Carlyle to Emerson
27 August, 1843
Dear Emerson,--The bearer of this is Mr. Macready, our celebrated
Actor, now on a journey to America, who wishes to know you. In
the pauses of a feverish occupation which he strives honestly to
make a noble one, this Artist, become once more a man, would like
well to meet here and there a true American man. He loves Heroes
as few do; and can recognize them, you will find, whether they
have on the _Cothurnus_ or not. I recommend him to you; bid
you forward him as you have opportunity, in this department of
his pilgrimage.
Mr. Macready's deserts to the English Drama are notable here to
all the world; but his dignified, generous, and every-way
honorable deportment in private life is known fully, I believe,
only to a few friends. I have often said, looking at him as a
manager of great London theatres, "This Man, presiding over the
unstablest, most chaotic province of English things, is the one
public man among us who has dared to take his stand on what he
understood to be _the truth,_ and expect victory from that: he
puts to shame our Bishops and Archbishops.
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