However I got yesterday a trusty vote or two for
sending one of them to you, on the ground that I am not likely to
get a better. But it now seems probable that it will not get
cased and into the hands of Harnden in time for the steamer
tomorrow. It will then go by that of the 16th.
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* From Emerson's Diary, May 23, 1846:--"In Carlyle's head
(photograph), which came last night, how much appears! How
unattainable this truth to any painter! Here have I the
inevitable traits which the sun forgets not to copy, and which I
thirst to see, but which no painter remembers to give me. Here
have I the exact sculpture, the form of the head, the rooting of
the hair, thickness of the lips, the man that God made. And all
the Laurences and D'Orsays now serve me well as illustration. I
have the form and organism, and can better spare the expression
and color. What would I not give for a head of Shakespeare by
the same artist? of Plato? of Demosthenes? Here I have the
jutting brow, and the excellent shape of the head. And here the
organism of the eye full of England, the valid eye, in which I
see the strong executive talent which has made his thought
available to the nations, whilst others as intellectual as he are
pale and powerless.
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