Emerson's ideal is
always the scholar, the man of books and ready wit; Carlyle's hero
is a riding or striding ruler, or a master worker in some active
field.
The antique mind no doubt affords the true type of health and
wholeness in this respect. The Greek could see, and feel, and
paint, and carve, and speak nothing but emotional man. In nature he
saw nothing but personality,--nothing but human or superhuman
qualities; to him the elements all took the human shape. Of that
vague, spiritual, abstract something which we call Nature he had no
conception. He had no sentiment, properly speaking, but impulse and
will-power. And the master minds of the world, in proportion to
their strength, their spinal strength, have approximated to this
type. Dante, Angelo, Shakespeare, Byron, Goethe, saw mainly man,
and him not abstractly but concretely. And this is the charm of
Burns and the glory of Scott. Carlyle has written the best
histories and biographies of modern times, because he sees man with
such fierce and steadfast eyes. Emerson sees him also, but he is
not interested in him as a man, but mainly as a spirit, as a
demigod, or as a wit or a philosopher.
Emerson's quality has changed a good deal in his later writings.
His corn is no longer in the milk; it has grown hard, and we that
read have grown hard, too. He has now ceased to be an expansive,
revolutionary force, but he has not ceased to be a writer of
extraordinary gripe and unexpected resources of statement.
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