' He found it so in 1833. But this and his two other voyages to
Europe make no Odyssey. When Voltaire was pressed to visit Rome, he
declared that he would be better pleased with some new and free English
book than with all the glories of amphitheatre and of arch. Emerson in
like manner seems to have thought more of the great writers whom he saw
in Europe than of buildings or of landscapes. 'Am I,' he said, 'who have
hung over their works in my chamber at home, not to see these men in the
flesh, and thank them, and interchange some thoughts with them?' The two
Englishmen to whom he owed most were Coleridge and Wordsworth; and the
younger writer, some eight years older than himself, in whom his
liveliest interest had been kindled, was Carlyle. He was fortunate
enough to have converse with all three, and he has told the world how
these illustrious men in their several fashions and degrees impressed
him.[2] It was Carlyle who struck him most. 'Many a time upon the sea,
in my homeward voyage, I remembered with joy the favoured condition of
my lonely philosopher,' cherishing visions more than divine 'in his
stern and blessed solitude.' So Carlyle, with no less cordiality,
declares that among the figures that he could recollect as visiting his
Nithsdale hermitage--'all like Apparitions now, bringing with them airs
from Heaven, or the blasts from the other region, there is not one of a
more undoubtedly supernal character than yourself; so pure and still,
with intents so charitable; and then vanishing too so soon into the
azure Inane, as an Apparition should.
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