of him.
Immediately after the lecture, a lively discussion began about it in the
newspapers, in which leading writers, scholars and professors took an
active part. How much soever they might disagree in regard to Emerson,
they all united in a disapproval of the lecturer's estimate of him.
Matthew Arnold did not seem to have a partisan in the country. The
discussion was renewed a year later when his book of discourses in
America was published, and then David A. Wasson wrote the following
letter which was published in the "Christian Register":
ARNOLD ON EMERSON.
"It may be doubted whether Matthew Arnold's critical estimate of Emerson
as a prose writer is well understood by most of those who take it in ill
part. The judgment expressed is that Emerson is the pre-eminent prose
writer of his century, not as being either a great philosopher or great
in his style of workmanship, but for the reason that he is a great
spiritual light, the purest, whitest, serenest, of a century now drawing
toward its close. This taken together is valuable praise, and converted
into disparagement by its denial to Emerson of two special distinctions;
and in respect to both, the denial is taken, I think, to cover much more
ground than it was intended to cover. To keep within the limits, I will
here attend to but one of these, where it must be confessed, Mr.
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