10 March 1873 – 16 March 1873

To C, Sir Baldwyn Leighton there, who asks, ' What has Emerson written } ' C. — ' Oh, many little books, which are very well worth reading. English Traits can be highly recommended to any Englishman's attention. Emerson often spins things out to an extreme tenuity ; but he has a fine lofty tone — the highest kind of thing America has to show us ; and Emerson himself is very sweet and equable in disposition.' Carlyle and Emerson — they recognised each other as no common men, liked each other, praised each other ; each was idealised to the other by distance of space and difference of circumstance, and in a way represented to his friend a whole strange nation of peculiar interest. In the published correspondence are plentiful hints that C. thought E. too much in the air, and E. thought C. too much on the ground. You hear E. calling ' Come up ! ' and C. calling ' Come down ! ' Carlyle's genius wants the poetic flavour of the feminine. Emerson to Carlyle — as an angel to a genie, as light to fire. E. holds up a mild steady lamp, like the full moon ; C. brandishes a huge torch.