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"The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II."

I said to Richard Milnes, "Now
in honesty what is the use of putting your accusative _before_
the verb, and otherwise entangling the syntax; if there really
is an image of any object, thought, or thing within you, for
God's sake let me have it the _shortest_ way, and I will so
cheerfully excuse the _omission_ of the jingle at the end:
cannot I do without that!"--Milnes answered, "Ah, my dear fellow,
it is because we have no thought, or almost none; a little
thought goes a great way when you put it into rhyme!" Let a man
try to the very uttermost to _speak_ what he means, before
_singing_ is had recourse to. Singing, in our curt English
speech, contrived expressly and almost exclusively for "despatch
of business," is terribly difficult. Alfred Tennyson, alone of
our time, has proved it to be possible in some measure. If
Channing will persist in melting such obdurate speech into music
he shall have my true wishes,--my augury that it will take an
enormous _heat_ from him!--Another Channing,* whom I once saw
here, sends me a Progress-of-the-Species Periodical from New
York.


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