I have felt the disadvantages which I have
labored under, as well as the advantages. The advantages are, that
things were not hackneyed with me, curiosity was not blunted, my
faculties were fresh and eager--a kind of virgin soil that gives
whatever charm and spontaneity my books possess, also whatever of
seriousness and religiousness. The disadvantages are an inaptitude
for scholarly things, a want of the steadiness and clearness of
the tone of letters, the need of a great deal of experimenting, a
certain thickness and indistinctness of accent. The farmer and
laborer in me, many generations old, is a little embarrassed in the
company of scholars; has to make a great effort to remember his
learned manners and terms.
The unliterary basis is the best to start from; it is the virgin
soil of the wilderness; but it is a good way to the college and
the library, and much work must be done. I am near to nature and
can write upon these themes with ease and success; this is my
proper field, as I well know. But bookish themes--how I flounder
about amid them, and have to work and delve long to get down to
the real truth about them in my mind!
In writing upon Emerson, or Arnold, or Carlyle, I have to begin, as
it were, and clear the soil, build a log hut, and so work up to the
point of view that is not provincial, but more or less metropolitan.
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